"My word!" said Pritchard, "what a bold little beggar."

Now, to Gay, the figure of Uncas, well larded with regular meals, was not to be confounded with the slim little stripes of the spring woods. She knew him at once, and she spoke nonchalantly to Pritchard.

"If you're a great deal in the woods," she said, "you scrape acquaintance with many of the inhabitants. That little pig and I are old friends. You embarrass him a little. He doesn't know you. If you weren't here, he'd come right into my lap and beg."

Pritchard looked at her gravely.

"Truly?" he said.

"I think he will anyway," said Gay, and she made sounds to Uncas which reassured him and brought him presently on a tearing run for her lap. Here, when he had been fed, he yawned, stretched himself, and fell asleep.

"Mowgli's sister!" said Pritchard reverently. "Child, are there the scars of wolves' teeth on your wrists and ankles?"

"No, octogenarian," said Gay; "there aren't any marks of any kind. What time is it?"

"It is half-past two."

"Then you shall smoke a cigarette, while I wash dishes."

She slid the complaining Uncas from her lap to the ground.

"Unfortunately," said Pritchard, "I didn't bring a cigarette."

"And you've been dying for a smoke all this time? Why don't you ask the guide for what you want?"

"Have you such a thing?"

"I have."

"But you—you yourself don't—do you?" He looked troubled.

"No," said Gay. "But my father was always forgetting his, and it made him so miserable I got into the habit of carrying a full case years ago whenever we went on expeditions. He used to be so surprised and delighted. Sometimes I think he used to forget his on purpose, so that I could have the triumph of producing mine."

Pritchard smoked at ease. Gay "washed up." Uncas, roused once more from slumber by the call of one of his kind, shook himself and trotted off into the forest.

Gay, scouring a pan, was beginning to feel that she had known Pritchard a long time. She had made him comfortable, cared for him in the wild woods, and the knowledge warmed her heart.

Pritchard was saying to himself:

"We like the same sort of things—why not each other?"

"Miss Gay," he said aloud.

"What?"

"In case I land the three-pounder and over, I think I ought to tell you that I'm not very rich, and I know you aren't. Would that matter to you? I've just about enough," he went on tantalizingly, "to take a girl on ripping good trips into central Africa or Australia, but I can't keep any great state in England—Merrivale isn't a show place, you know—just a few grouse and pheasants and things, and pretty good fishin'."

"However much," said Gay, "I may regret my bet, there was nothing Indian about it. I'm sure that you are a clean, upright young man. I'm a decent sort of girl, though I say it that shouldn't. We might do worse. I've heard that love-matches aren't always what they are cracked up to be. And I'm quite sure that I want to go to Africa and hunt big game."