Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/321

Rh Lennox asked anxiously. "Are you and Snowbird coming up here to live?"

The silence fell over their camp; and a wounded wolf whined in the darkness. "Do you think I could leave it now?" Dan asked. By no gift of words could he have explained why; yet he knew that by token of his conquest, his spirit was wedded to the dark forests forever. "But heaven knows what I 'll do for a living."

Snowbird crept near him, and her eyes shone in the bright firelight. "I 've solved that," she said. "You know you studied forestry—and I told the supervisor at the station how much you knew about it. I was n't going to tell you until—until certain things happened—and now they have happened, I can't wait another instant. He said that with a little more study you could get into the Forest Service—take an examination and become a ranger. You 're a natural forester if one ever lived, and you'd love the work."

"Besides," Lennox added, "it would clip my Snowbird's wings to make her live on the plains. My big house will be rebuilt, children. There will be fires in the fireplace on the fall nights. There is no use of thinking of the plains."

"And there's going to be a smaller house—