led. He could have told a different story.

"I have been in South America, and the forest belts here are a joke to
that. But tell me now about the shooting of the record koodoo. Your
father wasn't joking when he said it was your work?"

"No, it's true." Then she stopped. A sudden idea had struck her. She
did not want to pose as an Amazon before this acquaintance of just three
hours and three-quarters. She wished her father had said nothing about
it.

"Well done. Why, you're a regular Diana," said Denham enthusiastically.

"A regular what? I told you I was utterly uneducated."

"So you did, and I didn't believe you, nor do I now. Ladies are not
expected to be up in the classics, except the `advanced' ones, and
they're none the better for it. Well, the party I mentioned was a
mythical female given to shooting stags with a bow and arrows that
wouldn't damage a mouse--at least that's how she's represented in
sculpture and painting. Likewise with an incidental cur or two thrown
in."

Verna laughed merrily.

"Oh, is that it?" she said. "Well, I told you I was an ignoramus."

"Yes; but tell me now about the shooting of the record head."

She told him, told the story graphically and well, but so far as her own
part in it was concerned rather diffidently.

Denham was interested with a vengeance, and in his own mind could not
but draw contrasts. This girl, walking beside him in her neat, tasteful
attire, why, they might have been walking on an English country road or
in an English park! She would have fitted in equally well there. She
might have been giving him an account of some dance or theatrical
performance, yet just as naturally did she narrate the midnight poaching
expedition and the shooting of the large animal by the light of the
moon--by herself. The naturalness of her, too, struck him with
astonishment: the utter self-possession, living, as she did, a secluded
life.

"What are you thinking about?" she said, for he had relapsed into
unconscious silence.

"About you," he answered.

"About me? I expect I can guess what you were thinking."

"Try."

"Very well. You were thinking: Here's a boisterous, sporting female,
who rides and shoots like a man, and who fires pistol shots at natives
when they offend her; and who probably smokes and swears and drinks,
into the bargain."

"Go on. Anything else?"

"No; that's enough to go on with."

"All right. I was thinking nothing of the kind.