e laughed as if it were a fine joke.

"Maybe if I'd be telling you I killed a rattler curled upon that same
place you're standing, as long as me body and the thickness of me arm,
you'd be moving where I can see your footing," he urged insistently.

"What a perfectly delightful little brogue you speak," she said. "My
father is Irish, and half should be enough to entitle me to that much.
'Maybe--if I'd--be telling you,'" she imitated, rounding and accenting
each word carefully.

Freckles was beginning to feel a wildness in his head. He had derided
Wessner at that same hour yesterday. Now his own eyes were filling with
tears.

"If you were understanding the danger!" he continued desperately.

"Oh, I don't think there is much!"

She tilted on the morass.

"If you killed one snake here, it's probably all there is near; and
anyway, the Bird Woman says a rattlesnake is a gentleman and always
gives warning before he strikes. I don't hear any rattling. Do you?"

"Would you be knowing it if you did?" asked Freckles, almost
impatiently.

How the laugh of the young thing rippled!

"'Would I be knowing it?'" she mocked. "You should see the swamps of
Michigan where they dump rattlers from the marl-dredgers three and four
at a time!"

Freckles stood astounded. She did know. She was not in the least afraid.
She was depending on a rattlesnake to live up to his share of the
contract and rattle in time for her to move. The one characteristic
an Irishman admires in a woman, above all others, is courage. Freckles
worshiped anew. He changed his tactics.

"I'd be pleased to be receiving you at me front door," he said, "but as
you have arrived at the back, will you come in and be seated?"

He waved toward a bench. The Angel came instantly.

"Oh, how lovely and cool!" she cried.

As she moved across his room, Freckles had difficult work to keep from
falling on his knees; for they were very weak, while he was hard driven
by an impulse to worship.

"Did you arrange this?" she asked.

"Yis," said Freckles simply.

"Someone must come with a big canvas and copy each side of it," she
said. "I never saw anything so beautiful! How I wish I might remain
here with you! I will, some day, if you will let me; but now, if you can
spare the time, will you help me find the carriage? If the Bird Woman
comes back and I am gone, she will be almost distracted."

"Did you come on the west road?" asked Freckles.

"I think so," she said. "Th