"some one is near!"

He disengaged her anxious hands gently, leaped upon the slanting
tree-trunk, and running half-way up its incline with the agility of a
squirrel, stretched himself at full length upon it and listened.

To the impatient, inexplicably startled girl, it seemed an age before he
rejoined her.

"You are safe," he said; "he is going by the western trail towards
Indian Spring."

"Who is HE?" she asked, biting her lips with a poorly restrained gesture
of mortification and disappointment.

"Some stranger," replied Low.

"As long as he wasn't coming here, why did you give me such a fright?"
she said pettishly. "Are you nervous because a single wayfarer happens
to stray here?"

"It was no wayfarer, for he tried to keep near the trail," said Low. "He
was a stranger to the wood, for he lost his way every now and then. He
was seeking or expecting some one, for he stopped frequently and waited
or listened. He had not walked far, for he wore spurs that tinkled and
caught in the brush; and yet he had not ridden here, for no horse's
hoofs passed the road since we have been here. He must have come from
Indian Spring."

"And you heard all that when you listened just now?" asked Nellie, half
disdainfully.

Impervious to her incredulity Low turned his calm eyes on her face.
"Certainly, I'll bet my life on what I say. Tell me: do you know anybody
in Indian Spring who would likely spy upon you?"

The young girl was conscious of a certain ill-defined uneasiness, but
answered, "No."

"Then it was not YOU he was seeking," said Low thoughtfully. Miss Nellie
had not time to notice the emphasis, for he added, "You must go at once,
and lest you have been followed I will show you another way back to
Indian Spring. It is longer, and you must hasten. Take your shoes and
stockings with you until we are out of the bush."

He raised her again in his arms and strode once more out through the
covert into the dim aisles of the wood. They spoke but little; she could
not help feeling that some other discordant element, affecting him more
strongly than it did her, had come between them, and was half perplexed
and half frightened. At the end of ten minutes he seated her upon a
fallen branch, and telling her he would return by the time she had
resumed her shoes and stockings glided from her like a shadow. She would
have uttered an indignant protest at being left alone, but he was gone
ere she could detain him. For a moment she th