ought she hated him. But
when she had mechanically shod herself once more, not without nervous
shivers at every falling needle, he was at her side.

"Do you know anyone who wears a frieze coat like that?" he asked,
handing her a few torn shreds of wool affixed to a splinter of bark.

Miss Nellie instantly recognized the material of a certain sporting
coat worn by Mr. Jack Brace on festive occasions, but a strange yet
infallible instinct that was part of her nature made her instantly
disclaim all knowledge of it.

"No," she said.

"Not anyone who scents himself with some doctor's stuff like cologne?"
continued Low, with the disgust of keen olfactory sensibilities.

Again Miss Nellie recognized the perfume with which the gallant
expressman was wont to make redolent her little parlor, but again she
avowed no knowledge of its possessor. "Well," returned Low with some
disappointment, "such a man has been here. Be on your guard. Let us go
at once."

She required no urging to hasten her steps, but hurried breathlessly at
his side. He had taken a new trail by which they left the wood at right
angles with the highway, two miles away. Following an almost effaced
mule track along a slight depression of the plain, deep enough, however,
to hide them from view, he accompanied her, until, rising to the level
again, she saw they were beginning to approach the highway and the
distant roofs of Indian Spring. "Nobody meeting you now," he
whispered, "would suspect where you had been. Good night! until next
week--remember."

They pressed each other's hands, and standing on the slight ridge
outlined against the paling sky, in full view of the highway, parting
carelessly, as if they had been chance met travelers. But Nellie could
not restrain a parting backward glance as she left the ridge. Low
had descended to the deserted trail, and was running swiftly in the
direction of the Carquinez Woods.

CHAPTER IV

Teresa awoke with a start. It was day already, but how far advanced the
even, unchanging, soft twilight of the woods gave no indication.
Her companion had vanished, and to her bewildered senses so had the
camp-fire, even to its embers and ashes. Was she awake, or had she
wandered away unconsciously in the night? One glance at the tree above
her dissipated the fancy. There was the opening of her quaint retreat
and the hanging strips of bark, and at the foot of the opposite tree
lay the carcass of the bear. It had been sk