he hazel bushes on the hillside to her
right. She sank to the ground and lay huddled there.

CHAPTER XXV

KAMERAD

Down the slope, through the thicket, came a man. She could see his legs
only. He wore dust-coloured breeches and tan puttees, like Sticky Smith's
and Kid Glenn's, only he wore no big, clanking Mexican spurs.

The man passed in front of her, his burly body barely visible through the
leaves, but not his features.

She rose, turned, ran over the moss, hurried through the ferns of the
warren, retracing her steps, and arrived breathless at the _lavoir_. And
scarcely had she dropped to her knees and seized soap and paddle, than a
squat, bronzed, powerfully built young man appeared on the opposite bank
of the stream, stepping briskly out of the bushes.

He did not notice her at first. He looked about for a place to jump, found
one, leaped safely across, and came on at a swinging stride across the
meadow.

The girl, bending above the water, suddenly struck sharply with her
paddle.

Instantly the man halted in his tracks, knee deep in clover.

Maryette, apparently unconscious of his presence, continued to soap and
scrub and slap her wash, singing in her clear, untrained voice of a child
the chansonette she had made that morning. But out of the corner of her
eyes she kept him in view--saw him come sauntering forward as though
reassured, became aware that he had approached very near, was standing
behind her.

Turning presently, where she knelt, to pick up another soiled garment, she
suddenly encountered his dark gaze; and her start and slight exclamation
were entirely genuine.

"_Mon Dieu!_" she said, with offended emphasis, "one does not approach
people that way, without a word!"

"Did I frighten mademoiselle?" he asked, in recognizable French, but with
an accent unpleasantly familiar to her. "If I did, I am very sorry and I
offer mademoiselle a thousand excuses and apologies."

The girl, kneeling there in the clover, flashed a smile at him over her
shoulder. The quick colour reddened his face and powerful neck. The girl
had been right; her smile had been an answer that he was not going to
ignore.

"What a pretty spot for a _lavoir_," he said, stepping to the edge of the
pool; "and what a pretty girl to adorn it!"

Maryette tossed her head:

"Be pleased to pass your way, monsieur. Do you not perceive that I am
busy?"

"It is not impossible to exchange a polite word or two when people