t more than
a day or two; they were evidently not intended to. If that means
anything, it means that Grider will come back for us before long. He
certainly can't do less."

"To-day?"

"Let us hope so. Have you ever camped out in the woods before?"

"Never."

"Neither have I. What I don't know about woodcraft would make a much
larger book than any I ever hope to write. You probably guessed that
when you saw me make the fire."

The corners of the pretty mouth were twitching. "And you probably
guessed my part of it when you saw me try to make that dreadful
pan-bread. I _can_ cook; really I can, Mr. Prime; but when one has been
used to having everything imaginable to do it with----"

Prime thought he might venture to laugh once more. "Your revenge is in
your own hands; all you have to do is to continue to make the bread.
It'll get me in time. My digestion isn't particularly good, you know."

"Do you really think we shall be rescued soon?"

"For the sake of my own sanity, I'm obliged to think it."

"And in the meantime we must sit here and wait?"

"We needn't make the waiting any harder than we are obliged to. Suppose
we call it a--er--a sort of surprise-party picnic. I imagine it is no
use for us to try to escape. Grider probably picked the lonesomest
place he knew of."

She fell in with the idea rather more readily than he could have hoped,
and it gave him a freshening interest in her. The women he knew best
were not so entirely sensible. During what remained of the forenoon they
rambled together in the forest, care-free for the moment and postponing
the evil day. In such circumstances their acquaintance grew by leaps and
bounds, and when they came back to make a renewed attack upon the
provisions, the picnic spirit was still in the saddle.

The afternoon was spent in much the same manner; and in the absence of
the conventional restraints, a good many harmless confidences were
exchanged. Before the day was ended the young woman had heard the moving
story of Prime's struggle for a foothold in the field of letters, a
struggle which, he was modest enough to say, was still in the making;
and in return she had given her own story, which was commonplace
enough--so many years of school, so many in a Middle Western
coeducational college, two more of them as a teacher in the girls'
school.

"Humdrum, isn't it?" she said. They had made the evening fire, and she
was trying to cook two vegetables and the inevitable pa