h a strange revulsion of feeling. "I could
save Dorcas," he muttered to himself, "in less time than it takes to
describe." He paused, however, as he reflected that this would depend
entirely upon the methods of the writer of this description. "I could
rescue her! I have only to take the first clothes-line that I find,
and with that knowledge and skill with the lasso which I learned in the
wilds of America, I could stop the charge of the most furious ruminant.
I will!" and without another word he turned and rushed off in the
direction of the sound.

*****

He had not gone a hundred yards before he paused, a little bewildered.
To the left could still be seen the cobalt lake with the terraced
background; to the right the rugged mountains. He chose the latter.
Luckily for him a cottager's garden lay in his path, and from a line
supported by a single pole depended the homely linen of the cottager. To
tear these garments from the line was the work of a moment (although
it represented the whole week's washing), and hastily coiling the rope
dexterously in his hand, he sped onward. Already panting with exertion
and excitement, a few roods farther he was confronted with a spectacle
that left him breathless.

A woman--young, robust, yet gracefully formed--was running ahead of him,
driving before her with an open parasol an animal which he instantly
recognized as one of that simple yet treacherous species most feared by
the sex--known as the "Moo Cow."

For a moment he was appalled by the spectacle. But it was only for a
moment! Recalling his manhood and her weakness, he stopped, and bracing
his foot against a stone, with a graceful flourish of his lasso around
his head, threw it in the air. It uncoiled slowly, sped forward with
unerring precision, and missed! With the single cry of "Saved!" the fair
stranger sank fainting in his arms! He held her closely until the color
came back to her pale face. Then he quietly disentangled the lasso from
his legs.

"Where am I?" she said faintly.

"In the same place," he replied, slowly but firmly. "But," he added,
"you have changed!"

She had, indeed, even to her dress. It was now of a vivid brick red, and
so much longer in the skirt that it seemed to make her taller. Only her
hat remained the same.

"Yes," she said, in a low, reflective voice and a disregard of her
previous dialect, as she gazed up in his eyes with an eloquent lucidity,
"I have changed, Paul! I feel myself changing