ere they pitched again. He did these
things unconsciously as one well used to the woods, even though his
eye turned again straight down the road and the look of intentness, of
sadness, almost of melancholy, once more settled upon his features.

He advanced into the wood until all sight of the city was quite cut
off from him, until the light grew yet dimmer along the forest road,
in places almost half covered with a leafy canopy, until at length he
came to the valley of the little stream. He followed the trail as it
rambled along the bank toward the mill, through scenes apparently
familiar to him.

Abstracted as he was he must have been alert, alive, for now,
suddenly, he broke his moody reverie at some sound which he heard on
ahead. He reined in for just an instant, then loosed the bridle and
leaned forward. The horse under him sprang forward in giant strides.

It was the sound of a voice that the young cavalier had heard--the
voice of a woman--apparently a woman in some distress. What cavalier
at any time of the world has not instinctively leaped forward at such
sound? In less than half a moment the rider was around the turn of the
leafy trail.

She was there, the woman who had cried out, herself mounted, and now
upon the point of trying conclusions with her mount. Whether
dissatisfaction with the latter or some fear of her own had caused
her to cry out might have been less certain, had it not been sure that
her eye was at the moment fastened, not upon the fractious steed, but
upon the cause of his unwonted misbehavior.

The keen eye of the young man looked with hers, and found the
reason for the sudden scene. A serpent, some feet in length--one
of the mottled, harmless species sometimes locally called the
blow-snake--obviously had come out into the morning sun to warm
himself, and his yellow body, lying loose and uncoiled, had been
invisible to horse and rider until they were almost upon it. Then,
naturally, the serpent had moved his head, and both horse and rider
had seen him, to the dismay of both.

This the young man saw and understood in a second, even as he spurred
forward alongside the plunging animal. His firm hand on the bridle
brought both horses back to their haunches. An instant later both had
control of their mounts again, and had set them down to their paces in
workmanlike fashion.

There was color in the young woman's face, but it was the color of
courage, of resolution. There was breeding in ev