one's mind with the
surroundings he has suddenly appeared in; and, therefore, Layson, who
really knew the man and who, had he identified him with the unknown
visitor, would have been surprised, intensely curious, and, possibly,
suspicious, could offer her no clue to his identity.

CHAPTER IV

That same "foreigner," for a "foreigner," was acting strangely. Surely
he was dressed in a garb hitherto almost unknown in the rough mountains,
certainly none of the mountaineers whom he had met (and he had met, with
plain unwillingness, a few, as he had climbed up to the rocky clearing
where his fire had blossomed so remarkably) had recognized him. But,
despite all this, it was quite plain that he was traveling through a
country of which he found many details familiar. Now and then a little
vista caught his view and held him for long minutes while he seemed to
be comparing its reality with pictures of it stored within his memory;
again he paused when he discovered that some whim of tramping
mountaineers or roaming cattle, some landslide born of winter frosts;
some blockade of trees storm-felled, had changed the course of an old
path. Always, in a case like this, he investigated carefully before he
definitely started on the new one.

When he had first come into the neighborhood he had made his way with
caution, almost as if fearing to be seen, but now, after the bits of
rocks which he had taken from Madge Brierly's clearing, had slipped into
his pocket, he used double care in keeping from such routes as showed
the marks of many recent footsteps, in sly investigations to make sure
the paths he chose were clear of other wayfarers. His nerves evidently
on keen edge, he seemed to fear surprise of some unpleasant sort. Each
crackling twig, as he passed through the thickets, each rustling of a
frightened rabbit as it scuttled from his path, each whir of startled
grouse, or sudden call of nesting king-bird, made him pause cautiously
until he had quite satisfied himself that it meant nothing to be feared.
He was ever carefully alert for danger of some sort.

But not even his continual alarms, his constant watchfulness, could keep
his mind away from the rough bits of rock which he had chipped from the
outcropping in the clearing. More than once, as he found convenient and
safe places--leafy nooks in rocky clefts, glades in dense, impenetrable
thickets--he took out the little specimens, turned them over in his
hands with loving t