osky depths cast velvety shadows----"

"What is a bosky depth? What _is_ boskiness? By heaven, I've waited years
to ask; and now's my chance? You tell me what 'bosky' is, or----"

"Do you want to hear about that girl?"

"Yes, but----"

"Then you fill your face full of flapjack and shut up."

Langdon bit rabidly at a flapjack and beat the earth with his heels.

"The stream," continued Sayre, "purled." He coldly watched the literary
effect upon Langdon, then went on:

"Now, there's enough descriptive colour to give you a proper mental
picture. If you had left me alone I'd have finished it ten minutes ago.
The rest moves with accelerated rhythm. It begins with the cracking of a
stick in the forest. Hark! A sharp crack is----"

"Every bum novel begins that way."

"Well, the real thing did, too! And it startled me. How did I know what
it might have been? It might have been a bear----"

"Or a cow."

"You talk," said Sayre angrily, "like William Dean Howells! Haven't you
_any_ romance in you?"

"Not what _you_ call romance. Pass the flapjacks."

Sayre passed them.

"My attention," he said, "instantly became riveted upon the bushes. I
strove to pierce them with a piercing glance. Suddenly----"

"Sure! 'Suddenly' always comes next."

"Suddenly the thicket stirred; the leaves were stealthily parted;
and----"

"A naked savage in full war paint----"

"Naked nothing! A young girl in full war paint and a perfectly fitting
gown stepped noiselessly out."

"Out of what? you gink!"

"The bushes, dammit! She held in her hand a curious contrivance which I
could not absolutely identify. It might have been a hammock; it might
have been a fish-net."

"Perhaps it was a combination," suggested Langdon cheerfully. "Good idea;
she to help you catch a trout; you to help her sit in the hammock;
afterward----"

Sayre, absorbed in retrospection, squatted beside the fire, a burnt
flapjack suspended below his lips, which were slightly touched with a
tenderly reminiscent smile.

"What are you smirking about _now_?" demanded Langdon.

"She was _such_ a pretty girl," mused Sayre, dreamily.

"Did you sit in the hammock with her?"

"No, I didn't. I'm not sure it was a hammock. I don't know what it was.
She remained in sight only a moment."

"Didn't you speak to her?"

"No. . . . We just looked. She looked at me; I gazed at her. She was so
unusually pretty, Curtis; and her grave, grey eyes seemed to meet mine
and melt de