hool-house, making no
reply.

"Nice, pleasant evening to be _free_," went on Jasper Kemp, looking up
at the stars. "Rather onpleasant for some folks that have to be shut up
in jail."

Forsythe wheeled upon him. "What do you mean?" he demanded, angrily,
albeit he was white with fear.

"Oh, nothing much," drawled Jasper, affably. "I was just thinking how
much pleasanter it was to be a free man than shut up in prison on a
night like this. It's so much healthier, you know."

Forsythe looked at him a moment, a kind of panic of intelligence growing
in his face; then he turned and went toward the back of the
school-house, where he had left his horse some hours before.

"Where are you going?" demanded Jasper. "It's 'most time you went back
to your fiddling, ain't it?"

But Forsythe answered him not a word. He was mounting his horse
hurriedly--his horse, which, all unknown to him, had been many miles
since he last rode him.

"You think you have to go, then?" said Jasper, deprecatingly. "Well,
now, that's a pity, seeing you was fiddling so nice an' all. Shall I
tell them you've gone for your health?"

Thus recalled, Forsythe stared at his tormentor wildly for a second.
"Tell her--tell her"--he muttered, hoarsely--"tell her I've been taken
suddenly ill." And he was off on a wild gallop toward the fort.

"I'll tell her you've gone for your health!" called Jasper Kemp, with
his hands to his mouth like a megaphone. "I reckon he won't return again
very soon, either," he chuckled. "This country's better off without such
pests as him an' that measley parson." Then, turning, he beheld Titania,
the queen of the fairies, white and frightened, staring wildly into the
starry darkness after the departed rider. "Poor little fool!" he
muttered under his breath as he looked at the girl and turned away.
"Poor, pretty little fool!" Suddenly he stepped up to her side and
touched her white-clad shoulder gently. "Don't you go for to care,
lassie," he said in a tender tone. "He ain't worth a tear from your
pretty eye. He ain't fit to wipe your feet on--your pretty wee feet!"

But Rosa turned angrily and stamped her foot.

"Go away! You bad old man!" she shrieked. "Go away! I shall tell my
father!" And she flouted herself into the school-house.

Jasper stood looking ruefully after her, shaking his head. "The little
de'il!" he said aloud; "the poor, pretty little de'il. She'll get her
dues aplenty afore she's done." And Jasper went back t