he race, too; and you're the best
cook on our block!"

"It seems to be the same old story," she smiled, with affected sorrow,
"that food must always be the price of masculine tractability. Ah, the
long drawn out tragedy of woman's existence, that she must forever be
stuffing man with things to eat, as reptiles are stuffed, to keep him
facile!"

"You fail to observe, my little snake charmer," I replied, "that you
omitted to say good things to eat. I'm never facile after Smilax feeds
me."--Though I owe Smilax an apology for this!

"He must have run great risks of being bitten."

"Oh, no; I'm not the biting kind of snake! I'm a constrictor--I hug!"

"Mercy!" She gave a little gasp, then, turned and went indifferently
toward the spring.

Whistling happily I finished the dishes. But I finished them with the
promise of a better cleansing next time, and soon was calling her.

She came to me humming the song I had been whistling--an unconscious bit
of flattery on her part, but it added to my pleasure. There is, after
all, so much to be gained by hitching your wagon to a star, that I tried
to believe she deliberately intended it. I would have hitched up oftener
to that same star, except for the fact that stars sometimes get hot and
furious at too many liberties, and switch their tails and kick the
wagons of well-meaning people to smithereens. That it may be better to
have had a stellar joy-ride and be sent to hell for speeding than keep
your boots forever in the clay, I will neither affirm nor deny; but the
prudent man hitcheth to the moon!

As we went toward the fort she turned to me, asking:

"Don't you think they should have been here sooner? Do you fear anything
you won't tell me?" Her eyes were anxious, and I saw how insistent this
worry had been.

"Everything depends on how far Smilax had to go," I answered. "He'd
never dream of coming back until the men gave up--and they might chase
him half across the state! So a few extra days doesn't mean anything.
They can't catch him, that's certain; and he and Echochee'll only stay
away as long as they're pursued. They'll come through, I believe it
sincerely; and your Chancellor, sweet Princess, will guard you with his
life--with ten lives, if he had them."

"I know that," she murmured, "and shan't worry if you tell me not to."

"Then cheer up! Smilax is a past-master of the swamps and woods, take my
word for it!"

"I really suppose Echochee knows a great deal about