knows where to find Desire. She vanishes from my
ken often, but never from his. He must have found her quickly this time
for she came at once. She looked troubled.

"Li Ho says we had better go tonight," she said.

"Can you be ready?"

"Yes. It isn't that. It's just that it would seem more--more sensible
by daylight. But Li Ho says you have told father, and that father
was--upset. He said something about tonight being the full moon. But I
can't see why that should matter. Do you?"

"Only that it will be easy to cross the Inlet."

"It can't be that. Li Ho can take the Tillicum' over on the darkest
night. It has something to do with father. He seems to think that the
full moon affects him. And it's true that he often goes off on the
mountain about that time. But I can't see why that should hurry us."

I did not see it either. And yet I felt that I should like to hurry.

"We certainly will not go unless you wish," I began. But Li Ho
interrupted me in his colorless way.

"Alice same go this eveling," he said blandly. "No take 'Tillicum'
tomolla. Velly busy tomolla. Velly busy next day. Velly busy all week."

"Look here," I said, "you'll do exactly what your mistress tells you."

His celestial impudence was making me hot. But Desire stopped me. "It's
no use," she explained. "I have really no authority. And he means what
he says. We must go tonight or wait indefinitely."

I was eager to be gone. But it went against the grain to be hustled off
by a Chinaman. Perhaps my face showed as much, for Desire went on. "You
needn't feel like that about it. He doesn't intend to be impudent. He
probably thinks he has a very real reason for getting us away. And Li
Ho's reasons are liable to be good ones. We had better go."

The rest of the day was uneventful, save for the incident of Sami. I
think I told you about Sami, didn't I? A kind of brown familiar who
follows Desire about. He is a baby Indian as much a part of the
mountain as the leaping squirrels and not nearly so tame. He is the one
thing here that I think Desire is sorry to leave. And for this reason I
hoped he wouldn't appear before we were gone. I had done all my
packing--easy enough since I had scarcely unpacked--and I could hear
Desire moving about doing hers. The place seemed particularly peaceful.
I could, have felt almost sorry to leave my cool, bare room with its
tree-stump for a table and all the forest just outside. But as I sat
there by the window there c