k with indecent haste.

Peter sat looking with undisguised interest at the spot where he had
disappeared, tracing him for a while through the moving foliage,
listening to the crackling of the underbrush, as the sounds receded.

It was time to be turning homeward, but the hour was still inviting, the
breeze balmy, the sun not too warm, so Peter lay back among the grasses
in the sand smoking a fresh cigarette. Far overhead buzzards were
wheeling. They recalled those other birds of prey that he had often
watched, ready to swoop down along the lines of the almost defenseless
Russians. Here all was so quiet. The world was a very beautiful place if
men would only leave it so. The voice of the girl was silent now. Shad
had probably joined her. Somehow, Peter hadn't been able to think of any
relationship, other than the cousinly one, between Shad Wells and Beth.
He had only known the girl for half an hour but as Aunt Tillie Bergen
had said, her niece seemed different from the other natives that Peter
had met. Her teeth were sound and white, suggesting habits of personal
cleanliness; her conversation, though careless, showed at the very
least, a grammar school training. And Shad--well, Shad was nothing but a
"Piney."

Pity--with a voice like that--she ought to have had opportunities--this
scornful little Beth. Peter closed his eyes and dozed. He expected to
have no difficulty in finding his way home, for he had a pocket compass
and the road could not be far distant. He liked this place. He would
build a tower here, a hundred-foot tower, of timbers, and here a man
should be stationed all day--to watch for wisps of smoke during the
hunting season. Smoke ... Tower ... In a moment he snored gently.

"Halloo!" came a voice in his dream. "Halloo! Halloo!"

Peter started rubbing his eyes, aware of the smoking cigarette in the
grasses beside him.

Stupid, that! To do the very thing he had been warning Shad Wells
against. He smeared the smoking stub out in the sand and sat up yawning
and stretching his arms.

"Halloo!" said the voice in his dream, almost at his ear. "Tryin' to set
the woods afire?"

The question had the curious dropping intonation at its end. But the
purport annoyed him.

Nothing that she could have said could have provoked him more! Behind
her he saw the dark face of Shad Wells break into a grin.

"I fell asleep," said Peter, getting to his feet.

Beth laughed. "Lucky you weren't burnt to death. _Then_ how