e shown me."

I jerked away. "Sufficient! Sufficient! Let us be comfortable," I
expostulated, and I turned my back, and gave myself to my pipe and
silence.

The birds sang softly as if wearied, and the earth was warm to the
hand. I held the flowers in my fingers, and they smelled, somehow,
like the roses on our terrace at home on moonlight evenings when I had
been young and thought myself in love. I watched a drift of white
butterflies hang over an opening red blossom. Such moments pay for
hours of famine. It disturbed me to have the Englishman rise and go
away.

"Why do you go?" I demanded.

He came back at once. "What can I do for you, monsieur?"

His gentleness shamed my shortness of speech. "It was nothing," I
replied. "The truth is, it was pleasant to have you here beside me."
I laughed at my own folly. "Starling, I will put you in man's dress
to-morrow!" I cried.

He turned away. "As you like, monsieur. I think myself it would be
best. Will you get out the clothes to-night?"

But I stared at him. "Why blush about it, Starling?" I shrugged. I
felt some disdain of his sensitiveness. "I did not mean to twit you.
I understand that you have worn the squaw's dress to help us. But I
think that the necessity for disguise is past. I see the skirts
embarrass you."

He turned to look at me fairly. "I am not blushing, monsieur," he
explained, with a great air of candor. "It is the heat of the
afternoon;" but even as he spoke the red flowed from chin to forehead,
and when I looked at him with another laugh, his eyes fell before mine.

I rose on my elbow. "Starling! Starling!" I cried. He made no sound.
His head drooped, and I saw him clench his hand. I stared. He threw
his head back, but when he tried to meet my look he failed. Yet I
looked again. "My God!" I heard my voice say, and my teeth bit into my
lip. I could smell the flowers in my hand, but they seemed a long
distance away. "My God!" I cried again, and I rose and felt my way
into the woods with the step of a blind man.

CHAPTER XI

MARY STARLING

I do not know how long I walked, nor where, but the sun dropped some
space. When I returned to the camp, I found the men before me. They
had returned early, empty-handed, and were in an ill humor because the
Englishman was away, and there was nothing done. I commanded Pierre to
build a larger fire than usual, and keep it piled high till I returned.
Then I began a search