n asked, had told him something of the reasons for the general
distrust and fear of the man. But the doctor himself had never seen him,
and, naturally enough, thought of him as the usual coarse leader of
lawlessness, only more daring and cunning, perhaps, than the rest of his
kind. Thus it was that trying to understand only bewildered the young
man more and more, so that he was still filled with shocked wonder when
he came within sight of Ruth's home.

The day was nearing its close. In the forest bordering the bridle-path,
dark shades were noiselessly marshalling beneath the great trees. But
the sunset still reddened the river, and the reflected light shone on
the windows of Cedar House. He glanced at her chamber window before
seeing that she stood on the grass by the front door, giving the swan
bits of bread from her fingers while the jealous birds, forgetting to go
to roost, watched and scolded from the low branches overhead. But she
had seen him a long way off and looked up as he approached.

"Isn't he a bold buccaneer?" she said, with a smile, meaning the swan.
"We thought at first that he couldn't be tamed--Mr. Audubon, too,
thought he couldn't--and we clipped his wings to keep him from flying
away. And now he wouldn't go. See! He is the most daring creature. Why,
he will go in the great room before everybody and walk right up to aunt
Penelope when she's making the coffee, without turning a feather!"

It was not till he was leaving that Paul remembered the Sister's message
which had served him as a pretext for stopping. And he was sorry when he
had given it, for a shadow instantly came over the brightness of Ruth's
beautiful face. Riding on to his cabin he wondered what could have cast
the shadow.

XI

THE DANCE IN THE FOREST

She did not go on the next morning. That day had been chosen for the
dance in the forest, one of the two merrymakings dearest to the hearts
of those earliest Kentuckians. The May party came first, with its
crowning of the queen of love and beauty and its dance round the
May-pole; and after that this festival of dancing and feasting under the
golden trees.

Both of these were held as regularly as the opening of the spring
flowers and the tinting of the autumn leaves. No one ever asked why or
when they were first begun; it was never the way of the Kentuckians to
ask any questions about anything that they had always been used to. And
indeed, had they tried ever so hard, they coul