one afternoon in early May a strange youth came singing down
the canon; came while she mused by the brook-side in her best-loved
dream. Long before she saw him, she heard his music, a young, clear,
care-free voice ringing down from the trail that went over the mountains
to Kanab and into Kimball Valley; one of the ways that led out to the
world that she wondered about so much. It was a voice new to her, and
the words of his ballad were also new. At first she heard them from
afar:--

"There was a young lady came a-tripping along,
And at each side a servant-O,
And in each hand a glass of wine
To drink with the Gypsy Davy-O.

"And will you fancy me, my dear,
And will you be my Honey-O?
I swear by the sword that hangs by my side
You shall never want for money-O.

"Oh, yes, I will fancy you, kind sir,
And I will be your Honey-O,
If you swear by the sword that hangs by your side
I shall never want for money-O."

The singer seemed to be making his way slowly. Far up the trail, she had
one fleeting glimpse of a man on a horse, and then he was hid again in
the twilight of the pines. But the music came nearer:--

"Then she put on her high-heeled shoes,
All made of Spanish leather-O,
And she put on her bonnie, bonnie brown,
And they rode off together-O.

"Soon after that, her lord came home
Inquiring for his lady-O,
When some of the servants made this reply,
She's a-gone with the Gypsy Davy-O.

"Then saddle me my milk-white steed,
For the black is not so speedy-O,
And I'll ride all night and I'll ride all day
Till I overtake my lady-O."

She stood transfixed, something within her responding to the hidden
singer, as she had once heard a closed piano sound to a voice that sang
near it. Soon she could get broken glimpses of him as he wound down the
trail, now turning around the end of a fallen tree, then passing behind
a giant spruce, now leaning far back while the horse felt a way
cautiously down some sharp little declivity. The impression was
confused,--a glint of red, of blue, of the brown of the horse, a figure
swaying loosely to the horse's movements, and then he was out of sight
again around the big rock that had once fallen from high up on the side
of the canon; but now, when he came from behind that, he would be
squarely in front of her. This recalled and alarmed her. She began to
pick a way over the boulders and across