untry a little. Your
father's name is--"

"Ask for Elder Rae--or one of his wives will say if they can keep you
over night."

She caught something new in his glance, and felt the blood in her face.

"I must go now--you can find your way--I must go."

"Well, if you _must_ go,"--he picked up his hat,--"but I'll see you
again. You'll be coming home this evening, I reckon?"

"The first house on the left," she answered, and stepped once more
across the trail and into the edge of the pines. She went with the same
mien of importance that Tom Potwin wore on his endless errands; and with
quite as little reason, too; for the direction in which she had started
so earnestly would have led her, after a few steps, straight up a
granite cliff a thousand feet high. As she entered the pines she heard
him mount his horse and ride down the trail, and then the rest of his
song came back to her:--

"Will you forsake your houses and lands,
Will you forsake your baby-O?
Will you forsake your own wedded lord
To foller a Gypsy Davy-O?

"Yes, I'll forsake my houses and lands,
Yes, I'll forsake my baby-O,
For I am bewitched, and I know the reason why;
It's a follering a Gypsy Davy-O.

"Last night I lay on a velvet couch
Beside my lord and baby-O;
To-night I shall lie on the cold, cold ground,
In the arms of a Gypsy Davy-O.

"To-night I shall lie on the cold, cold ground,
In the arms of a Gypsy Davy-O!"

When his voice died away and she knew he must be gone, she came out
again to her nook beside the stream where, a moment before, her dream
had filled her. But now, though nothing had happened beyond the riding
by of a strange youth, the dream no longer sufficed. In place of the
moonlit balcony was the figure of this young stranger swaying with his
horse down between the hollowed shoulders of the Pine Mountains and
reining up suddenly to sweep his broad hat low in front of her. She was
surprised by the clearness with which she could recall the details of
his appearance,--a boyish-looking fellow, with wide-open blue eyes and a
sunbrowned face under his yellow hair, the smallest of moustaches, and a
smile of such winning good-humour that it had seemed to force her own
lips apart in answer.

Around the broad, gray hat had been a band of braided silver; when he
stepped, the spurs on his high-heeled boots had jingled and clanked of
silver; around his neck with a knot at the back and th