ntil next spring. It'll be
waiting for you any time you drop in."

Jim pocketed the notes and commenced to bargain for several necessaries
apart from the anxiously awaited food.

In the meantime Natalie was preparing for attack. She garbed herself in
her most seductive dress, and assailed Jim as he was leaving Devinne, and
commenced to inveigle him into accompanying her on a walk.

"I was just going to look over some gear in the stores," he explained.

"Oh, but zat can vait. Zee day is so magnifique. Mees Angela, you say to
him hee es to come."

Angela, who had just entered the passage, turned crimson.

"My brother usually pleases himself," she said, and walked away.

A few minutes' artful pleading, and Jim was beaten. It seemed outrageous
to refuse her so small a--pleasure. He got his hat and stalked along
beside her. Angela watched them disappear towards the river.

She felt furious with Jim--furious because he could not see that this
brazen-faced woman was making love to him all the time. The studied
voluptuous movements, the bright lift of the eyes, the mad rush to secure
for him anything she thought he might need--how could any man but a fool
misinterpret these actions? And Jim looked so innocent--too innocent, she
thought. At any rate, he had gone with her on that walk, and anything
might happen--Natalie wouldn't care.

She went out of the house, feeling very wroth and very dejected. Devinne
met her outside the store and smiled in his quiet, pleasant fashion.

"Where's Jim?" he asked.

"I--I think he has gone for a walk with Natalie."

He raised his eyebrows and then laughed.

"Take care of your brother, Miss Conlan. Natalie is a holy terror when she
sets her cap at something. I must confess he's enough to turn any normal
woman's head. Natalie has a weakness for big men. It'll certainly take a
big one to keep her in order."

Angela forced a smile into her features, and went away feeling more
miserable than ever. What might not a woman, well versed in love-making,
succeed in achieving with an ingenuous fellow like Jim! And she was pretty
too...!

It was three hours later when Jim and Natalie returned. Angela saw them
coming up through the woods, Natalie chattering away in her broken English
and Jim laughing amusedly. She wondered what had been the outcome of that
journey. Had Jim proved an easy victim to Natalie's attractions? Judging
by the latter's behavior it looked like it. Natalie seemed very