ooked at her. Marion stood and looked at the doe. Then there was
a streak of pale yellow across the grass, the forest closed around it,
and the doe was gone. Thereupon, Marion remembered her rifle, and saw
with something like surprise, to begin with, that it was pointed
foolishly toward the ground. She gazed at it a moment, then sat plump
down on the mossy earth, and cried.

"Oh, what a fool!" she groaned. "What a poor, silly little fool! I
ought to starve, starve, starve!"

And on the words the hunger that she had bravely kept back rose and
punished her. To be hungry in a world of plenty, where she had only to
reach out and help herself! To think of Philip, hungry too, and
depending on her, on her boasted prowess! Humiliation scorched her
like a flame. And this was Marion Gaylord!

When she had recovered a little, she made directly for the open strip,
having no more heart for her task, and nerving herself to confess the
truth to Philip. Coming out upon the knoll through thick underbrush,
she was startled by the leap of a rabbit from under her very feet; and
before she was aware of what she was doing, she had thrown up her
rifle, and fired. There was really no aim; the action was a gesture
merely; and if she had tried to hit the rabbit she would have
undoubtedly missed it clean. But the unlucky little beast, happening
in the path of Marion's angry disgust, turned a somersault in the air,
and fell dead.

"Of course!" cried Marion. "Of course I can kill rabbits." Then
mercilessly: "A rabbit a day for twenty-seven days--" And rage choked
her.

But she picked up her rabbit, and walked on. In half an hour she
reached the camp, strode straight to the pine tree under which Haig
lay, and held up before him the puny prize.

"Now I know you're proud of me!" she exclaimed, while her face
crimsoned.

Haig smiled indulgently. It was a little better than he had expected.

"Don't be downcast!" he said. "I didn't think you'd get a deer the
first day. You didn't even see one, I suppose."

"But I did, though! I had one right under my eyes, not thirty feet
away. And what do you think I did?"

"Stood and looked at it, of course. That's buck fever."

"But it was only a tiny little doe!"

"Doe fever then, which is probably worse, if I know anything about--"

"That will do, Philip! You're laughing at me."

"Not at all. You've brought home something to eat, and that's more
than I can do. Bunny looks big and fat. He'll make a