was swimming slowly along,--its dorsal fin
cutting the surface,--a full two hundred yards from the beach. He ran
to the water's edge, looked back once, flourished his sling, and two
seconds later the shark was scudding for the reef. If she had seen, she
evidently was not impressed. He returned, picked up his tomahawk on the
way, idly and nervously fingered the pebbles in his pocket, stood a
moment over the sulky girl, and then studied the life-buoy on the
ground. A light came to his eyes; with a final glance at the girl he
bounded up the slope and disappeared in the woods.

Three hours later he returned with his discarded fetish, and found her
sitting upright, with her life-buoy on her knees. She smiled gladly as
he approached, then pouted, as though remembering. Panting from his
exertion, he humbly placed the faded, scarred, and misshapen ring on
top of the brighter, better-cared-for possession of the girl, and
stood, mutely pleading for pardon. It was granted. Smiling
radiantly,--a little roguishly,--she arose and led him again to the
cave, from which she brought forth another treasure. It was a billet of
wood,--a dead branch, worn smooth at the ends,--around which were
wrapped faded, half-rotten rags of calico. Hugging it for a moment, she
handed it to him. He looked at it wonderingly and let it drop, turning
his eyes upon her; then, with impatience in her face, she reclaimed it,
entered the cave,--the boy following,--and tenderly placed it in a
corner.

It was her doll. Up to the borders of womanhood--untutored, unloved
waif of the woods--living through the years of her simple existence
alone--she had lavished the instinctive mother-love of her heart on a
stick, and had clothed it, though not herself.

With a thoughtful little wrinkle in her brow, she studied the face of
this new companion who acted so strangely, and he, equally mystified,
looked around the cave. A pile of nuts in a corner indicated her
housewifely thrift and forethought. A bed of dry moss with an evenly
packed elevation at the end--which could be nothing but a
pillow--showed plainly the manner in which she had preserved the
velvety softness of her skin. Tinted shells and strips of faded calico,
arranged with some approach to harmony of color around the sides and
the border of the floor, gave evidence of the tutelage of the
bower-birds, of which there were many in the vicinity. And the vines at
the entrance had surely been planted--they were far