o himself. "One would
think it more decent to give up hoping sometime, but they never seem to.
Haven't we been cheated with fair promises year after year--promises
that were as empty as a glass bulb? And yet they all bite just as
readily as ever. Even the chronic grumblers, like Murfree, Hapgood, and
that gang, are beginning to come over. It makes me tired!"

As he reached a certain cottage he pedaled faster than ever, and with
his head bent nearly to the handle-bars, flew by without a glance, or
pause. Yet, without looking, he had discerned Rachel standing on the new
square porch, exceptionally trim and stiff in a light muslin, while the
children swarmed about her admiringly. He could also hear Mrs. Hemphill,
from indoors somewhere, screaming her commands to the scattered family
in a high key, though no one seemed paying the slightest attention. Had
he been able to see out of the back of his head, as they say some women
can do, he would have discovered that the smile died out of Rachel's
face as he whizzed by, that she gazed after him a moment with a sober
look, then turned and went into the house, answering her mother's
remarks with a sharp,

"Well, what is it?"

Dan, meanwhile, tore ahead, leaving all artificial lights behind him,
and sighed with relief when loneliness wrapped him around, so that he
might relax a bit and take a long breath, for he was weary.

It was still far from being really dark, though dusky in the shadows,
and, as he was wading the brook, something that was not a shadow seemed
to move amid the darker smudges of the vine tangles and underbrush
surrounding his little bower. He stopped splashing and peered intently,
but saw nothing to confirm the impression and concluded it was but the
waving of a branch, or the leap of a squirrel from bough to bough. But
no sooner had he stepped foot on the soil than he saw someone had been
here since his last visit, at least three weeks before. Vines had been
torn down so that the entrance was visible, there were traces of a
camp-fire on the sands at his feet, and he could see broken tree-twigs
and limbs scattered about, as if in preparation for another. A chill
crept over him at thought of this intrusion, and he looked around, half
fearfully, as if expecting that someone might spring out from the deeper
wood and dispute possession with him.

Keeping an anxious lookout to sides and rear he hastily entered the
little leaf-tent, and saw, with a sort of despair