and sympathy by the ghostly
fog, what torturing visions conjured up by remorse and fear should have
pursued him? What spirit passed before him, or slowly shaped itself out
of the infinite blackness of the wood? None. As he slipped gently into
that blackness he remembered with a slight regret, some biscuits that
were dropped from the coach by a careless luncheon-consuming passenger.
That pang over, he slept as sweetly, as profoundly, as divinely, as a
child.

CHAPTER II.

He awoke with the aroma of the woods still steeping his senses. His
first instinct was that of all young animals; he seized a few of the
young, tender green leaves of the yerba buena vine that crept over his
mossy pillow and ate them, being rewarded by a half berry-like flavor
that seemed to soothe the cravings of his appetite. The languor of sleep
being still upon him, he lazily watched the quivering of a sunbeam that
was caught in the canopying boughs above. Then he dozed again. Hovering
between sleeping and waking, he became conscious of a slight movement
among the dead leaves on the bank beside the hollow in which he lay. The
movement appeared to be intelligent, and directed toward his revolver,
which glittered on the bank. Amused at this evident return of his
larcenous friend of the previous day, he lay perfectly still. The
movement and rustle continued, but it now seemed long and undulating.
Lance's eyes suddenly became set; he was intensely, keenly awake. It
was not a snake, but the hand of a human arm, half hidden in the moss,
groping for the weapon. In that flash of perception he saw that it was
small, bare, and deeply freckled. In an instant he grasped it firmly,
and rose to his feet, dragging to his own level as he did so, the
struggling figure of a young girl.

"Leave me go!" she said, more ashamed than frightened.

Lance looked at her. She was scarcely more than fifteen, slight and
lithe, with a boyish flatness of breast and back. Her flushed face and
bare throat were absolutely peppered with minute brown freckles,
like grains of spent gunpowder. Her eyes, which were large and gray,
presented the singular spectacle of being also freckled,--at least they
were shot through in pupil and cornea with tiny spots like powdered
allspice. Her hair was even more remarkable in its tawny, deer-skin
color, full of lighter shades, and bleached to the faintest of blondes
on the crown of her head, as if by the action of the sun. She had
eviden