he soon reached
that part of the trail where the susceptible Postmaster had seen the
fascinating unknown. Assuring herself she was not followed, she crept
through the thicket until she reached a little waterfall and basin that
had served the fugitive Lance for a bath. The spot bore signs of later
and more frequent occupancy, and when Flip carefully removed some bark
and brushwood from a cavity in the rock and drew forth various folded
garments, it was evident she had used it as a sylvan dressing-room. Here
she opened the parcel; it contained a small and delicate shawl of yellow
China crepe. Flip instantly threw it over her shoulders and stepped
hurriedly toward the edge of the wood. Then she began to pass backward
and forward before the trunk of a tree. At first nothing was visible on
the tree, but a closer inspection showed a large pane of ordinary window
glass stuck in the fork of the branches. It was placed at such a cunning
angle against the darkness of the forest opening that it made a soft and
mysterious mirror, not unlike a Claude Lorraine glass, wherein not only
the passing figure of the young girl was seen, but the dazzling green
and gold of the hillside, and the far-off silhouetted crests of the
Coast Range.

But this was evidently only a prelude to a severer rehearsal. When she
returned to the waterfall she unearthed from her stores a large piece
of yellow soap and some yards of rough cotton "sheeting." These she
deposited beside the basin and again crept to the edge of the wood to
assure herself that she was alone. Satisfied that no intruding foot
had invaded that virgin bower, she returned to her bath and began
to undress. A slight wind followed her, and seemed to whisper to the
circumjacent trees. It appeared to waken her sister naiads and nymphs,
who, joining their leafy fingers, softly drew around her a gently moving
band of trembling lights and shadows, of flecked sprays and inextricably
mingled branches, and involved her in a chaste sylvan obscurity, veiled
alike from pursuing god or stumbling shepherd. Within these hallowed
precincts was the musical ripple of laughter and falling water, and at
times the glimpse of a lithe brier-caught limb, or a ray of sunlight
trembling over bright flanks, or the white austere outline of a childish
bosom.

When she drew again the leafy curtain, and once more stepped out of
the wood, she was completely transformed. It was the figure that had
appeared to the Postmast