n, with a short laugh, "but I thought you were a
humpbacked witch in the dark there."

"And I couldn't make out whether you was a cow or a b'ar," returned the
young girl simply.

Here, however, he quickly mounted his horse, but in the action something
slipped from his clothes, struck a stone, and bounded away into the
darkness.

"My knife," he said hurriedly. "Please hand it to me." But although the
girl dropped on her knees and searched the ground diligently, it could
not be found. The man with a restrained ejaculation again dismounted,
and joined in the search.

"Haven't you got another match?" suggested Lanty.

"No--it was my last!" he said impatiently.

"Just you hol' on here," she said suddenly, "and I'll run down to the
kitchen and fetch you a light. I won't be long."

"No! no!" said the man quickly; "don't! I couldn't wait. I've been here
too long now. Look here. You come in daylight and find it, and--just
keep it for me, will you?" He laughed. "I'll come for it. And now, if
you'll only help to set me on that road again, for it's so infernal
black I can't see the mare's ears ahead of me, I won't bother you any
more. Thank you."

Lanty had quietly moved to his horse's head and taken the bridle in her
hand, and at once seemed to be lost in the gloom. But in a few moments
he felt the muffled thud of his horse's hoof on the thick dust of the
highway, and its still hot, impalpable powder rising to his nostrils.

"Thank you," he said again, "I'm all right now," and in the pause that
followed it seemed to Lanty that he had extended a parting hand to her
in the darkness. She put up her own to meet it, but missed his, which
had blundered onto her shoulder. Before she could grasp it, she felt him
stooping over her, the light brush of his soft mustache on her cheek,
and then the starting forward of his horse. But the retaliating box on
the ear she had promptly aimed at him spent itself in the black space
which seemed suddenly to have swallowed up the man, and even his light
laugh.

For an instant she stood still, and then, swinging the basket
indignantly from her shoulder, took up her suspended task. It was no
light one in the increasing wind, and the unfastened clothes-line had
precipitated a part of its burden to the ground through the loosening
of the rope. But on picking up the trailing garments her hand struck an
unfamiliar object. The stranger's lost knife! She thrust it hastily into
the bottom of the bas