among the bushes of
two gleaming eyes, and then the sleek back and lashing tail of the
Yellow Cat. The man, being a cat lover was versed in their ways, so for
a time he paid no attention, then began to talk softly.

"If you'd come out of that," he said, as he scraped the scales, "and not
sit there watching me like a Comanche Indian, I'd invite you to supper!"

Whether it was the tone of his voice or the smell of the fish that
conquered, the tawny creature was suddenly across the open with a rush
and on the stooping shoulders. That was the beginning of the
companionship that lasted until fall. The next season brought the animal
as unexpectedly, and they took up the old relation where it had left off
the previous summer. They trudged together through miles of forest,
sometimes the cat on the man's shoulder, but often making side
excursions on his own account and coming back with the proud burden of
bird or tiny beast. Together they watched the days decline in red and
gold glory from the ledge where the stream drops over the next height,
or when it rained, companioned each other by the hearth in the hut.
There was between them that satisfying and intimate communion of
inarticulate speech only possible between man and beast.

There came a day when the man sat hour after hour over his writing,
letting the hills call in vain. The cat slept himself out, and when paws
in the ink and tracks over the paper proved of no avail, he jumped down
and marched himself haughtily off through the door and across the
clearing to the forest, tail in air. Late that afternoon the man was
arrested midway of a thought rounding into phrase by the sudden
darkness. There was a fierce rush of wind, as if some giant had sighed
and roused himself. The door of the hut slammed shut and the blast from
the window scattered the papers about the floor. As he went to pull down
the sash the cat sprang in, shaking from his feet the drops of rain
already slanting in a white sheet across the little valley. At the same
moment there was a "halloo" outside, and a woman burst open the door,
turning quickly to shut out behind her the onrush of the shower and the
biting cold of the wind. She stood shaking the drops from her hair, and
then she looked into the astonished face of the man and laughed.

She was as slim and straight as a young poplar, clad in white
shirt-waist and khaki Turkish trousers with gaiters laced to the knee.
Her hair was blown about in a red-gol