in there. This time he was
among the rocks overlooking the cabin, and was afoot, his white horse
motionless behind him with long bridle dropped to the ground.
Charles-Norton watched him from behind a tree. He stood there long, his
right hand negligently upon the horse's neck, his left hand shielding his
eyes as he looked; and to the posture, somehow, the whole landscape
gradually changed its aspect, seemed to take on an air subtly theatrical,
the waning sunlight like calcium, the rocks like cardboard, the trees
painted. "Where, oh, where have I seen that before?" murmured
Charles-Norton, intrigued in the midst of his panic.

The man mounted, the horse came forward, and with a silvery tinkle of
spur and bit, they went slowly across the meadow and into the forest,
toward the trail that led to the camp.

"_Where_ have I seen that geezer before?" murmured Charles-Norton again,
as he was going to sleep that night.

The question was to remain unanswered. The man did not appear again. But
on the Sunday following, at dusk, as the lake was aflash with leaping
trout, Dolly came running to him out of the trees.

CHAPTER XIV

Dolly came suddenly out of the fringe of the trees. It was dusk; the lake
was aflash with leaping trout. And she came to him across the darkened
meadow like a fawn panting for her retreat. He stood there petrified, but
as she neared, felt his arms open in an irresistible and large movement;
she nestled within them, her head on his heart.

They stood there long, without speaking a word, in the center of the
dusky meadow, by the sparkling lake. Her face was on his breast; his arms
were about her, but his eyes were looking straight ahead into the
obscurity. He could feel her palpitate softly against him, and a
tenderness like a warm pool was collecting in his heart.

"Dolly!" he said at length.

But she did not answer; only pushed farther into his embrace in a blind
little snuggling movement like that of a puppy. He dropped his eyes down
upon her, slyly. He could see her shoulders, agitated as if she were
weeping, and a wisp of her golden hair, and one tip of a rosy ear; and
then, nearer, he saw the furry toque with its white aigrette.

"You little Cossack!" he said, a bit huskily.

Again there was a silence; then he felt the vibration of her muffled
voice against his chest. "Do you like it?" she asked timidly.

"It's dandy," he said.

The silence that followed was like that of a kitten afte