o logical connection between any of these.

"I think," said I, "that I'll take a bucket of salad to your father."

Why I should have so suddenly determined to ingratiate myself with the
old grouch I scarcely understood: for the construction of a salad was my
very best accomplishment.

Wilna looked at me in a peculiar manner, almost as though she were
controlling a sudden and not unpleasant inward desire to laugh.

Evidently the finer and more delicate instincts of a woman were divining
my motive and sympathizing with my mental and sentimental perplexity.

So when she said: "I don't think you had better go near my father," I was
convinced of her gentle solicitude in my behalf.

"With a bucket of salad," I whispered softly, "much may be accomplished,
Wilna." And I took her little hand and pressed it gently and
respectfully. "Trust all to me," I murmured.

She stood with her head turned away from me, her slim hand resting limply
in mine. From the slight tremor of her shoulders I became aware how
deeply her emotion was now swaying her. Evidently she was nearly ready to
become mine.

But I remained calm and alert. The time was not yet. Her father had had
his prunes, in which he delighted. And when pleasantly approached with a
bucket of salad he could not listen otherwise than politely to what I
had to say to him. Quick action was necessary--quick but diplomatic
action--in view of the imminence of this young man Green, who evidently
was _persona grata_ at the bungalow of this irritable old dodo.

Tenderly pressing the pretty hand which I held, and saluting the
finger-tips with a gesture which was, perhaps, not wholly ungraceful,
I stepped into the kitchen, washed out several heads of lettuce, deftly
chopped up some youthful onions, constructed a seductive French dressing,
and, stirring together the crisp ingredients, set the savoury masterpiece
away in the ice-box, after tasting it. It was delicious enough to draw
sobs from any pig.

When I went out to the veranda, Wilna had disappeared. So I unfolded and
set up some more box-traps, determined to lose no time.

Sunset still lingered beyond the chain of western mountains as I went out
across the grassy plateau to the cornfield.

Here I set and baited several dozen aluminium crow-traps, padding the
jaws so that no injury could be done to the birds when the springs
snapped on their legs.

Then I went over to the crater and descended its gentle, grassy slope.
And t