You're sure some swell picture as
you stand there, hand on hip and popping your eyes out at me! Like a
king in a story-book, only he'd just got a ducking and was trying to
stare the other fellow down. Which is one thing you can't do with me."

Her eyes had the adorable trick of seeming to crinkle to a mirth which
would have been an extremely pleasant phenomenon to witness had she
been laughing with him instead of at him. As matters stood, Packard
was quite prepared to dislike her heartily.

"I'd add to your kind information that the trail is open at both ends,"
he told her significantly. "I'm going to find a sunny spot and dry my
clothes. No objection, I suppose?"

He clambered up the bank and made his way to the spot whence he had
dived after her, bent on retrieving his boots and spurs. Her eyes
followed him interestedly. He ignored her and set about extricating a
spur rowel from the fabric of the bright blue cloak. Her voice floated
up to him then, demanding:

"What in the world are you up to now? Not going to swipe my clothes,
are you?"

"I'd have the right," he called back over his shoulder, "if I happened
to need a makeshift dressing-gown. As it is, however, I am trying to
get my spur out of the thing."

"You great big brute!" she wailed at him, and here she came running
along the bank. "You just dare to tear my cloak and I'll hound you out
of the country for it! I drove forty miles to get it and this is the
first time I ever wore it. Stupid!" And she jerked both the garment
and the spur from him.

The lining was silken, of a deep, rich, golden hue. And already it was
torn, although but the tiniest bit in the world, by one of the sharp
spikes. Her temper, however, ever ready it seemed, flared out again;
the crinkling merriment went from her eyes, leaving no trace; the color
warmed in her cheeks as she cried:

"You're just like all of the rest of your breed, big and awkward,
crowding in where you don't belong, messing up the face of the earth,
spoiling things right and left. I wonder if the good Lord Himself
knows what he made men for, anyway!"

The offending spur, detached by her quick fingers, described a bright
arc in the late sunlight, flew far out, dipped in a little leaping
spurt of spray, and went down quietly in the lake.

"Go jump in and get that, if you are so keen on saving things," she
mocked him. "There's only, about fifteen feet of water to dig through."

"You little dev