sewhere, patches of moss shone with an emerald
brightness, and there were outcrops of rock tinted lustrous gray and
silver with lichens. Below, near the foot of the moor, ran a straight
dark line of firs, the one coldly-somber streak in the scene; but beyond
it the rolling, sunlit plain ran back, fading through ever varying and
softening colors to the hazy blue heights of Scotland.

Lisle's companion noticed his intent expression.

"It is rather fine up here," she conceded. "I sometimes feel it's almost
a pity one couldn't live among the heather. Certain things would be
easier on these high levels."

"Yes?" interrogated Lisle, slightly puzzled and astonished.

"You're obviously from the woods," she smiled. "If you had spent a few
years among my friends, you would understand. I was referring to the
cultivation of ideas and manners which seem to be considered out of date
now."

Lisle made no reply to this, but he glanced too directly at a red stain
on her hand.

"Blood," she explained. "I had a bet with Alan that I'd get a brace more
than Flo; that's why I went after a cripple running in the ling. It
wasn't dead when I picked it up--rather horrid, wasn't it?"

The man was conscious of some disgust. She looked very young and, slight
as she was, her figure was prettily rounded and she had a soft, kittenish
gracefulness; but she spoke with the assurance of a dowager. Though he
had killed and cut up many a deer, he shrank from the small red stain on
her delicate hand. She saw it and laughed, and then with a sudden change
of mood she stooped and swiftly rubbed her fingers in the heather.

"Now," she said sharply, "if you're sufficiently rested, we'll go on."

Lisle moved away, but he asked a question:

"Do many girls shoot in this country?"

"No," she answered with a mocking smile; "not so many, after all. That's
comforting, isn't it? This kind of thing is hard work, and damaging to
the complexion."

Presently they came to a wall, and Lisle stopped in some uncertainty. It
was as high as his shoulders and built of loose, rough stones.

"Get over," she ordered him. "Then pull a lot of it down."

He did so, making, though he endeavored to avoid this, a rather wide
hole.

She scrambled through agilely and then regarded him with surprise as he
proceeded to replace the stones.

"Why are you doing that?" she asked.

"There are sheep up here."

"Too many, considering that it's a grouse-moor; but what of it? They