r succeeded in
doing yet.

"Once I tried farming, but it was no manner of use. The wandering
instinct was in my blood, I suppose. Even transport riding--and I was
pretty lucky at that while it lasted--was too slow for me. Too much
sticking to the road, you see. I've been a little of everything,
but,"--with a whimsical laugh--"I certainly never expected to turn
bear-leader in my old age."

"Uncommonly lucky for the `bear,'" pronounced Hazel.

"Well, the said `bear' is apt to get into hot water rather easily.
Otherwise he hasn't got any vice."

"And you are apt to get him out of hot water rather easily. Oh, I've
heard all about it."

"That was part of my charge. It was all in the day's work. Over and
about that, I've grown quite fond of the boy. He's as taking a lad as
I've ever known."

Hazel agreed, and promptly turned the subject from the belauded Dick
Selmes to other matters. The while, she was thinking; and if her
companion could have read her thoughts--and even his penetration
couldn't do that--why, it is possible that he would have run up against
the biggest surprise he had ever experienced in his life.

Even so Harley Greenoak was conscious of some modicum of surprise; and
that was evoked by the way in which his companion was making him talk--
drawing him, so to say--and, somehow, the experience was a pleasant one.
Not until afterwards did it occur to him that he had come near being
thrown a trifle off his balance by the soft insidious flatteries of this
beautiful girl, reclining there in an attitude of easy grace. The warm,
sunlit air, the height of space, looking down, as it were, upon two
worlds, the free openness of it all was Greenoak's natural heritage, and
under no other surroundings could he be so thoroughly at his best. So
she led him on to talk, and he had a dry, quaint, philosophical way of
handling things which amused and appealed to her immensely. Suddenly
the report of a gun, just beneath, together with the cry of dogs
hot-foot on a quarry.

"That's Dick. He's worked round to this side of the farm," said
Greenoak. "Shall we go down and see what he's been doing, for it
strikes me we've been sitting here rather a long time?"

"Oh, you have found it long, then?" with mock offended air, then
colouring slightly as she realised what an utter banality she had fired
off for the benefit of a man of Harley Greenoak's calibre.

"No, I haven't," he answered quite evenly. "I've enjoyed