he trees, James Rutlidge said, with
his meaning smile, "Really, I owe you an apology for dropping in so
unexpectedly. I--"

Conrad Lagrange interrupted him, curtly. "No apology is due, sir."

"No?" returned Rutlidge, with a rising inflection and a drawling note in
his voice that was almost too much for the others. "I really must be
going, anyway," he continued. "My party will be some distance ahead. Sure
you wouldn't care to join us?"

"Thanks! Sorry! but we cannot this time. Good of you to ask us," came from
Aaron King and the novelist.

"Can't say that I blame you," their caller returned. "The fishing used to
be fine in this neighborhood. You must have had some delightful sport.
Don't blame you in the least for not joining our stag party. Delightful
young woman, that Miss Andres. Charming companion--either in the mountains
or in civilization Good-by--see you in Fairlands, later."

When he was out of hearing the two men relieved their feelings in language
that perhaps it would be better not to put in print.

"And the worst of it is," remarked the novelist, "it's so damned dangerous
to deny something that does not exist or make explanations in answer to
charges that are not put into words."

"I could scarcely refrain from kicking the beast down the hill," said
Aaron King, savagely.

"Which"--the other returned--"would have complicated matters exceedingly,
and would have accomplished nothing at all. For the girl's sake, store
your wrath against the day of judgment which, if I read the signs aright,
is sure to come."

* * * * *

When Sibyl Andres went down the canyon to the camp in the sycamores, that
morning, the world, to her, was very bright. Her heart sang with joyous
freedom amid the scenes that she so loved. Care-free and happy, as when,
in the days of her girlhood, she had gone to visit the spring glade, she
still was conscious of a deeper joy than in her girlhood she had ever
known.

When she returned again up the canyon, all the brightness of her day was
gone. Her heart was heavy with foreboding fear. She was oppressed with a
dread of some impending evil which she could not understand. At every
sound in the mountain wild-wood, she started. Time and again, as if
expecting pursuit, she looked over her shoulder--poised like a creature of
the woods ready for instant panic-stricken flight. So, without pausing to
cast for trout, or even to go down to the stream, she returned