st delicious little laugh. So real was
the illusion that he gripped two handfuls of moss and looked about
sharply, but of course saw nothing. The laugh was repeated.

He looked again, and so became aware of a Vision in pink, standing just
in front of a big pine above him on the hill and surveying him with
mischievous eyes.

Surprise froze him, his legs straddled, his hat on one side, his mouth
open. The Vision began to pick its way down the hill, eyeing him the
while.

That dancing scrutiny seemed to mesmerize him. He was enchanted to
perfect stillness, but he was graciously permitted to take in the
particulars of the girl's appearance. She was dainty. Every posture of
her slight figure was of an airy grace, as light and delicate as that
of a rose tendril swaying in the wind. Even when she tripped over a
loose rock, she caught her balance again with a pretty little uplift of
the hand. As she approached, slowly, and evidently not unwilling to
allow her charms full time in which to work, Bennington could see that
her face was delicately made; but as to the details he could not judge
clearly because of her mischievous eyes. They were large and wide and
clear, and of a most peculiar colour--a purple-violet, of the shade one
sometimes finds in flowers, but only in the flowers of a deep and shady
wood. In this wonderful colour--which seemed to borrow the richness of
its hue rather from its depth than from any pigment of its own, just as
beyond soundings the ocean changes from green to blue--an hundred moods
seem to rise slowly from within, to swim visible, even though the mere
expression of her face gave no sign of them. For instance, at the
present moment her features were composed to the utmost gravity. Yet in
her eyes bubbled gaiety and fun, as successive up-swellings of a
spring; or, rather, as the riffles of sunlight and wind, or the
pictured flight of birds across a pool whose surface alone is stirred.

Bennington realized suddenly, with overwhelming fervency, that he
preferred to slide in solitude.

The Vision in the starched pink gingham now poised above him like a
humming-bird over a flower. From behind her back she withdrew one hand.
In the hand was the missing claim stake.

"Is this what you are looking for?" she inquired demurely.

The mesmeric spell broke, and Bennington was permitted to babble
incoherencies.

She stamped her foot.

"Is this what you're looking for?" she persisted.

Bennington's chao