owly down the road, obeying blind impulse, not
reason; for her mind was yet clouded by delirium, and she had as yet no
realization of who she was or where she was.

Her mind was a pitiful blank, and her lips babbled vacant nothings as
she dragged herself on and on, further and further away from Ellsworth,
and into the lonely woods, unconsciously leaving the beaten track, and
pursuing a lonely bridle path that led her into the very heart of the
forest.

Now and then, when her strength failed, she would drop down and rest;
then start up and wander on again, aimlessly and drearily, until she
seemed to be lost in a maze of thick woodland that looked like the
haunts of savage creatures and crawling serpents, whose dens were fitly
chosen among these jagged gray rocks.

"And when on the earth she sank to sleep,
If slumber her eyelids knew,
She lay where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear, and nightly steep
The flesh in blistering dew,
And near her the she-wolf stirred the brake,
And the copper snake breathed in her ear."

She came staggering out at last from a great thicket of ferns and found
herself near a brawling mountain stream--one of those pellucid trout
streams dear to the disciples of gentle Isaak Walton. On its green,
sloping banks she sank down to rest, lulled by the low murmur of the
waters, and presently the gray shadows of dawn were pierced by the
sun's bright rays lighting the solitary wilderness with glory.

Higher and higher mounted the sun, and all the woodland dwellers started
abroad, while the mists of the night fled at the warmth of the advancing
day; but wearily, wearily, slumbered the exhausted girl, crouching on
the grass, with her pallid cheek in the hollow of her little hand, her
hair a tangle of glory glinting in the sun, as it shone through the
branches of the trees.

Heavily, wearily, she slept on as one too exhausted ever to wake again,
and presently the deep forest stillness was broken by the dip of oars in
the murmuring stream, while a man's voice cried, eagerly:

"Another speckled beauty for our string, Peters! Ye gods, what a royal
breakfast we shall have this morning! Is your wife a good cook, say? For
it would be a thousand pities to have these spoiled!"

The voice had the shrill twang of the commercial traveler, the daring
explorer who penetrates the depths of the forests as well as the heart
of the cities, and the answer came in the distin