y eyes fell
upon an obscure footpath leading away from the house and the watery way
beyond it, down through overhanging wild roses, and under the great
tangle in which the chat had hidden. It looked mysterious, not to say
forbidding, and, from the low drooping of the foliage above, it was
plainly a horse path, not a human way. But it was undoubtedly the key to
the secrets of the tangle, and I turned into it without hesitation.
Stooping under the branches hanging low with their fragrant burden, and
stopping every moment to loosen the hold of some hindering thorn, I
followed in the footsteps of my four-footed pioneers till I reached the
lower end of the marsh that had kept me from entering on the upper side.
On its edge I placed my chair and seated myself.

It was an ideal retreat; within call if help were needed, yet a solitude
it was plain no human being, in that land where (according to the
Prophet) every man, woman, and child is a working bee, ever invaded;

"A leafy nook
Where wind never entered, nor branch ever shook,"

known only to my equine friends and to me. I exulted in it! No
discoverer of a new land, no stumbler upon a gold mine, was ever more
exhilarated over his find than I over my solitary wild rose path.

The tangle was composed of a varied growth. There seemed to have been
originally a straggling row of low trees, chokecherry, peach, and
willow, which had been surrounded, overwhelmed, and almost buried by a
rich growth of shoots from their own roots, bound and cemented together
by the luxuriant wild rose of the West, which grows profusely everywhere
it can get a foothold, stealing up around and between the branches, till
it overtops and fairly smothers in blossoms a fair-sized oak or other
tree. Besides these were great ferns, or brakes, three or four feet
high, which filled up the edges of the thicket, making it absolutely
impervious to the eye, as well as to the foot of any straggler. Except
in the obscure passages the horses kept open, no person could penetrate
my jungle.

I had hardly placed myself, and I had not noted half of these details,
when it became evident that my presence disturbed somebody. A chat cried
out excitedly, "chack! chack! whe-e-w!" whereupon there followed an
angry squawk, so loud and so near that it startled me. I turned quickly,
and saw madam herself, all ruffled as if from the nest. She was plainly
as much startled as I was, but she scorned