ks," answered Flint, from below, "I am sorry you had the trouble,
for I took mine at the tavern before I started."

This was more than the descendant of Miles Standish could bear. With
a bang, she emptied the coffee-pot and knocked out the grounds, as her
ancestor had shaken the arrows out of the snake-skin to replace them
with bullets. Henceforth, she was implacable; and yet Flint never
dreamed that he had given offence. Imperfect sympathies again!

Winifred Anstice, whose misfortune it was to be peculiarly sensitive
to disturbances in the atmosphere, jumped up from under the pine where
she had been sitting with Brady. "Come," she said, "let's all sit down
around the fire. I want Leonard to recite for us. Will you, Leon?"

Flattered, yet embarrassed, the young fisherman rose from his
occupation of tying up the baskets, and drew nearer. As he stood in
front of the fire, Flint looked at him with a thrill of aesthetic
admiration. His red shirt, open at the throat, showed a splendid chest
and a neck on which his head was firmly and strongly poised. His hair,
curling tightly, revealed the well-shaped outline of the skull, and
the profile was classic in its regularity. "And that little fool
doesn't know enough to fall in love with him!" thought Flint.

"What'll you have, Miss Fred?" asked Leonard.

"Whatever you like."

"Wal, then, ef you'd jes ez lief, I'll say 'Marmion.' I was learned
it at school." Throwing off his cap and striking a dramatic pose, he
began:--

"The Douglas round him drew his cloak."

It is marvellous, the power of strong feeling to communicate itself
through all barriers. True emotion is the X-ray which can penetrate
all matter,--yes, and all spirit too.

The hackneyed words burned again with the freshness of their primal
enthusiasm. Again Douglas spurned, and Marmion flung him back scorn
for scorn. It was not acting. Leonard Davitt could never have thrown
fire into a role which did not appeal to him; but this lived. He put
his soul into it, and he drew out the soul from his audience.

"I must go now," he said, when he had finished, having ducked his head
shyly in response to the applause, and picked up his cap. "I'm goin'
off at sunrise."

"Where are you going, Leon?" queried Winifred Anstice, coming up to
him where he stood not far off from the spot where Flint, in dead
shadow, leaned against the trunk of a giant pine.

"Goin' off bars-fishin' for a week with the men from the Pint,"