ense about health, she had been steadily adding to the vitality
and strength that were hers by inheritance. Thus, the response
to this first demand upon them had been almost inevitable. It
augured well for the future, if the future should draw her into
hardships. She knew she had gone far and in what was left of the
night and with what was left of her strength she would put such
a distance between her and them that they would never believe
she had got so far, even should they seek in this direction. She
was supporting her head upon her hands, her elbows upon her
knees. Her eyes closed, her head nodded; she fought against the
impulse, but she slept.

When she straightened up with a start it was broad day. The
birds must have finished their morning song, for there was only
happy, comfortable chirping in the branches above her. She rose
stiffly. Her legs, her whole body, ached; and her feet were
burning and blistered. But she struck out resolutely.

After she had gone halfway down a long steep hill, she had to
turn back because she had left her only possessions. It was a
weary climb, and her heart quaked with terror. But no one
appeared, and at last she was once more at the ruins of the
fence panel. There lay her sailor hat, the handkerchiefs,
wrapped round the toothbrush, the collar--and two stockings, one
black, the other brown. And where was her purse? Not there,
certainly. She glanced round in swift alarm. No one. Yet she had
been absolutely sure she had taken her purse from the
sitting-room table when she came upon it, feeling about in the
dark. She had forgotten it; she was without a cent!

But she had no time to waste in self-reproaches or forebodings.
Though the stockings would be of no use to her, she took them
along because to leave them was to leave a trail. She hastened
down the hill. At the bottom ran a deep creek--without a bridge.
The road was now a mere cowpath which only the stoutest vehicles
or a horseman would adventure. To her left ran an even wilder
trail, following the downward course of the creek. She turned
out of the road, entered the trail. She came to a place where
the bowlders over which the creek foamed and splashed as it
hurried southeastward were big and numerous enough to make a
crossing. She took it, went slowly on down the other bank.

There was no sign of human intrusion. Steeply on either side
rose a hill, strewn with huge bowlders, many of them large as
l