arge houses. The sun filtered through the foliage to make a
bright pattern upon the carpet of last year's leaves. The birds
twittered and chirped; the creek hummed its drowsy, soothing
melody. She was wretchedly weary, and Oh, so hungry! A little
further, and two of the great bowlders, tumbled down from the
steeps, had cut off part of the creek, had formed a pool which
their seamed and pitted and fern-adorned walls hid from all
observation except that of the birds and the squirrels in the boughs.

At once she thought how refreshed she would be if she could
bathe in those cool waters. She looked round, stepped in between
the bowlders. She peered out; she listened. She was safe; she
drew back into her little inclosure. There was a small dry shelf
of rock. She hurried off her clothes, stood a moment in the
delicious warmth of the sunshine, stepped into the pool. She
would have liked to splash about; but she dared make no sound
that could be heard above the noise of the water. Luckily the
creek was just there rather loud, as it was expressing its
extreme annoyance over the stolid impudence of the interrupting
bowlders. While she was waiting for the sun to dry her she
looked at her underclothes. She simply could not put them on as
they were. She knelt at the edge of the shelf and rinsed them
out as well as she could. Then she spread them on the thick
tufts of overhanging fern where the hot sun would get full swing
at them. The brown stocking of the two mismates she had brought
along almost matched the pair she was wearing. As there was a
hole in the toe of one of them, she discarded it, and so had one
fresh stocking. She dried her feet thoroughly with the stocking
she was discarding. Then she put her corsets and her dress
directly upon her body. She could not afford to wait until the
underclothes dried; she would carry them until she found for
herself a more remote and better hiding place where she could
await nightfall. She stuffed the stocking with the hole deep
into a cleft in the rock and laid a small stone upon it so that
it was concealed. Here where there were no traces, no reminders
of the human race which had cast her out and pursued her with
torture of body and soul, here in the wilderness her spirits
were going up, and her young eyes were looking hopefully round
and forward. The up-piling horrors of those two days and their
hideous climax seemed a dream which the sun had scattered.
Hopeful