d word was tossed from
cliff to cliff, across the river and back, and presently died away.

At that, from the very branches of the great oak that stood in the
centre of the meadow there burst a titanic clap of laughter, and
Farallone, literally bursting with merriment, dropped lightly into our
midst.

I can only speak for myself. I was frightened--I say it deliberately and
truthfully--_almost_ into a fit. And for fully five minutes I could not
command either of my legs. The groom, I believe, screamed. The bride
became whiter than paper--then suddenly the color rushed into her
cheeks, and she laughed. She laughed until she had to sit down, until
the tears literally gushed from her eyes. It was not hysterics
either--could it have been amusement? After a while, and many prolonged
gasps and relapses, she stopped.

"This," said Farallone, "is my building site. Do you like it?"

"Oh, oh," said the bride, "I think it's the m--most am--ma--musing site
I ever saw," and she went into another uncontrollable burst of laughter.

"Oh--oh," she said at length, and her shining eyes were turned from the
groom to me, and back and forth between us, "if you _could_ have seen
your faces!"

V

It seemed strange to us, an alteration in the logical and natural, but
neither the groom nor I received corporal punishment for our attempt at
escape. Farallone had read our minds like an open book; he had, as it
were, put us up to the escapade in order to have the pure joy of
thwarting us. That we should have been drawn to his exact waiting-place
like needles to the magnet had a smack of the supernatural, but was in
reality a simple and explicable happening. For if we had not ascended to
the little meadow, Farallone, alertly watching, would have descended
from it, and surprised us at some further point. That we should have
caught no glimpse of his great bulk anywhere ahead of us in the day-long
stretch of open, park-like country was also easily explained. For
Farallone had made the most of the journey in the stream itself,
drifting with a log.

And although, as I have said, we were not to receive corporal
punishment, Farallone visited his power upon us in other ways. He would
not at first admit that we had intended to escape, but kept praising us
for having followed him so loyally and devotedly, for saving him the
trouble of a return journey, and for thinking to bring along the bulk of
our worldly possessions. Tiring at length of this, he