d, and the desire to explore the valley.

But he decided to wait a few more days before going far from camp,
because he fancied that the girl rested easier when she could see him
near at hand. And on the first day her languor appeared to leave her in
a renewed grip of life. She awoke stronger from each short slumber; she
ate greedily, and she moved about in her bed of boughs; and always, it
seemed to Venters, her eyes followed him. He knew now that her recovery
would be rapid. She talked about the dogs, about the caves, the valley,
about how hungry she was, till Venters silenced her, asking her to put
off further talk till another time. She obeyed, but she sat up in her
bed, and her eyes roved to and fro, and always back to him.

Upon the second morning she sat up when he awakened her, and would not
permit him to bathe her face and feed her, which actions she performed
for herself. She spoke little, however, and Venters was quick to
catch in her the first intimations of thoughtfulness and curiosity and
appreciation of her situation. He left camp and took Whitie out to
hunt for rabbits. Upon his return he was amazed and somewhat anxiously
concerned to see his invalid sitting with her back to a corner of the
cave and her bare feet swinging out. Hurriedly he approached, intending
to advise her to lie down again, to tell her that perhaps she might
overtax her strength. The sun shone upon her, glinting on the little
head with its tangle of bright hair and the small, oval face with its
pallor, and dark-blue eyes underlined by dark-blue circles. She looked
at him and he looked at her. In that exchange of glances he imagined
each saw the other in some different guise. It seemed impossible to
Venters that this frail girl could be Oldring's Masked Rider. It flashed
over him that he had made a mistake which presently she would explain.

"Help me down," she said.

"But--are you well enough?" he protested. "Wait--a little longer."

"I'm weak--dizzy. But I want to get down."

He lifted her--what a light burden now!--and stood her upright beside
him, and supported her as she essayed to walk with halting steps. She
was like a stripling of a boy; the bright, small head scarcely reached
his shoulder. But now, as she clung to his arm, the rider's costume she
wore did not contradict, as it had done at first, his feeling of her
femininity. She might be the famous Masked Rider of the uplands, she
might resemble a boy; but her outline, h