ould_ you do
such a thing under my very nose and in sight of your relatives and three
unfeeling guides!"

"You poor boy'" she said, watching the bevy as he picked up the curious,
dark, little Florida quail and displayed them. Then, having marked, she
quietly signalled the dogs forward.

"I'm not going," he said; "I've performed sufficiently."

She was not quite sure how much of disappointment lay under his
pretence, and rather shyly she suggested that he redeem himself. Gray
and his father were walking toward one dog who was now standing; two
quail flushed and both fell.

"Come," she said, laying her hand lightly on his arm; "Ticky is pointing
and I _will_ have you redeem yourself."

So they went forward, shoulder to shoulder; and three birds jumped and
two fell.

"Bravo!" she exclaimed radiantly; "I knew my cavalier after all!"

"You held your fire," he said accusingly.

"Ye-s."

"Why?"

"Because--if you--" She raised her eyes half serious, half mockingly:
"Do you think I care for--anything--at your expense?"

A thrill passed through him. "Do you think I mind if you are the better
of us, you generous girl?"

"I am not a better shot; I really am not.... Look at these birds--both
cocks. Are they not funny--these quaint little black quail of the
semi-tropics? We'll need all we can get, too. But now that you are your
resistless self again I shall cease to dread the alternative of
starvation or a resort to alligator tail."

So with a gay exchange of badinage they took their turns when the dogs
rounded up singles; and sometimes he missed shamefully, and sometimes he
performed with credit, but she never amended his misses nor did more
than match his successes, and he thought that in all his life he had
never witnessed more faultless field courtesy than this young girl
instinctively displayed. Nothing in the world could have touched him
more keenly or convinced him more thoroughly. For it is on the firing
line that character shows; a person is what he is in the field--even
though he sometimes neglects to live up to it in less vital moments.

Generous and quick in her applause, sensitive under his failures, cool
in difficulties, yielding instantly the slightest advantage to him,
holding her fire when singles rose or where there could be the slightest
doubt--that was his shooting companion under the white noon sun that
day. He noticed, too, her sweetness with the dogs, her quick
encouragement when work was wel