establishment from daily famine," he said.
"You have no idea how many deer and boar it takes to keep the game
within limits and ourselves and domestics decently fed. Just look at the
heads up there on the walls." He waved his arm around the oak
wainscoting, where, at intervals, the great furry heads of wild boar
loomed in the candlelight, ears and mane on end, eyes and white
sabre-like tusks gleaming. "Those are Geraldine's," he said with
brotherly pride.

"I want to shoot one, too!" said Duane firmly. "Do you think I'm going
to let my affianced put it all over me like that?"

"_Isn't_ it like a man?" said Geraldine, appealing to Kathleen. "They
simply can't endure it if a girl ventures competition----"

"You talk like a suffragette," observed her brother. "Duane doesn't
care how many piglings you shoot; he wants to go out alone and get that
old grandfather of all boars, the one which kept you on the mountain for
the last three days----"

"_My_ boar!" she cried indignantly. "I won't have it! I won't let him.
Oh, Duane, _am_ I a pig to want to manage this affair when I've been
after him all winter?--and he's the biggest, grayest, wiliest thing you
ever saw--a perfectly enormous silvery fellow with two pairs of Japanese
sabre-sheaths for tusks and a mane like a lion, and a double bend in his
nose and----"

Shouts of laughter checked her flushed animation.

"Of course I'm not going to sneak out all alone and pot your old pig,"
said Duane; "I'll find one for myself on some other mountain----"

"But I want you to shoot with me!" she exclaimed in dismay. "I wanted
you to see me stalk this boar and mark him down, and have you kill him.
Oh, Duane, that was the fun. I've been saving him, I really have. Miller
knows that I had a shot once--a pretty good one--and wouldn't take it. I
killed a four-year near Hurryon instead, just to save that one----"

"You're the finest little sport in the land!" said Duane, "and we are
just tormenting you. Of course I'll go with you, but I'm blessed if I
pull trigger on that gentleman pig----"

"You _must_! I've saved him. Scott, make him say he will! Kathleen, this
is really too annoying! A girl plans and plans and pictures to herself
the happiness and surprise she's going to give a man, and he's too
stupid to comprehend----"

"Meaning me!" observed Duane. "But I leave it to you, Scott; a man
can't do such a thing decently----"

"Oh, you silly people," laughed Kathleen; "you may neve