st why I
ran--to look out!--and the trail was deep and strong and not much
blood-dust. I was so vexed, so distressed, because it was almost sunset
and the boar seemed to be going strongly and faster than a grayhound.
And suddenly Miller shouted something about 'scrub hemlock'--I didn't
know he meant for me to halt!--So I--I"--she looked anxiously at her
brother--"I jumped into the scrub and kicked him up before I knew
it--and he--he tore my kilts--just one or two tears, but it didn't
wound me, Scott, it only just made my leg black and blue--and, anyway, I
got him----"

"Oh, Lord," groaned her brother, "don't you know enough to reconnoitre a
wounded boar in the scrub? _I_ don't know why he didn't rip you. Do you
want to be killed by a _pig_? What's the use of being all cut and bitten
to pieces, anyway?"

"No use, dear," she admitted so meekly that Duane scarcely managed to
retain his gravity.

She came over and humbly slipped her arm through his as they all rose
from the table.

"Don't think I'm a perfect idiot," she said under her breath; "it's only
inexperience under excitement. You'll see that I've learned a lot when
we go out together. Miller will admit that I'm usually prudent, because,
two weeks ago, I hit a boar and he charged me, and my rifle jammed, and
I went up a tree! Wasn't that prudent?"

"Perfectly," he said gravely; "only I'd feel safer if you went up a tree
in the first place and remained there. What a child you are, anyway!"

"Do you know," she confided in him, "I am a regular baby sometimes. I do
the silliest things in the woods. Once I gave Miller the slip and went
off and built a doll's house out of snow and made three snow dolls and
played with them! Isn't that the silliest thing? And another time a boar
came out by the Westgate Oaks, and he was a black, hairy fellow, and so
funny with his chin-whiskers all dotted with icicles that I began to say
aloud:

'I swear by the beard
On my chinny-chin-chin--'

And of course he was off before I could pull trigger for laughing.
Isn't that foolish?"

"Adorably," he whispered. "You are finding the little girl in the
garden, Geraldine."

She looked up at him, serious, wistful.

"It's the boy who found her; I only helped. But I want to bring her home
all alone."

CHAPTER XXI

THE GOLDEN HOURS

The weather was unsuitable for hunting. It snowed for a week, thawed
over night, then froze, then snowed again, but the moon that night