" she added, "but you know what a woman like Rosalie is
prone to think of Delancy."

He glanced at her keenly; she had, evidently, not the slightest notion
of the _status quo_.

"Oh, they'll get along together, all right," he said carelessly. "If
they choose to remain with us, of course we all can keep on to Cloudy
Mountain; but you'll see them accept Kemp and the Green Pass with
grateful alacrity after two miles of snow-shoeing through the brush; and
we'll have the mountain all to ourselves."

"You're a shameless deviser of schemes, aren't you, dear?" she asked,
considering him with that faint, intimate smile, which, however, had
always in it something of curiosity. "You know perfectly well we could
drive those poor people the whole way to Cloudy Mountain."

"Why, that _is_ so!" he exclaimed, pretending surprise; "but, after all,
dear, it's better sport to beat up the alders below Green Pass and try
to jump a pig for them. That's true hospitality----"

She laughed, shaking her head. "Oh, Duane, Duane!" she murmured,
suffering him to capture both her hands and lay them against his face to
cover the glee that twitched it at his own unholy perfidy.

And so it came about that, after an early luncheon, a big double sleigh
jingled up, received its jolly cargo, and sped away again into the white
woodlands, Kathleen waving adieu and Scott deriding them with scoffing
and snowballs.

The drive was very beautiful, particularly through the pine and hemlock
belt where the great trees, clothed heavily with snow, bent branch and
crest under the pale winter sunshine. Tall fir-balsams pricked the sky,
perfect cones of white; spruces were snowy mounds; far into the forest
twilight glimmered the unsullied snow.

As they sped along, Geraldine pointed out imprints of fox and rabbit,
faint trails where a field-mouse had passed, the string of henlike
footprints recording the deliberate progress of some ruffed grouse
picking its leisurely way across the snow; the sharp, indented marks of
squirrels.

Rosalie was enchanted, Delancy mildly so, but when a deeper trail
ploughed the snow, running parallel to their progress, he regarded it
with more animation.

"Pig," said Geraldine briefly.

"Wild?" he inquired.

"Of course," she smiled; "and probably a good big boar."

Rosalie thrilled and unconsciously rested her fur-gloved hand on
Delancy's sleeve.

"You know," she said, "you must shoot a little straighter than you did
at targ