of dried salmon; her
daughter, also with berry eyes, and with a face that seemed wholly made
of a moist laugh; 'Yellow Bob,' a Digger 'buck,' so called from the
prevailing ochre markings of his cheek, and 'Washooh,' an ex-chief; a
nondescript in a blanket, looking like a cheap and dirty doll whose
fibrous hair was badly nailed on his carved wooden head, composed the
Culpepper household. While the two former were preparing supper in the
adjacent dining-room, Yellow Bob, relieved of his burden of game,
appeared on the gallery and beckoned mysteriously to his master through
the window. James Culpepper went out, returned quickly, and after a
minute's hesitation and an uneasy glance towards his sister, who had
meantime pushed back her sou'wester from her forehead, and without
taking off her jacket had dropped into a chair before the fire with her
back towards him, took his gun noiselessly from the rack, and saying
carelessly that he would be back in a moment, disappeared.

Left to herself, Maggie coolly pulled off her long boots and stockings,
and comfortably opposed to the fire two very pretty feet and ankles,
whose delicate purity was slightly blue-bleached by confinement in the
tepid sea-water. The contrast of their waxen whiteness with her blue
woolen skirt, and with even the skin of her sunburnt hands and wrists,
apparently amused her, and she sat for some moments with her elbows on
her knees, her skirts slightly raised, contemplating them, and curling
her toes with evident satisfaction. The firelight playing upon the
rich coloring of her face, the fringe of jet-black curls that almost
met the thick sweep of eyebrows, and left her only a white strip of
forehead, her short upper lip and small chin, rounded but resolute,
completed a piquant and striking figure. The rich brown shadows on the
smoke-stained walls and ceiling, the occasional starting into relief of
the scutcheons of brilliant plumage, and the momentary glitter of the
steel barrels, made a quaint background to this charming picture.
Sitting there, and following some lingering memory of her tramp on the
Marsh, she hummed to herself a few notes of the bugle call that had
impressed her--at first softly, and finally with the full pitch of her
voice.

Suddenly she stopped.

There was a faint and unmistakable rapping on the floor beneath her.
It was distinct, but cautiously given, as if intended to be audible to
her alone. For a moment she stood upright, he