ken, hanging by its film of bark.

An ugly flush stained his forehead; he set his lips together and moved
on noiselessly. Other twigs hung dangling every few yards, yet it took
an expert's eye to detect them among the tangles and clustering
branches. But he knew what he was to find at the end of the blind trail,
and in a few minutes he found it. It was a deadfall, set, and baited
with winter grapes.

Noiselessly he destroyed it, setting the heavy stone on the moss without
a sound; then he searched the thicket for the next "line," and in a few
moments he discovered another broken twig leading to the left.

He had been on the trail for some time, losing it again and again before
the suspicion flashed over him that there was somebody ahead who had
either seen or heard him and who was deliberately leading him astray
with false "lines" that would end in nothing. He listened; there was no
sound either of steps or of cracking twigs, but both dogs had begun
growling and staring into the demi-light ahead. He motioned them on and
followed. A moment later both dogs barked sharply.

As he stepped out of the thicket on one side, a young girl, standing in
the more open and heavier timber, raised her head and looked at him with
grave, brown eyes. Her hands were on the silky heads of his dogs; from
her belt hung a great, fluffy cock-partridge, outspread wings still
limber.

He knew her in an instant; he had seen her often in church. Perplexed
and astonished, he took off his cap in silence, finding absolutely
nothing to say, although the dead partridge at her belt furnished a text
on which he had often displayed biting eloquence.

After a moment he smiled, partly at the situation, partly to put her at
her ease.

"If I had known it was you," he said, "I should not have followed those
very inviting twigs I saw dangling from the oziers and moose-vines."

"Lined deadfalls are thoroughfares to woodsmen," she answered,
defiantly. "You are as free as I am in these woods--but not more free."

The defiance, instead of irritating him, touched him. In it he felt a
strange pathos--the proud protest of a heart that beat as free as the
thudding wings of the wild birds he sometimes silenced with a shot.

"It is quite true," he said, gently; "you are perfectly free in these
woods."

"But not by your leave!" she said, and the quick color stung her cheeks.

"It is not necessary to ask it," he replied.

"I mean," she said, desperately, "tha