and stretched luxuriously, her naked
limbs and lithe body mottled by the sunlight filtering through the
foliage above combined with the lazy gesture to impart to her
appearance something of the leopard. With careful eye she scrutinized
the ground below and with attentive ear she listened for any warning
sound that might suggest the near presence of enemies, either man or
beast. Satisfied at last that there was nothing close of which she
need have fear she clambered to the ground. She wished to bathe but the
lake was too exposed and just a bit too far from the safety of the
trees for her to risk it until she became more familiar with her
surroundings. She wandered aimlessly through the forest searching for
food which she found in abundance. She ate and rested, for she had no
objective as yet. Her freedom was too new to be spoiled by plannings
for the future. The haunts of civilized man seemed to her now as vague
and unattainable as the half-forgotten substance of a dream. If she
could but live on here in peace, waiting, waiting for--him. It was the
old hope revived. She knew that he would come some day, if he lived.
She had always known that, though recently she had believed that he
would come too late. If he lived! Yes, he would come if he lived, and
if he did not live she were as well off here as elsewhere, for then
nothing mattered, only to wait for the end as patiently as might be.

Her wanderings brought her to a crystal brook and there she drank and
bathed beneath an overhanging tree that offered her quick asylum in the
event of danger. It was a quiet and beautiful spot and she loved it
from the first. The bottom of the brook was paved with pretty stones
and bits of glassy obsidian. As she gathered a handful of the pebbles
and held them up to look at them she noticed that one of her fingers
was bleeding from a clean, straight cut. She fell to searching for the
cause and presently discovered it in one of the fragments of volcanic
glass which revealed an edge that was almost razor-like. Jane Clayton
was elated. Here, God-given to her hands, was the first beginning with
which she might eventually arrive at both weapons and tools--a cutting
edge. Everything was possible to him who possessed it--nothing without.

She sought until she had collected many of the precious bits of
stone--until the pouch that hung at her right side was almost filled.
Then she climbed into the great tree to examine them at leisure. There
we