castellated dike that stood over him, he caught a gleam of pink. The
contrast between it, the blue of the sky, and the dark green of the
trees, was most beautiful and unusual. Nature rarely uses pink, except
in sunsets and in flowers. Bennington thought pleasedly how every
impression this girl made upon him was one of grace or beauty or bright
colour. The gleam of pink disappeared, and a great pine cone, heavy
with pitch, came buzzing through the air to fall at his feet.

"That's to show you where I am," came the clear voice. "You ought to
feel honoured. I've only three cones left."

The dike before which Bennington had paused was one of the round
variety. It rose perhaps twenty feet above the _débris_ at its base,
sheer, gray, its surface almost intact except for an insignificant
number of frost fissures. From its base the hill fell rapidly, so that,
even from his own inferior elevation, he was enabled to look over the
tops of trees standing but a few rods away from him. He could see that
the summit of this dike was probably nearly flat, and he surmised that,
once up there, one would become master of a pretty enough little
plateau on which to sit; but his careful circumvallation could discover
no possible method of ascent. The walls afforded no chance for a
squirrel's foothold even. He began to doubt whether he had guessed
aright as to the girl's whereabouts, and began carefully to examine the
tops of the trees. Discovering nothing in them, he cast another puzzled
glance at the top of the dike. A pair of violet eyes was scrutinizing
him gravely over the edge of it.

"How in the world did you get up there?" he cried.

"Flew," she explained, with great succinctness.