was able to reconstruct the events of the preceding night, he raised
himself on his elbow and peered about him in the dim morning twilight.

The object he discerned most readily was an easel, giving him the secret
of his refuge. On the wooden walls of the cabin, which was fairly
spacious, water-color sketches were pinned at intervals, while on the
mantelpiece above a bricked fireplace one or two stood framed. Over the
mantelpiece a pair of snow-shoes were crossed as decorations, between
which hung a view of the city of Quebec. On a lay-figure in a corner was
thrown carelessly the sort of blanket coat worn by Canadians during winter
sports. Paints and palettes were arranged on a table by the wall, and on a
desk in the middle of the room were writing materials and books. More
books stood in a small suspended bookcase. Beside a comfortable
reading-chair one or two magazines lay on the floor. His gaze travelled
last to the large apron, or pinafore, on a peg fastened in a door
immediately beside his couch. The door suggested an inner room, and he got
up promptly to explore it. It proved to be cramped and dark, lighted only
from the larger apartment, which in its turn had but the one high north
window of the ordinary studio. The small room was little more than a shed
or "lean-to", serving the purposes of kitchen and storeroom combined. The
arrangements of the whole cabin showed that some one had built it with a
view to passing in seclusion a few days at a time without forsaking the
simpler amenities of civilized life; and it was clear that that "some one"
was a woman. What interested Ford chiefly for the moment was the discovery
of a sealed glass jar of water, from which he was able to slake his twenty
hours' thirst.

Returning to the room in which he had slept, he drew back the green silk
curtain covering the north light in order to take his bearings. As he had
guessed on the previous night, the slope on which the cabin was perched