suddenly that Nellie was still half clinging to his neck as he stood
erect. "Hush!" he whispered; "some one is near!"

He disengaged her anxious hands gently, leaped upon the slanting
tree-trunk, and running half-way up its incline with the agility of a
squirrel, stretched himself at full length upon it and listened.

To the impatient, inexplicably startled girl, it seemed an age before he
rejoined her.

"You are safe," he said; "he is going by the western trail towards
Indian Spring."

"Who is HE?" she asked, biting her lips with a poorly restrained gesture
of mortification and disappointment.

"Some stranger," replied Low.

"As long as he wasn't coming here, why did you give me such a fright?"
she said pettishly. "Are you nervous because a single wayfarer happens
to stray here?"

"It was no wayfarer, for he tried to keep near the trail," said Low. "He
was a stranger to the wood, for he lost his way every now and then. He
was seeking or expecting some one, for he stopped frequently and waited
or listened. He had not walked far, for he wore spurs that tinkled and
caught in the brush; and yet he had not ridden here, for no horse's
hoofs passed the road since we have been here. He must have come from
Indian Spring."