relieved by bright colored dresses, the jackets of the drivers of a
large sutler's wagon, whose white canvas head marked the entrance of the
copse, and all the paraphernalia of a picnic. It was a party gotten up
by the foreign guests to the ladies of the fort, prepared and arranged
by the active Lady Elfrida, assisted by the only gentleman of the party,
Peter Atherly, who, from his acquaintance with the locality, was allowed
to accompany them. The other gentlemen, who with a large party of
officers and soldiers were shooting in the vicinity, were sufficiently
near for protection. They would rejoin the ladies later.

"It does not seem in the least as if we were miles away from any town
or habitation," said Lady Runnybroke, complacently seating herself on a
stump, "and I shouldn't be surprised to see a church tower through those
trees. It's very like the hazel copse at Longworth, you know. Not at all
what I expected."

"For the matter of that neither are the Indians," said the Hon. Evelyn
Rayne. "Did you ever see such grotesque creatures in their cast-off
boots and trousers? They're no better than gypsies. I wonder what Mr.
Atherly can find in them."

"And he a rich man, too,--they say he's got a mine in California worth
a million,--to take up a craze like this," added the lively Mrs. Captain
Joyce, "that's what gets me! You know," she went on confidentially,
"that cranks and reformers are always poor--it's quite natural; but
I don't see what he, a rich man, expects to make by his reforms, I'm
sure."

"He'll get over it in time," said the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, "they all do.
At least he expects to get the reforms he wants in a year, and then he's