"Frighten us!" said Mrs. Bradley. "Well, look there!"

She pointed to the window, which commanded a view of the veranda. Miss
Macy had dropped into the vacant chair, with her little feet stretched
out before her, her cheeks burning with heat and fire, her eyes partly
closed, her straw hat hanging by a ribbon round her neck, her brown
hair clinging to her ears and forehead in damp tendrils, and an enormous
palm-leaf fan in each hand violently playing upon this charming picture
of exhaustion and abandonment.

"She came tearing down to the mill, bare-backed on our half-broken
mustang, about half an hour ago, to call me 'to help you,'" explained
Bradley. "Heaven knows how she managed to do it!"




CHAPER II.


The medication of the woods was not overestimated by Bradley. There was
surely some occult healing property in that vast reservoir of balmy and
resinous odors over which The Lookout beetled and clung, and from which
at times the pure exhalations of the terraced valley seemed to rise.
Under its remedial influence and a conscientious adherence to the rules
of absolute rest and repose laid down for him, Mainwaring had no return
of the hemorrhage. The nearest professional medical authority, hastily
summoned, saw no reason for changing or for supplementing Bradley's
intelligent and simple treatment, although astounded that the patient