her native woods. Half laughingly, half earnestly, he tried to kiss her;
she struggled for some time strongly, but at the last moment yielded,
with a slight return and the exchange of a subtle fire that thrilled
him, and left him standing confused and astounded as she ran away. He
watched her lithe, nymph-like figure disappear in the checkered shadows
of the wood, and then he turned briskly down the half-hidden trail. His
eyesight was keen, he made good progress, and was soon well on his way
toward the distant ridge.

But Flip's return had not been as rapid. When she reached the wood she
crept to its beetling verge, and, looking across the canyon, watched
Lance's figure as it vanished and reappeared in the shadows and
sinuosities of the ascent. When he reached the ridge the outlying fog
crept across the summit, caught him in its embrace, and wrapped him
from her gaze. Flip sighed, raised herself, put her alternate foot on
a stump, and took a long pull at her too-brief stockings. When she had
pulled down her skirt and endeavored once more to renew the intimacy
that had existed in previous years between the edge of her petticoat and
the top of her stockings, she sighed again, and went home.




CHAPTER III.


For six months the sea fogs monotonously came and went along the
Monterey coast; for six months they beleaguered the Coast Range with
afternoon sorties of white hosts that regularly swept over the mountain
crest, and were as regularly beaten back again by the leveled lances of