before it would boil, and stepped cautiously in the direction of
the sound. A dozen paces beyond the bulwark of rocks he came upon
a fairly well-worn moose trail; surveying its direction from the
top of a boulder, he made up his mind that the bear was dining on
mountain-ash berries where he saw one of the huge crimson splashes
of the fruit a hundred yards away.

He went on quietly. Under the big ash tree there was no sign of a
feast, recent or old. He proceeded, the trail turning almost at
right angles from the ash tree, as if about to bury itself in the
deeper forest. His exploratory instinct led him on for another
hundred yards, when the trail swung once more to the left. He
heard the swift trickling run of water among rocks, and again a
sound. But his mind did not associate the sound which he heard
this time with the one made by the bear. It was not the breaking
of a stick or the snapping of brush. It was more a part of the
musical water-sound itself, a strange key struck once to interrupt
the monotone of a rushing stream.

Over a gray hog-back of limestone Philip climbed to look down into
a little valley of smooth-washed boulders and age-crumbled rock
through which the stream picked its way. He descended to the white
margin of sand and turned sharply to the right, where a little
pool had formed at the base of a huge rock. And there he stopped,
his heart in his throat, every fibre in his body charged with a
sudden electrical thrill at what he beheld. For a moment he was
powerless to move. He stood--and stared.

At the edge of the pool twenty steps from him was kneeling a
woman. Her back was toward him, and in that moment she was as