While the girl was still staring in rueful indignation at this
snub from her dog, Brice found time and thought to stare with
still greater intentness up the tree, at a bunch of bristling
fur which occupied the first crotch and which glared
wrathfully down at the collie.

He made out the contour and bashed-in profile of a huge
Persian cat, silver-gray of hue, dense of coat, green of eye.

"So that's Simon Cameron?" he queried. "What a beauty! And
what a quaintly Oriental name you've chosen for him!"

"He is named," said the girl, still icily, "for a statesman my
parents admired. My brother says our Persian's hair is just
the same color as Simon Cameron's used to be. That's why we
named him that. You'll notice the cat has the beautifullest
silvery gray hair--"

"Prematurely gray, I'm sure," put in Brice, civilly.

She looked at him, in doubt. But his face was grave. And she
turned to the task of coaxing the indignant Simon Cameron from
his tree-refuge.

"Simon Cameron always walks around the grounds with me, at
sunset," she explained, in intervals of cajoling the grumpy
mass of fluff to descend. "And he ran ahead of me, to-day, to
the edge of the path. That must have been when Bobby caught
sight of him..."