ravine. The ferns drenched his stirrups, as he brushed through
them, and each dripping tree-top broke the sunlight and let it
drop in tent-like beams through the shimmering undermist. A bird
flashed here and there through the green gloom, but there was no
sound in the air but the footfalls of his horse and the easy
creaking of leather under him, the drip of dew overhead and the
running of water below. Now and then he could see the same slender
foot-prints in the rich loam and he saw them in the sand where the
first tiny brook tinkled across the path from a gloomy ravine.
There the little creature had taken a flying leap across it and,
beyond, he could see the prints no more. He little guessed that
while he halted to let his horse drink, the girl lay on a rock
above him, looking down. She was nearer home now and was less
afraid; so she had slipped from the trail and climbed above it
there to watch him pass. As he went on, she slid from her perch
and with cat-footed quiet followed him. When he reached the river
she saw him pull in his horse and eagerly bend forward, looking
into a pool just below the crossing. There was a bass down there
in the clear water--a big one--and the man whistled cheerily and
dismounted, tying his horse to a sassafras bush and unbuckling a
tin bucket and a curious looking net from his saddle. With the net
in one hand and the bucket in the other, he turned back up the
creek and passed so close to where she had slipped aside into the
bushes that she came near shrieking, but his eyes were fixed on a
pool of the creek above and, to her wonder, he strolled straight
into the water, with his boots on, pushing the net in front of
him.

He was a "raider" sure, she thought now, and he was looking for a
"moonshine" still, and the wild little thing in the bushes smiled