friend, Ann," said Toyner sadly.

Ann tossed her head. "Not with my leave."

"No," he assented; "but I want to tell you now that if we can't get on Markham's track I shall have to spy on you. You'll help him if you can, of course."

"I don't know where he is," said Ann sullenly.

"I do not believe you are telling the truth" (sadly); "but you may believe me, I have warned you."

People in Fentown went to sleep early. At about eleven that night all was still and lonely about the weather-stained, unpainted wooden house in which Ann lived.

Ann closed her house for the night. The work was a simple one: she set her knee against the door to shut it more firmly, and worked an old nail into the latch. Then she shook down the scant cotton curtains that were twisted aside from the windows. There were three windows, two in the living-room (which was also kitchen and beer-saloon) and one in the bedroom; that was the whole of the house. There was not an article of furniture in the place that was not absolutely necessary; what there was was clean. The girl herself was clean, middle-sized, and dressed in garments that were old and worn; there was about her appearance a certain brightness and quickness, which is the best part of beauty and grace. The very hair itself, turning black and curly, from the temples, seemed to lie glossy and smooth by reason of character that willed that it should lie so.

One small coal-oil lamp was the light of the house. When Ann had closed doors and windows she took it up and went into the bedroom. Neither room was small; there was a shadowy part round their edges which the lamp did not brighten. In the dimmer part of this inner room was a bed, on which a fair young girl was sleeping.

A curious thing now occurred. Ann, placing herself between the lamp and the window, deliberately went through a pantomime of putting herself to bed. She took care that the shadow of the brushing of her hair should be seen upon the window-curtain. She measured the distance, and threw her silhouette clearly upon it while she took off one or two of her outer garments. Her face had resolution and nervous eagerness written in it, but there was nothing of inward disquiet there; she was wholly satisfied in her own mind as to what she was doing. It was not a very profound mind, perhaps, but it was like a weapon burnished by constant and proper use.

She removed her shadow from the window-curtain when she removed her lamp to the bedside. She employed herself there for a minute or two in putting on the clothes she had taken off, and in tightly fastening up the hair that she had loosened; then she put out the lamp and got into bed. The wooden bedstead creaked, and rubbed against the side of the house as she turned herself upon it. The creaking and rubbing could be heard on the other side of the wall.

There was a man walking like a sentry outside who did hear. It was Bart Toyner, the constable.

After he heard the bed creak he still waited awhile, walking slowly round the house in silence and darkness. Then, as he passed the side where the bedroom was, there came the sound of a slight sleeping snore, repeated as regularly as the breath might come and go in a woman's breast.

After a while Toyner retreated with noiseless steps, standing still when he had moved away about fifty paces, looking at the house again with careful, suspicious eyes; then, as if satisfied, he slid back the iron shade that covered his lantern and, lighting his own steps, he walked away.

He had moved so quietly that the girl who lay upon the bed did not hear him. She did not, in fact, know for certain whether he had been there or not, much less that he had gone, so that she toilsomely kept up the pretence of that gentle snore for half an hour or more. It was very tiresome. Her bright black eyes were wide open as she lay performing this exercise. Her face never lost its look of strong resolution. At length, true to her acting, she moved her head sleepily, sighed heavily, and relapsed into silent breathing as a sleeper might. It was the acting of a true artist.

Half an hour more of silence upon her bed, and she crept off noiselessly; she lifted the corner of the window-curtain and looked out. There was not a light to be seen in any of the houses within sight, there was not a sound to be heard except the foam at the foot of the falls, the lapping of the nearer river, and the voice of a myriad crickets in the grass. She opened the window silently.

"Bart," she whispered. Then a little louder, "Bart—Bart Toyner."

The one thing that she wanted just then was to be alone, and of all people in the world Toyner was the man whom she least wanted to meet. Yet she called him. She got out of the window and took a few paces on one side and on the other in the darkness, still calling his name in a voice of soft entreaty. In his old drunken days she had scorned him. She scorned him now more than ever, but she still believed that her call would never reach his ear in vain. In this hour of her extremity she must make sure of his absence by running the risk of having to endure his nearer presence. When she knew that he was not there, she took a bundle from inside the room, shut down the window through which she had escaped, and wrapping her head and hands in a thin black shawl such as Indian women drape themselves with, she sped off over the dark grass to the river.

Overhead, the stars sparkled in a sky that seemed almost black. The houses and trees, the thick scrubby bushes and long grass, were just visible in all the shades of monochrome that night produces.

In a few minutes she was beyond all the houses, gliding through a wood by the river. The trees were high and black, and there was a faint musical sound of wind in them. She heard it as she heard everything. More than once she stopped, not fearful, but watching. She must have looked like the spirit of primeval silence as she stood at such moments, lifting her shawl from her head to listen; then she went on. She knew where a boat had by chance been left that day; it was a small rough boat, lying close under the roots of a pine tree, and tied to its trunk. In this she bestowed her bundle, and untying the string, pushed from the shore. She could hardly see the opposite side of the little Ahwewee in the darkness; she rowed at once into the midst of its rapid current; once there, she dipped her oars to steer rather than to propel. She travelled swiftly with the black stream.

For half an hour or more she was only intent upon steering her boat. Then, when she had come about three miles from the falls, she was in still water, and began rowing with all her strength to make the boat shoot forward as rapidly as before.

The water was as still now as if the river had widened and deepened into an inland sea; yet in the darkness to all appearance the river was as narrow, the outline of the trees on either side appearing black and high just within sight. When the moon rose this mystery of nature was revealed, for the river was a lake, spreading far and wide on either side. The lake was caused by dams built farther down the stream, and the forest that had covered the ground before still reared itself above the water, the bare dead trees standing thick, except in the narrow, winding passage of the original stream.

The moon rose large, very large indeed, and very yellow. There was smoke of distant forest fires in the dry hot air, which turned the moon as golden as a pane of amber