“Excuse me, Miss—­but—­now how many miles to—­what’s the name of the nearest settlement—­I suppose you live hereabouts?”

“What did you say?”

“I say is there any place where I could get to stop a day or so in Amalon?”

“Oh—­I didn’t understand—­I think so; at least, my father sometimes—­but there’s Elder Wardle, he often takes in travellers.”

“You say your father—­”

“Not always—­I don’t know, I’m sure—­” she looked doubtful.

“Oh, all right!  I’ll ask him,—­if you’ll show me his place.”

“It’s the first place on the left after you leave the canon—­with the big peach orchard—­I’m not going home just yet.”

He stroked the muzzle of the horse.

“Oh, I’m in no hurry, I’m just looking over the country a little.  Your father’s name is—­”

“Ask for Elder Rae—­or one of his wives will say if they can keep you over night.”

She caught something new in his glance, and felt the blood in her face.

“I must go now—­you can find your way—­I must go.”

“Well, if you must go,”—­he picked up his hat,—­“but I’ll see you again.  You’ll be coming home this evening, I reckon?”

“The first house on the left,” she answered, and stepped once more across the trail and into the edge of the pines.  She went with the same mien of importance that Tom Potwin wore on his endless errands; and with quite as little reason, too; for the direction in which she had started so earnestly would have led her, after a few steps, straight up a granite cliff a thousand feet high.  As she entered the pines she heard him mount his horse and ride down the trail, and then the rest of his song came back to her:—­

  “Will you forsake your houses and lands,
     Will you forsake your baby-O? 
   Will you forsake your own wedded lord
     To foller a Gypsy Davy-O?

  “Yes, I’ll forsake my houses and lands,
     Yes, I’ll forsake my baby-O,
   For I am bewitched, and I know the reason why;
     It’s a follering a Gypsy Davy-O.

  “Last night I lay on a velvet couch
     Beside my lord and baby-O;
   To-night I shall lie on the cold, cold ground,
     In the arms of a Gypsy Davy-O.

  “To-night I shall lie on the cold, cold ground,
     In the arms of a Gypsy Davy-O!”

When his voice died away and she knew he must be gone, she came out again to her nook beside the stream where, a moment before, her dream had filled her.  But now, though nothing had happened beyond the riding by of a strange youth, the dream no longer sufficed.  In place of the moonlit balcony was the figure of this young stranger swaying with his horse down between the hollowed shoulders of the Pine Mountains and reining up suddenly to sweep his broad hat low in front of her.  She was surprised by the clearness with which she could recall the details of his appearance,—­a boyish-looking fellow, with wide-open blue eyes and a sunbrowned face under his yellow hair, the smallest of moustaches, and a smile of such winning good-humour that it had seemed to force her own lips apart in answer.