And still not a glimmer of the Admiral!  At this season of the year, when he should have been in evidence, it was ominously significant that he should be missing.  Peter trudged another half-mile, and stopped to rest.

“Let’s put this thing to the test,” he said to himself, seriously.  “That little chap has always been my Sign.  Well, now, if I meet one, something good is going to happen.  If I meet two, I’ll get my little chance to climb out of this hole.  If I meet three, it’s me for the open and the big chance to make good.  And if I don’t meet any at all—­why, I’ll be nobody but Riverton Peter Champneys.”

He didn’t give himself the chance that on a time Jean Jacques gave himself when he threw a stone at a tree, and decided that if it struck the tree he’d get to heaven, and if it missed he’d go to hell—­but so placed himself that there was nothing for that stone to do but hit the tree in front of it.  Peter would run his risks.

And still no Admiral!  It was silly; it was superstitious; it was childish; Peter was as well aware of that as anybody could be.  But his heart went down like a plummet.

He had turned into the grassy road that led to the River Swamp.  The pathway was bordered with sumac and sassafras and flowering elder, and clumps of fennel, and thickets of blackberry bramble.  In clear spaces the tall candle of the mullein stood up straight, a flame of yellow flowers flickering over it.  Near by was the thistle, shaking its purple paint-brush.

Peter stopped dead in his tracks and stared as if he weren’t willing to believe his own eyesight.  He went red and white, and his heavy heart turned a cart-wheel, and danced a jig, and began to sing as a young heart should.  On the farthest thistle, as if waiting for him to come, as if they knew he must come, with their sails hoisted over their backs, were three Red Admirals!

Peter dropped in the grass, doubled his long legs under him, and watched them, his mouth turned right side up, his eyes golden in his dark face.  Two of them presently flew away.  The third walked over the thistle, tentatively, flattened his wings to show his sash and shoulder-straps.

“Good morning, good luck!  You’re still my Sign!” said Peter.

The Red Admiral fluttered his wings again, as if he quite understood.  He allowed Peter to admire his under wings, the fore-wings so exquisitely jeweled and enameled, the lower like a miniature design for an oriental prayer-rug.  He sent Peter a message with his delicate, sensitive antenna, a wireless message of hope.  Then, with his quick, darting motion, he launched himself into his native element and was gone.

The day took on new loveliness, a happy, intimate, all-pervading beauty that flowed into one like light.  Never had the trees been so comradely, the grass so friendly, the swamp water so clear, so cool.