“That’s the reason that women get at us to do us, youngster; we don’t approach them as human to human but we go up on their blind side and they come back at us in the dark with a knife.”  And as he spoke all of the gayness of joy was lost from the voice of my beloved Gouverneur and in its place was a bitterness.

“With pardon I say that it is not a truth of all women, Your Excellency,” I answered with pride as my head went up high at his condemnation of the sex of which I was one.

“You don’t know what you are talking about, youngster.  They all think I am cold and pass me along, except a few experienced ladies who—­shall I say?—­adventure for graft with me.  I’ve been too busy really to love or let love but I know ’em and you don’t.  Let’s stop talking about what concerns neither of us and go to bed.  See this young cedar tree?  I’m going to throw my blanket across it and with these extra boughs I’ll make a genuine cradle for each of us on the opposite sides of the trunk.  Then we’ll cover with your blanket and be as comfortable as two middies in their hammocks in a man of war.  This is a piece of woodcraft of my own invention and I’m proud of it, old scout.”

And while he talked my Gouverneur Faulkner had prepared those cradles of our blankets unstrapped from the saddles of the horses at feeding time, seated himself upon the edge of one of them and began to pull from his feet his riding boots.  “Take off your boots and your coat, youngster, and turn in.  I’ll take the windward side and you can bivouac against the fire.  Good night!” As he finished speaking my Gouverneur Faulkner rolled beneath that blanket upon the outer edge and left for me the hammock next to the fire, sheltered from a cool wind that had begun to come up from the valley.

Almost immediately, so that I should not have a fright, I lifted the blanket and crawled into the branches of the fragrant tree.  Even as I did so I perceived a loud breathing of deep sleep from my Gouverneur Faulkner; but to me came no repose.

Awake through the bright night, I lay there in the sweet branches of the young tree beside the great Gouverneur of one of the greatest states of America and perceived clearly the pass to which my course of lies and dishonor had led me.  And from that wild daredevil, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, was born the honest woman Roberta who must extricate herself from a situation not to be longer endured, even if discovery was not upon me.

“I will finish this journey with my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner,” I counseled myself, “upon which it is of a certainty that this plot for his ruin in the world of his politics will be averted, and I will return to the home of my Uncle, the General Robert.  If I be not discovered in my woman’s estate in a few days’ space of time I will endeavor to do some piece of loving kindness that will keep me in the memory of all who have given me love, from poor black Bonbon up to His Excellency himself here