“Well, suppose we are; we must be seen together eventually,” he remonstrated.

The young girl made an involuntary gesture of impatient negation, but checked herself.  “Don’t let us talk of that now.  Come, while I am here under your own roof—­” she pointed to the high interlaced boughs above them—­“you must be hospitable.  Show me your home; tell me, isn’t it a little gloomy sometimes?”

“It never has been; I never thought it would be until the moment you leave it to-day.”

She pressed his hand briefly and in a half-perfunctory way, as if her vanity had accepted and dismissed the compliment.  “Take me somewhere,” she said inquisitively, “where you stay most; I do not seem to see you here,” she added, looking around her with a slight shiver.  “It is so big and so high.  Have you no place where you eat and rest and sleep?”

“Except in the rainy season, I camp all over the place—­at any spot where I may have been shooting or collecting.”

“Collecting?” queried Nellie.

“Yes; with the herbarium, you know.”

“Yes,” said Nellie dubiously.  “But you told me once—­the first time we ever talked together,” she added, looking in his eyes—­“something about your keeping your things like a squirrel in a tree.  Could we not go there?  Is there not room for us to sit and talk without being brow-beaten and looked down upon by these supercilious trees?”

“It’s too far away,” said Low truthfully, but with a somewhat pronounced emphasis, “much too far for you just now; and it lies on another trail that enters the wood beyond.  But come, I will show you a spring known only to myself, the wood ducks, and the squirrels.  I discovered it the first day I saw you, and gave it your name.  But you shall christen it yourself.  It will be all yours, and yours alone, for it is so hidden and secluded that I defy any feet but my own or whoso shall keep step with mine to find it.  Shall that foot be yours, Nellie?”

Her face beamed with a bright assent.  “It may be difficult to track it from here,” he said, “but stand where you are a moment, and don’t move, rustle, nor agitate the air in any way.  The woods are still now.”  He turned at right angles with the trail, moved a few paces into the ferns and underbrush, and then stopped with his finger on his lips.  For an instant both remained motionless; then with his intent face bent forward and both arms extended, he began to sink slowly upon one knee and one side, inclining his body with a gentle, perfectly-graduated movement until his ear almost touched the ground.  Nellie watched his graceful figure breathlessly, until, like a bow unbent, he stood suddenly erect again, and beckoned to her without changing the direction of his face.

“What is it?” she asked eagerly.

“All right; I have found it,” he continued, moving forward without turning his head.