and perfectly material passion—­which found vent as the difficulties of their undeviating progress through the underbrush increased.  At last she lost her shoe again, and stopped short.  “It’s a pity your Indian friends did not christen you ‘Wild Mustard’ or ‘Clover,’” she said satirically, “that you might have had some sympathies and longings for the open fields instead of these horrid jungles!  I know we will not get back in time.”

Unfortunately, Low accepted this speech literally and with his remorseless gravity.  “If my name annoys you, I can get it changed by the legislature, you know, and I can find out what my father’s name was, and take that.  My mother, who died in giving me birth, was the daughter of a chief.”

“Then your mother was really an Indian?” said Nellie, “and you are—­” She stopped short.

“But I told you all this the day we first met,” said Low, with grave astonishment.  “Don’t you remember our long talk coming from church?”

“No,” said Nellie coldly, “you didn’t tell me.”  But she was obliged to drop her eyes before the unwavering, undeniable truthfulness of his.

“You have forgotten,” he said calmly; “but it is only right you should have your own way in disposing of a name that I have cared little for; and as you’re to have a share of it—­”

“Yes, but it’s getting late, and if we are not going forward—­” interrupted the girl impatiently.

“We are going forward,” said Low imperturbably; “but I wanted to tell you, as we were speaking on that subject” (Nellie looked at her watch), “I’ve been offered the place of botanist and naturalist in Professor Grant’s survey of Mount Shasta, and if I take it—­why, when I come back, darling—­well—­”

“But you’re not going just yet,” broke in Nellie, with a new expression in her face.

“No.”

“Then we need not talk of it now,” she said, with animation.

Her sudden vivacity relieved him.  “I see what’s the matter,” he said gently, looking down at her feet; “these little shoes were not made to keep step with a moccasin.  We must try another way.”  He stooped as if to secure the erring buskin, but suddenly lifted her like a child to his shoulder.  “There,” he continued, placing her arm round his neck, “you are clear of the ferns and brambles now, and we can go on.  Are you comfortable?” He looked up, read her answer in her burning eyes and the warm lips pressed to his forehead at the roots of his straight dark hair, and again moved onward as in a mesmeric dream.  But he did not swerve from his direct course, and with a final dash through the undergrowth parted the leafy curtain before the spring.