Until this night I had not crossed that border, nor ever thought to, or dreamed of doing it.  No beggar-maiden-seeking king was I by nature, nor ever felt for shabby dress and common folk aught but the mixture of pity and aversion which breeds a kind of charity.  And, I once supposed, were the Queen of Sheba herself to pass me in a slattern’s rags, only her rags could I ever see, for all her beauty.

But how was it now with me that, from the very first, I had been first conscious of this maid herself, then of her rags.  How was it that I felt no charity, nor pity of that sort, only a vague desire that she should understand me better—­ know that I meant her kindness—­ God knows what I wished of her, and why her grey eyes haunted me, and why I could not seem to put her from my mind.

That now she fully possessed my mind I convinced myself was due to my very natural curiosity concerning her; forgetting that a week ago I should not have condescended to curiosity.

Who and what was she?  She had been schooled; that was plain in voice and manner.  And, though she used me with scant courtesy, I was convinced she had been schooled in manners, too, and was no stranger to usages and customs which mark indelibly where birth and breeding do not always.

Why was she here?  Why alone?  Where were her natural protectors then?  What would be her fate a-gypsying through a land blackened with war, or haunting camps and forts, penniless, in rags—­ and her beauty ever a flaming danger to herself, despite her tatters aud because of them.

I slept at last; I do not know how long.  The stars still glittered overhead when I awoke, remembered, and suddenly sat upright.

She was gone.  I might have known it.  But over me there came a rush of fear and anger and hurt pride; and died, leaving a strange, dull aching.

Over my arm I threw my rifle-frock, looked dully about to find my belt, discovered it at my feet.  As I buckled it, from the hatchet-sling something fell; and I stooped to pick it up.

It was a wild-rose stem bearing a bud unclosed.  And to a thorn a shred of silver birch-bark clung impaled.  On it was scratched with a knife’s keen point a message which I could not read until once more I crept in to our fire, which Mount had lighted for our breakfast.

And there I read her message:  “A rose for your ring, comrade.  And be not angry with me.”

I read it again, then curled it to a tiny cylinder and placed it in my pouch, glancing sideways at the reclining Mohican.  Boyd began to murmur and stretch in his blanket, then relaxed once more.

So I lay down, leaving Jack Mount a-cooking ashen cakes, and yawning.

CHAPTER V

 The gathering

Now, no sooner had we broken camp, covered our fire, packed, saddled, and mounted, than all around us, as we advanced, the wilderness began to wear an aspect very different to that brooding solitude which hitherto had been familiar to us—­ our shelter and our menace also.