The result of this simple monosyllable exceeded her fondest expectations.  There was a sharp exclamation of surprise, followed by a cry that might have meant dismay or wrath or both, as something metallic tinkled and slid, presently coming to a stop beside the hat, where it revealed itself as a pair of enormous, aluminum-mounted brown-green spectacles.  After it, on all fours, scrambled the owner.

Shock number one:  It wasn’t the man at all!  Instead of the black-haired, flanneled, slender Adonis whom the trouble-maker confidently assumed to have been under that hat, she beheld a brownish-clad, stocky figure with a very blond head.

Shock number two:  The figure was groping lamentably and blindly in the undergrowth, and when, for an instant, the face was turned half toward her, she saw that the eyes were squinted tight-closed, with a painful extreme of muscular tension about them.

Presently one of the ranging hands encountered the spectacles, and settled upon them.  With careful touches, it felt them all over.  A mild grunt, presumably of satisfaction, made itself heard, and the figure got to its feet.  But before the face turned again, the girl had stepped back, out of range.

Silence, above and below; a silence the long persistence of which came near to constituting shock number three.  What sort of hermit had she intruded upon?  Into what manner of remote Brahministic contemplation had she injected that impertinent “Boo!”?  Who, what, how, why—­

“Say it again.”  The request came from under the rock.  Evidently the spectacled owner had resumed his original situation.

“Say what again?” she inquired.

“Anything,” returned the voice, with child-like content.

“Oh, I—­I hope you didn’t break your glasses.”

“No; you didn’t.”

On consideration, she decided to ignore this prompt countering of the pronoun.

“I thought you were some one else,” she observed.

“Well, so I am, am I not?”

“So you are what?”

“Some one else than you thought.”

“Why, yes, I suppose—­But I meant some one else besides yourself.”

“I only wish I were.”

“Why?” she asked, intrigued by the fervid inflection of the wish.

“Because then I’d be somewhere else than in this infernal hell-hole of a black-and-tan nursery of revolution, fever, and trouble!”

“I think it one of the loveliest spots I’ve ever seen,” said she loftily.

“How long have you been here?”

“On this rock?  Perhaps five minutes.”

“Not on the rock.  In Caracuna?”

“Quite a long time.  Nearly a fortnight.”

The commentary on this was so indefinite that she was moved to inquire:—­

“Is that a local dialect you’re speaking?”

“No; that was a grunt.”

“I don’t think it was a very polite grunt, even as grunts go.”