"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
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