I don't think it could have been long before I roused, for there was no lessening of the brilliant light, such as happens when the moon declines. It was well for me that I was unconscious but a short time, I suspect, for as my eyes came open I at once became aware of another pair above me. A pair which seemed made of sulphur, marked with alternate red and green rings, glowing wickedly. Then I made out the contour of a dim body perhaps three feet in length stretched upon a low limb just over me. It was a gigantic wild-cat, and he was stalking me. I doubt not he would have dropped within another five minutes, for even as I watched, his back began to arch and the claws of his hind feet to rustle along the bark. With that suggestive motion his head also drooped below the limb, and it came to me he was gauging the distance for his spring. I was no hunter, but 'Crombie was, and from him I had learned that wild-cats will not attack a man unless driven by hunger, or brought to bay in a corner. So I sat up incontinently; threw out my arms and shouted. With the agility of his tribe he turned promptly, and another second was scuttling up the tree. I found I had a painful welt across the top of my forehead, but no other injury was apparent. My heart turned sick as recollection came back on swallow wings. There was nothing left but to go home. I had myself to thank for my predicament. But where was home? Whither my flight had led me I possessed no idea. I had tried to follow the elusive wake of two night-roamers, and they had proven will-o'-the-wisps. Why had not the Dryad stopped at my call? I wondered, as I moved doggedly away from the spot. Surely she had heard. Surely she knew who it was, for no one else called her by that name. Could it be that Granny had perverted her mind? Or was it that she did not care? That I was only an incident, and had been cast from her life as quickly and suddenly as I had entered it? I would not believe this; I could not believe it. The blow which I had so recently sustained wrought a radical change in my mental condition, and while my breast still burned with implacable resentment toward the nameless something which had caused me to miss catching Celeste, I found that my thoughts were freer, and comparatively lucid. I could not believe that she had thrust me below her life's horizon, and gone singing through the woods as though nothing had happened. The idea was monstrous, appalling, revolting. It was wholly unacceptable. That my two visits to her home bore no fruit I laid at Granny's door. The old beldam had managed it in some way. Had kept the girl hidden, and had prevented anyone within the house from answering my summons. Why had the Dryad burst out weeping and run indoors when Granny thought she had convicted me of duplicity, and ordered me from the place? Ah! my soul! there was comfort in that! Celeste did not cry from fright; she was used to Granny's tantrums. She cried because for the moment she saw things in