She was thinking rapidly. For four years they had not met. At one time she believed him to be dead. But in the end he had been saved, had come back, and, ignoring the plaudits of an entire Christendom, had addressed himself straight to her. For one of them, at least, this meeting was a crisis. What would they first say to each other? how be equal to the situation? how rise to its dramatic possibilities? But the moment had come to them suddenly, had found them all unprepared. There was no time to think of adequate words. Afterward, when she reviewed this encounter, she told herself that they both had failed, and that if the meeting had been faithfully reproduced upon the stage or in the pages of a novel it would have seemed tame and commonplace. These two, living the actual scene, with all the deep, strong, real emotions of them surging to the surface, the vitality of them, all aroused and vibrating, suddenly confronting actuality itself, were not even natural; were not even "true to life." It was as though they had parted but a fortnight ago. Bennett caught his cap from his head and came toward her, exclaiming: "Miss Searight, I believe." And she, reaching her right hand over the left, that still held the reins, leaned from her high seat, shaking hands with him and replying: "Well--Mr. Bennett, I'm so very glad to see you again. Where did you come from?" "From the City--and from seventy-six degrees north latitude." "I congratulate you. We had almost given up hope of you." "Thank you," he answered. "We were not so roseate with hope ourselves--all the time. But I have not felt as though I had really come back until this--well, until I had reached--the road between Bannister and Fourth Lake, for instance," and his face relaxed to its characteristic grim smile. "You reached it too late, then," she responded. "Your dog has killed our Dan, and, what is much worse, started to eat him. He's a perfect savage." "Kamiska? Well," he added, reflectively, "it's my fault for setting her a bad example. I ate her trace-mate, and was rather close to eating Kamiska herself at one time. But I didn't come down here to talk about that." "You are looking rather worn, Mr. Bennett." "I suppose. The doctor sent me into the country to call back the roses to my pallid cheek. So I came down here--to geologise. I presume that excuse will do as well as another." Then suddenly he cried: "Hello, steady there; _quick_, Miss Searight!"