"I was 'high up' when I wrote them," answered Andrew with a laugh. "Look over there on the hill--see those two old locusts? They are fern palms and those scrub oaks are palmettos. The white frost makes the meadow a lagoon and this rock is the pier of my bridge where I came out to watch one night to test the force of a freshet. Over there the light from Mrs. Matilda's fires is the construction camp and beyond that hill is my bungalow. That's the same old moon that's rising relentlessly to murder the stars again. Do you want to stay and watch the tragedy--or hunt?" Without a word Caroline sank down on the dried leaves that lay in a drift on the edge of the bluff. Andrew crouched close beside her to the windward. And the ruthless old moon that was putting the stars out of business by the second was not in the least abashed to find them gazing at her as she blustered up over the ridge, round and red with exertion. "Were you alone on that pier?" asked Caroline with the utmost naïveté, as she snuggled down deeper into the collar of the sweater. "I'm generally alone--in most ways," answered Andrew, the suspicion of a laugh covering the sadness in his tone. "I seem to see myself going through life alone unless something happens--quick!" The bitter note sounded plainly this time and cut with an ache into her consciousness. "I've been a little lonely, too--always, until just lately and now I don't feel that way at all;" she looked at him thoughtfully with moonlit eyes that were deep like sapphires. "I wonder why?" Andrew Sevier's heart stopped dead still for a second and then began to pound in his breast as if entrapped. For the moment his voice was utterly useless and he prayed helplessly for a meed of self-control that might aid him to gain a sane footing. Then just at that moment the old genie of the forests, who gloats through the seasons over myriads of wooings that are carried on in the fastnesses of his green woods, sounded a long, low, guttural groan that rose to a blood-curdling shriek, from the branches just above the head of the moon-mad man and girl. For an instrument he used the throat of an enraged old hoot-owl, perturbed by the intrusion of the noise of the distant hunt and the low-voiced conversation on his wonted privacy. And the experienced ancient succeeded in precipitating the crisis of the situation with magical promptness, for Caroline sprang to her feet, turned with a shudder and buried her head in Andrew's hunting coat somewhere near the left string for cartridge loops. She clung to him in abject terror. "Sweetheart!" he exclaimed, giving her a little shake, "it's only a cross old owl--don't be frightened," and he raised her cheek against his own and drew her nearer. But Caroline trembled and clung and seemed unable to face the situation. Andrew essayed further reassurance by turning his head until his lips pressed a tentative kiss against the curve of her chin.