Here and there a pheasant ran headlong across her path; a rabbit or two scuttled through the ferns. Nearing the hazel copse she slackened speed and advanced with caution, scanning the thicket ahead. Suddenly, on the ground in front of her, she caught sight of a small iron cylinder. Evidently it had rolled down there from the slope above. Very gingerly she approached and picked it up. It was not very heavy, not too big for her skirt pocket. As she slipped it into the pocket of her blue woolen peasant-skirt, her quick eye caught a movement among the hazel bushes on the hillside to her right. She sank to the ground and lay huddled there. CHAPTER XXV KAMERAD Down the slope, through the thicket, came a man. She could see his legs only. He wore dust-coloured breeches and tan puttees, like Sticky Smith’s and Kid Glenn’s, only he wore no big, clanking Mexican spurs. The man passed in front of her, his burly body barely visible through the leaves, but not his features. She rose, turned, ran over the moss, hurried through the ferns of the warren, retracing her steps, and arrived breathless at the _lavoir_. And scarcely had she dropped to her knees and seized soap and paddle, than a squat, bronzed, powerfully built young man appeared on the opposite bank of the stream, stepping briskly out of the bushes. He did not notice her at first. He looked about for a place to jump, found one, leaped safely across, and came on at a swinging stride across the meadow. The girl, bending above the water, suddenly struck sharply with her paddle. Instantly the man halted in his tracks, knee deep in clover. Maryette, apparently unconscious of his presence, continued to soap and scrub and slap her wash, singing in her clear, untrained voice of a child the chansonette she had made that morning. But out of the corner of her eyes she kept him in view--saw him come sauntering forward as though reassured, became aware that he had approached very near, was standing behind her. Turning presently, where she knelt, to pick up another soiled garment, she suddenly encountered his dark gaze; and her start and slight exclamation were entirely genuine. "_Mon Dieu!_" she said, with offended emphasis, "one does not approach people that way, without a word!" "Did I frighten mademoiselle?" he asked, in recognizable French, but with an accent unpleasantly familiar to her. "If I did, I am very sorry and I offer mademoiselle a thousand excuses and apologies." The girl, kneeling there in the clover, flashed a smile at him over her shoulder. The quick colour reddened his face and powerful neck. The girl had been right; her smile had been an answer that he was not going to ignore. "What a pretty spot for a _lavoir_," he said, stepping to the edge of the pool; "and what a pretty girl to adorn it!" Maryette tossed her head: "Be pleased to pass your way, monsieur. Do you not perceive that I am busy?"