He much preferred talking to her about--almost nothing at all. She was a good walker, and they used to start on long tramps through the woods for the neighboring hills. Always it was to some definite point like Caterpillar Ridge. Never on these hikes did they succeed in reaching their objective. Allston, at times, felt rather mean about that because it seemed to disturb her. And it obliged him to adopt the rather underhanded expedient of allowing her to believe that the bit of gas he had once inhaled was responsible for his weakness, when, as a matter of fact, it was nothing but the joy of sprawling out lazily at her feet. He had never felt better in his life and he knew it. He used to pick out the sunny places--tiny coves lying like pockets or mountain nests at the foot of bold rocks. If he could find one near a brook, so much the better, for this gave him the excuse of fishing while the rippling tinkle of the falling water sang with her a duet. It is not on record that he brought home any fish, but this was of minor importance. Your true sportsman never fishes for the sake of fish. But always he brought home something--if only the memory of a dimpling smile caught unexpectedly in response to some bit of fooling. He liked to make her smile unexpectedly. It was like angling in an untried brook. Her eyes were the pools--so deep that one could not see bottom. And like mountain pools continually filling with fresh water, her thoughts ran through them. One could never tell when a smile, like a quick trout, might flash into them from somewhere, and jump at his bait. That was worth waiting for. So they sat one afternoon just off the road leading to Big Laurel Cove--not knowing except in a general way where they were. It would not have mattered greatly to Allston had he realized he was within a short distance of Bud Childers’s shack. As far as he was concerned at this time Bud Childers did not exist. CHAPTER VIII Bud Childers, however, did exist. He existed more intensely than ever. From the moment he met Allston and Roxie together he had burned like a man with a fever. It was a dangerous fever--a fever bred of baffled desire, of jealousy, of hate. Since he had been old enough to stand on his two feet and fight back, he had never been bullied as Allston had bullied him. Always he had been able to leave his mark even if meeting defeat in the end. But in the last ten years he had never until now met defeat. To this humiliating reversal Allston had added the insult of humbling him before Roxie. How Bud ever found his way back to Big Laurel Cove that night he never knew, for if ever a man was blind with rage it was he; literally blind. He saw nothing of the rocky road over which he traveled, but he took it at a gallop, cursing the mare and digging his heels into her sides whenever she paused. He turned her into the barn all dripping with lather as she was and never removed her saddle. Then he stumbled to his house and locked himself in.