"How long, ma'am, if I may ask, have you known that the little black horse was tangled up?" Miss Ellinor's eyes shifted wildly. She broke a twig from a mahogany bush and examined the swelling buds with minutest care. "Well?" said her ruthless inquisitor sternly. "Since--since I went for your hat," she confessed in a half whisper. "To deceive me so!" Pain, grief, surprise, reproach, were in his words. "Have you anything to say?" he added sadly. A slender shoe peeped out beneath her denim skirt and tapped on a buried boulder. Ellinor regarded the toetip with interest and curiosity. Then, half-audibly: "We were having such a good time.... And it might never happen again!" He captured both her hands. She drew back a little--ever so little; she trembled slightly, but her eyes met his frankly and bravely. "No, no!... Not now.... Go, now, Mr. Bransford. Go at once. We will have a pleasant day to remember." "Until the next pleasant day," said resolute Bransford, openly exultant. "But see here, now--I can't go to Lake's camp or to Lake's ball"--here Miss Ellinor pouted distinctly--"or anything that is Lake's. After your masked ball, then what?" "New York; but it's only so far--on the map." She held her hands apart very slightly to indicate the distance. "On a little map, that is." "I'll drop in Saturdays," said Jeff. "Do! I want to hear you sing the rest about the little eohippus." "If you'll sing about Sandy!" suggested Jeff. "Why not? Good-by now--I must go." "And you won't sing about Sandy to any one else?" The girl considered doubtfully. "Why--I don't know--I've known you for a very little while, if you please." She gathered up her belongings. "But we're friends?" "_No! No!_" said Jeff vehemently. "You won't sing it to any one else--Ellinor?" She drew a line in the dust. "If you won't cross that line," she said, "I'll tell you." Mr. Bransford grasped a sapling with a firm clutch and shook it to try its strength. "A bird in the bush is the noblest work of God," he announced. "I'll take a chance." Her eyes were shining. "You've promised!" she said. She paused: when she spoke again her voice was low and a trifle unsteady. "I won't sing about Sandy to--any one else--Jeff!" Then she fled. Like Lot's wife, she looked back from the hillside. Jeff clung desperately to the sapling with one hand; from the other a handkerchief--hers--fluttered a good-by message. She threw him a farewell, with an ambiguous gesture. * * * * * It was late when Jeff reached Rosebud Camp. He unsaddled Nigger Baby, the little and not entirely gentle black horse, rather unobtrusively; but Johnny Dines sauntered out during the process, announcing supper. "Huh!" sniffed Jeff. "S'pose I thought you'd wait until I come to get it?" Nothing more alarming than tallies was broached during supper, however. Afterward, Johnny tilted his chair back and, through cigarette smoke, contemplated the ceiling with innocent eyes.