But she was not to be left entirely without knowledge of him throughout the summer. It was one morning in June that she had word of Dick. She had just finished milking two of the cows, and, having a few spare moments afterwards, she had hurried down to the edge of that ravine which ran up through the fields to the very farm buildings themselves. It had been her wont of late to haunt the edge of the clearing, to roam whenever she could into the outskirts of the woods, and there wait and listen for a space, feeling the silence and beauty of the wilds to be, in some vague sense, a link between herself and Dick. It was a very fair morning. The distant trees were softened by a faint haze that gave promise of heat, and the dew was still damp and chilly in the shadows. There is no more lovely time of the year than June, when things are ripened to full beauty, and yet young, when each tree has still its own individual shade of green, not yet merged into the heavier, denser, universal tint of the later season. And Stephanie found both peace and promise in the still radiance of the early day. She paused at the brink of the ravine, watching the tree-creepers with wide, unconscious eyes. She remembered that morning, now many weeks ago, when the knowledge, hard, inevitable, had first come to her that Dick had run away with the Indian; and when for a time she could feel nothing, think nothing, but that he had left her, his only sister. Those feelings were softened now; softened with the sure though gradual growth of her trust and faith in that love deeper than her own, which could guard and care for her brother through all things. But she longed for a sight, a word of him, more than for anything else in the world. Just at that moment the longing was almost unbearable, and the little, long-beaked birds scuttled away in fright as Stephanie leant over the stump fence. "Dick! Dick! Dick!" she cried very softly, and the words held a prayer. It was a prayer which was to be immediately answered, for, without any preliminary rustle of leaves or noise of footsteps, a man walked softly out of the thick-leaved undergrowth, and stood before her. Her heart leapt wildly, and then grew quiet again, for the man was a stranger to her. He was tall, and his dark, bright face showed his mixed French and Indian descent; he was almost fantastically dressed in fringed deerskins and quaint finery, and the cap which he raised was decorated with feathers. But Stephanie had seen such trappers before in the old days, and did not fear his long gun or his savage silence. And, indeed, in his flourishing bow, French courtesy was apparent. But he was slow of speech, as are all dwellers in the woods; and now he merely held out a tiny package, wrapped in birch-bark, with an inquiring glance towards her. [Illustration: "HE HELD OUT A TINY PACKAGE, WRAPPED IN BIRCH-BARK, WITH AN INQUIRING GLANCE TOWARDS HER."]