“Well, if _you_ selected _me_—” and he replaced that head of hers, veiled in soft, fragrant black, against the spot preferred to the wall—“_I’m_ helpless.” “But not hopeless, I hope?” “Hopeless, when I’ve kissed you once and have hopes that—? Say, I want to be slow and steady, to give you time to realize without being told that you’re going to marry me. But if you self-selected me, Jane Lauderdale, maybe you’ll notify me as to the soonest possible moment when I’m due to kiss you again.” She drew far enough away to peer into his eyes. Faint-smiling, yet wholly serious, she considered. Then—— “Peter Pape, why not now?” she asked him. Pape had other reasons than the girl’s weariness for persuading her to try for a snatch of the sleep she might need against possible strain on her nerve and endurance ahead. He wished to weigh—well, several interesting observations. For long after she had accepted his knee as a pillow, the rock floor as a bed, a live-fur rug for her feet and his coat for her coverlet, he pulled on his pipe; returned the dark scowl of the down-drooping night; thought. The while, out-loud observations which had seemed to soothe Polkadot on that previous trip to the block-house recurred to him. More or less monotonously he crooned them over her like a lullaby. “Don’t you hear the dog-wood yapping, dear?... Can’t you just imagine those old-fashioned pop-guns popping?... Nothing to break the silences save the shriek of ten thousand auto sirens.... No one around but people—millions of ’em! Don’t it make you think of a little old home in my great new West, where we’re to go one day—so like and yet so different?... And Friend Equus is to go along, my heart, all the more appreciative after his clash with the tame.... Yes, and you too, Police Pup—if Shepherd Tom can be persuaded to let you resign from the Force. He just may be willing after to-day’s mis-delivered lunch. “Then list to the Nubian roar—much more like a lion it sounds than the rumble of city streets.... List the whisper of poplars four—there would be four, except that two have been white-circled into stumps.... Count eighteen—twelve.... Take heart and delve.... Above the crock the block will rock.... That block did rock—did rock—and rock——” He leaned low; listened. Jane’s gentle, even breathing reported her asleep. He was more pleased than by any of the wonderful things she had done while awake—even than by that voluntary kiss, so precious as compared with her involuntary first. She did really trust him and rest in his protectorate, else could she never have been lulled by his murmurings into unconsciousness. She must indeed have been spent, when the growls and spasmodic foot work of the live fur rug did not disturb her. Kicko, evidently, had lapsed into dog dreams of chases and fights.