Then there was a long silence during which they stood on the edge of a small open space breathlessly worshipping, but it was the Almighty they were now adoring. Here the moss lay in a flat carpet, tinted deeper green. Water willow rolled its ragged reddish-tan hoops, with swelling bloom and leaf buds. Overflowing pitcher plants grew in irregular beds, on slender stems, lifting high their flat buds. But scattered in groups here and there, sometimes with massed similar colours, sometimes in clumps and variegated patches, stood the rare, early fringed orchis, some almost white, others pale lavender and again the deeper colour of the moccasins; while everywhere on stems, some a foot high, nodded the exquisite lavender and white showy orchis. "Count!" he commanded. Leslie pointed a slender finger indicating each as she spoke: "One, two, three--thirty-two, under the sweep of your arms, Douglas! And more! More by the hundred! Surely if we are careful not to kill them, the Lord won't mind if we take out a few for people to see, will He?" "He must have made them to be seen!" said Douglas. "And worshipped!" cried the girl. "Douglas, why didn't the squaw----?" asked Leslie. "Maybe she didn't come this far," he said. "Perhaps she knows by experience that these are too fragile to remove. You may not be able to handle them, Leslie." "I'm going to try," she said. "But first I must make my basket. We'll go back to the osiers to weave it and then come here to fill it. Oh Douglas! Did you ever see such flower perfection in all your life?" "Only in books! In my home country applied botany is a part of every man's education. I never have seen ragged or fringed orchids growing before. I have read of many fruitless searches for the white ones." "So have I. They seem to be the rarest. Douglas, look there!" "There" was a group of purple-lavender, white-lipped bloom, made by years of spreading from one root, until above the rank moss and beneath the dark tamarack branch the picture appeared inconceivably delicate. "Yes! The most exquisite flowers I ever have seen!" "And there, Douglas!" She pointed to another group. "Just the shade of the lavender on the toe of the moccasin--and in a great ragged mass! Would any one believe it?" "Not without seeing it," he said emphatically. "And there, Douglas! Exactly the colour of the moccasins--see that cluster! There are no words, Douglas!" "Shall you go farther?" he asked. "No," she answered. "I'm going back to weave my basket. There is nothing to surpass the orchids in rarity and wondrous beauty." "Good!" he cried. "I'll go ahead and you follow."