It was a significant beginning to a strange day. They drove for twenty miles, to find a certain place upon a bluff overlooking a small lake of unusual beauty, far out of the way of the ordinary motor traveller. They climbed a steep hill, coming out of the wooded hillside into the full sunlight of the late October day, where spread an extended view of the countryside, brilliant with autumn foliage. The air was crisp and invigorating, and a decided breeze was stirring upon this lofty point, so that the windbreak which Burns began at once to build was a necessary protection if they were to remain long. An hour of hard work, at which Ellen helped as much as she was allowed, established a snug camp, its back against a great bowlder, its windward side sheltered by a thick barrier of hemlocks cleverly placed, a brisk bonfire burning in an angle where an improvised chimney carried off its smoke and left the corner clear and warm. "There!" Burns exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction as he threw himself down upon the pine needle-strewn ground at Ellen's side. "How's this for a comfortable nest? Think we can spend six contented hours here, my honey?" "Six days if you like. How I wish we could!" "So do I. Jove, how I'd like it! I haven't had enough of you to satisfy me for many a moon. And there's no trying to get it, except by running away like this." "We ought to do it oftener." "We ought, but we can't. At least we couldn't. Perhaps now--" He broke off, staring across the valley where the lake lay to the distant hills, smoky blue and purple in spite of the clear sunlight which lay upon them. "Perhaps now--what?" "Well--I might not be able to keep up my activity forever, and the time might come when I should have to take less work and more rest." "But you said 'now.'" "Did I? I was just looking ahead a bit. Len, are you hungry, or shall we wait a while for lunch?" "Don't you want a little sleep before you eat? You haven't had too much of it lately." "It would taste rather good--if I might take it with my head in your lap." She arranged her own position so that she could maintain it comfortably, and he extended his big form at full length upon the rug he had brought up from the car and upon which she was already sitting. He smiled up into her face as he laid his head upon her knees, and drew one of her hands into his. "Now your little boy is perfectly content," he said. * * * * *