had held behind and pursued him. Catching the rein with a jerk and oath, he dealt such a blow with his boot that the animal lost his balance and fell, and would have rolled over the precipice but for a prostrate tree. In a moment what Reymund had wanted to see was granted him. Orient sprang forward, her face aflame, her eyes like balefires. The guide, amazed, as one might be at the sight of an avenger in his path, obeyed her single word, her vehement gesture, and plunged down the way and left them. “Orient! what have you done?” cried her mother. “Well, well, mamma,” answered the suddenly convicted and penitent one, “we can follow his red cap.” But the guide, twice too cunning, hid himself in underhung paths that he knew, and they had not a sign or signal for aid. Nevertheless, Reymund gladly accepted this fate because of the thing that brought it, and at which another man would have looked askance. This thing, this little temper, had proved to him that Orient was human,--and, therefore, to be won. He raised the pony, remounted Orient, and did his best in place of their faithless leader, trusting more to the instincts of the animals themselves than to any mountain-craft of his own. The sharp outlines of distant peaks began to burn and blacken, those of the nearer rock and stunted shrub to grow diffuse; the air was keen and chill, a reddening sunset smouldered in clouds below them and shut out the world, a cold, wet mist below threatened to come creeping up around them. The horses neighed to each other, grew jaded and uncertain, stopped. Masses of impassable rock closed them in on every side, save the narrow defile through which they came and the precipice below; the atmosphere was purple with shade and clung to them in dew; already one star hung out its blue lamp. “We can go no farther,” said Reymund. “This spot is more sheltered than any we are likely to find. Let us do what we can for comfort, and wait for the morning.” The mother bewailed herself; but Orient made cheer, and while Reymund corralled the horses, she was busy collecting twigs and splinters and bits of wood and dry moss in a pile. “Light them with your matches, Reymund,” she said. “A cigar will keep you warm, but we need a bit of blaze, perhaps.” “When it is darker,” he replied; “you will need it more a little nearer to the witching time.” “Do you imagine we shall see witches?” “Take care, or you will see stars.” “He rode alone through the silent night, She swam like a star to his left and right,” sang Orient. “After all, it is not the Walpurgis Night.” “If we could only have a cup of tea!” sighed the mamma, at a loss for her luxuries in the wilderness. “It will be so much more refreshing to-morrow,” said Orient. “And seasoned with romance,--a dash of danger,--your first adventure, little mother!”