The mind of the guide was comforted and relieved that he had got the better of the bishop in one way, although he could not do it in another. But he did not relinquish his purpose of putting an end to the nonsense which made him do the work of other people, and as soon as he had set his kitchen in order he started out to find Mrs. Perkenpine. A certain amount of nonsense from the people in camp might have to be endured, but nonsense from Mrs. Perkenpine was something about which Peter Sadler would have a word to say. Matlack was a good hunter. He could follow all sorts of tracks--rabbit tracks, bird tracks, deer tracks, and the tracks of big ungainly shoes--and in less than half an hour he had reached a cluster of moss-covered rocks lying some distance back in the woods, and approached by the bed of a now dry stream. Sitting on one of these rocks, her back against a tree, her straw hat lying beside her, and her dishevelled hair hanging about her shoulders, was Mrs. Perkenpine, reading a newspaper. At the sound of his footsteps she looked up. "Well, I'll be bound!" she said. "If I'd crawl into a fox-hole I expect you'd come and sniff in after me." Matlack stood and looked at her for a moment. He could not help smiling at the uncomfortable manner in which she was trying to make herself comfortable on those rough rocks. "I'll tell you what it is, Mrs. Perkenpine," he said, "you'll get yourself into the worst kind of a hole if you go off this way, leavin' everything at sixes and sevens behind you." "It's my nater," said she. "I'm findin' it out and gittin' it ready to show to other people. You're the fust one that's seed it. How do you like it?" "I don't like it at all," said the guide, "and I have just come to tell you that if you don't go back to your tent and cook supper to-night and attend to your business, I'll walk over to Sadler's, and tell Peter to send some one in your place. I'm goin' over there anyway, if he don't send a man to take Martin's place." "Peter Sadler!" ejaculated Mrs. Perkenpine, letting her tumbled newspaper fall into her lap. "He's a man that knows his own nater, and lets other people see it. He lives his own life, if anybody does. He's individdle down to the heels, and just look at him! He's the same as a king. I tell you, Phil Matlack, that the more I knows myself, just me, the more I'm tickled. It seems like scootin' round in the woods, findin' all sorts of funny hoppin' things and flowers that you never seed before. Why, it 'ain't been a whole day since I begun knowin' myself, and I've found out lots. I used to think that I liked to cook and clean up, but I don't; I hate it." Matlack smiled, and taking out his pipe, he lighted it and sat down on a rock. "I do believe," he said, "that you are the most out and out hermit of the whole lot; but it won't do, and if you don't get over your objections to cookin' you'll have to walk out of these woods to-morrow."