The man rose to his feet, but he tottered and reeled against the wall of ragged stone. The blow on his head had left him faint and dizzy. He sat down again. "I'm afraid," he ruefully admitted, "that I'm not quite ready for discharge from your hospital." "You jest set where yer at." The girl rose, and pointed up the mountainside. "I'll light out across the hill, and fotch Samson an' his mule." "Who and where is Samson?" he inquired. He realized that the bottom of the valley would shortly thicken into darkness, and that the way out, unguided, would become impossible. "It sounds like the name of a strong man." "I means Samson South," she enlightened, as though further description of one so celebrated would be redundant. "He's over thar 'bout three quarters." "Three quarters of a mile?" She nodded. What else could three quarters mean? "How long will it take you?" he asked. She deliberated. "Samson's hoein' corn in the fur-hill field. He'll hev ter cotch his mule. Hit mout tek a half-hour." Lescott had been riding the tortuous labyrinths that twisted through creek bottoms and over ridges for several days. In places two miles an hour had been his rate of speed, though mounted and following so-called roads. She must climb a mountain through the woods. He thought it "mout" take longer, and his scepticism found utterance. "You can't do it in a half-hour, can you?" "I'll jest take my foot in my hand, an' light out." She turned, and with a nod was gone. The man rose, and made his way carefully over to a mossy bank, where he sat down with his back against a century-old tree to wait. The beauty of this forest interior had first lured him to pause, and then to begin painting. The place had not treated him kindly, as the pain in his wrist reminded. No, but the beauty was undeniable. A clump of rhododendron, a little higher up, dashed its pale clusters against a background of evergreen thicket, and a catalpa tree loaned the perfume of its white blossoms with their wild little splashes of crimson and purple and orange to the incense which the elder bushes were contributing. Climbing fleetly up through steep and tangled slopes, and running as fleetly down; crossing a brawling little stream on a slender trunk of fallen poplar; the girl hastened on her mission. Her lungs drank the clear air in regular tireless draughts. Once only, she stopped and drew back. There was a sinister rustle in the grass, and something glided into her path and lay coiled there, challenging her with an ominous rattle, and with wicked, beady eyes glittering out of a swaying, arrow -shaped head. Her own eyes instinctively hardened, and she glanced quickly about for a heavy piece of loose timber. But that was only for an instant, then she took a circuitous course, and left her enemy in undisputed possession of the path. "I hain't got no time ter fool with ye now, old rattlesnake," she called back, as she went. "Ef I wasn't in sech a hurry, I'd shore bust yer neck."