A number of paths led away from the door of the cabin and Gill started along one which came down to the edge of the lake. As the lake was frozen over, she followed the line of the west shore for about half a mile, gliding along on the ice, her cheeks tingling, her eyes sparkling with the delight of the exercise and the exhilaration of the winter air. Not in some time had she felt so serene. These past few weeks for several reasons had been as uncomfortable ones as she ever cared to live through. Fortunately she always had believed in the value of an outdoor life to bring one to more cheerful views, even before her membership in the Camp Fire had emphasized this truth. Tiring of the smooth surface of the lake, at length Gill climbed a snowdrift to enter a balsam forest which seemed to cover only a small area before it opened into a clearing beyond. At no great distance from their own cabin, Gill had no recollection at the moment of this particular woods, perhaps because the winter afternoon gave it a new and strange aspect. She recognized that the trees were white pine, many of them fifty feet in height with drooping long branches and five-fingered leaf bunches. Beneath the trees the ground, soft with the needles at other seasons, was to-day hard and white as a marble bed. The arch of the trees formed a kind of natural temple with the opening beyond like a great rose window seen through the intervening space. As she approached the end of the vista Gill heard a noise which at first startled and later on puzzled and troubled her. The noise was like the barking of a dog in distress. She stood still, called and whistled only to have the sound cease and then begin again with a deeper note of suffering. Continuing her walk, but more slowly, Gill moved in the direction from which the barking came. In spite of what may have appeared to contradict this fact, actually she was more attached to animals than any one of the Camp Fire girls. Within another moment she had made a discovery. In a trap set by a hunter a small red fox had been caught but not killed. The barking to her ears had sounded like a dog’s. Notwithstanding its pain and terror and fear of human beings, it seemed to Gill the little animal turned its red-brown eyes toward her with an expression of appeal. Several seconds the girl stood frowning and puzzled, all her color flown and her lips trembling. Her own ignorance and cowardice formed the chief barrier. The little animal’s hind feet had been caught and nearly torn from the body, and yet she was unable to open the trap or to relieve the pain in any way, as she carried no weapon of any kind.