She broke into her light, taunting laughter. And yet he had set her heart beating and the ancient fear ... not fear of him ... was upon her. "You, talking of love, are like a blind man lecturing on the colors of the rainbow! You...." But he had started to his feet; his eyes went suddenly toward the camp, all sight of which they had lost on coming down into the creek bed. "Listen!" he cried. "What was that?" She had heard nothing; nothing above the splash and fall of water ... and the beating of her own heart. "Listen!" he said the second time. "What is it?" He caught up his rifle and leaped across the creek. He began running, back toward their camp. "It's old Thor ... there's some one...." And now, Lynette realized clearly, had come her first opportunity to be free again! While Bruce Standing, because of something he had heard above the merry-mad music of the waterfall, or had thought he had heard, was running back to their encampment, she could run in the opposite direction. She stood balancing, of this mind and that. What had he heard in camp? What was happening there? As always, because of that volatile nature of hers which was _en rapport_ with life's pulsings, she wanted to know! And then there was a certain assurance in her heart that after all these days the budding intention in Bruce Standing's heart was bursting into full flower to set her free again! She hesitated; she saw him running up the steep bank, charging back toward camp, vanishing among the trees higher up on the slope. And, then, she followed him. ... Before Lynette came, through the trees, within sight of the grotto which Standing had given over to her, she heard a sound which brought her, wondering, from swift haste to lingering; she stood, her breathing stilled, listening, groping a moment blindly for an interpretation of that sound for its explanation. Harsh it was ... terrible ... never had she heard anything like it. At first she did not recognize it as a sound man-made. She paused; she came a step nearer, peering through the trees.... It was an inarticulate, stifled sound coming from the lips of Bruce Standing! He was kneeling on the ground, bending forward. He had dropped his rifle. There was something in his arms, upgathered into his embrace, something held as a baby is held in its mother's arms.... Thor.... And those sounds from Bruce Standing's lips! There were tears in them; his voice was shaken. He held Thor to him in a fierce agony of sorrow.... Lynette came closer, tiptoeing. She heard the sounds as they seemed to choke him, clutching like hands at his throat. And then suddenly, before she caught her first clear view, she knew when, into that first emotion there swept the second; when with the shock of deep grief there mingled white-hot rage. He began to mutter again ... he was lisping ... lisping as she had heard him do only once before ... lisping because his one weakness had leaped out and caught him unaware. Lisping curses....