"Any place will do," she said. "Let me down right here where I can get the fish!" And slowly, reluctantly, with great pains that she should not be scratched by briars, bitten by snakes, brushed by poison-ivy, muddied by the wet bank, or threatened with another fall, I put her down. She looked diligently in the grass for the fish, picked them up, and ran off to camp. After she had disappeared, I heard the bushes rustle, and looked up as I sat on the bank wringing the water from my socks and pouring it from my boots. "Thank you for keeping me dry," said she. "You did it very nicely. And now you must stay in the wagon while I dry your socks and boots for you--you poor wet boy!" 3 She had not objected to my holding her so long; she rather seemed to like it; she seemed willing to go on camping here as long as I wished; she was wondering why I was so backward and so bashful; she was in my hands; why hold back? Why not use my power? If I did not I should make myself forever ridiculous to all men and to all women--who, according to my experience, were never in higher feather than when ridiculing some greenhorn of a boy. This thing must end. My affair with Virginia must be brought to a crisis and pushed to a decision. At once! I wandered off again and from my vantage-point I began to watch her and gather courage from watching her. I could still feel her in my arms--so much more of a woman than I had at first suspected from seeing her about the camp. I could see her in my mind's eye wading the stream like a beautiful ghost. I could think of nothing but her all the time,--of her and the wild life of boats and backwoods harbors. And at last I grew suddenly calm. I began to laugh at myself for my lack of decision. I would carefully consider the matter, and that night I would act. I took my gun and wandered off across the prairie after a few birds for our larder. There were upland plover in great plenty; and before I had been away from the camp fifteen minutes I had several in my pockets. It was early in the afternoon; but instead of walking back to camp at once I sat down on a mound at the mouth of the old den of a wolf or badger and laid my plans; much as a wolf or badger might have done. Then I went back. The sun was shining with slanting mid-afternoon rays down among the trees by the creek. I looked for Virginia; but she was not about the wagon, neither sitting in the spring seat, nor on her box by the fire, nor under her favorite crabapple-tree. I looked boldly in the wagon, without the timid tapping which I had always used to announce my presence--for what did I care now for her privacy?--but she was not there. I began searching for her along the creek in the secluded nooks which abounded, and at last I heard her voice.