“You think you, too, will remember as long as that?” “I have an excellent memory for trifles,” she returned, and rose yawning. “And now I think I’ll go to bed--unless there’s anything more you want to know about our tribal customs. Are you going to write a nature book about us: ‘Head-hunting Among the Idle Rich’?” “‘The Cannibals of the Atlantic Coast’ is the title,” he answered as he gave her a candle. “I’ll leave your breakfast for you in the morning before I go. And by the way, if some one comes to rescue you, don’t go off and leave me in the tool-house, will you?” “Oh, I’m not really as bad as that.” He shook his head as if he didn’t feel sure. She went away well satisfied with her evening’s work. There had been something extremely flattering in his mingled horror and amusement at her candid revelations. Holding up the candle she looked at her own image in her mirror. “I wonder,” she thought, “if that young man knows what a dangerous frame of mind he’s in?” He had some suspicion, for as he dragged a mattress downstairs and laid it before the kitchen fire, he kept repeating to himself, as if in a last effort to rouse some moral enthusiasm: “What a band of cut-throats they are!” Christine woke the next morning to find the sun shining on an unbroken sheet of snow. The storm had passed in the night. She dressed quickly and went down to find the kitchen empty, and the track of footsteps in the snow leading away in the direction of the tool-house. Her coffee was bubbling and slices of bacon neatly laid in the frying pan were ready for cooking. She thought he might have stayed and cooked it for her. “No one will come as early as this,” she thought, plaintively. But hardly had she finished her simple meal, when the sound of sleigh bells reached her ears, and running to the window she saw that Ussher and Hickson in a two horse sleigh were driving down the slope. A moment later they were in the kitchen. And after the minimum time had elapsed during which all three talked at once recounting their own individual anxieties, Ussher asked: “Where’s Max?” Christine cast down her eyes with a sort of Paul-and-Virginia expression, as she answered: “Oh, he is sleeping in the tool-house!” “Well, I call that damned nonsense,” said Ussher. “Let a man freeze to death! Upon my word, Christine, I thought you had more sense.” And he strode away to the back door. “Yes, here are his tracks, poor fellow.” Ussher went out after him, and Hickson turned back. “But _you_ think I was right, don’t you, Edward?” said Christine, for she had never failed to elicit commendation from Edward. But now his brow was dark. “But, I say, Christine,” he said, “there’s one thing I don’t understand. These tracks of his footsteps in the snow.” “He didn’t fly, Ned, even if he is an aviator.” “Yes, but it didn’t stop snowing until four o’clock this morning.”