The great ferns waved gently along the hollows as the slight
breeze touched them. They were queer, those ferns. They were not quite so
slender and tapering and gothic as the ferns we see to-day. They were a
trifle more lush and ragged, and their tips were sometimes almost rounded.
But Ab noted little of fern or bird. It was only the general sensuousness
that was upon him. The smell of the pines was a partial tonic to the
healthy, half-awakened man, and, though he lay back upon the rugged wooden
bed and half dozed again, nature had aroused him a trifle beyond the point
of relapse into absolute, unknowing slumber. There was coming to him a
sharpness of perception which affected the quiescence of his enjoyment. He
rose to a sitting posture and looked about him. At once his eyes flashed,
every nerve and muscle became tense and the blood leaped turbulently in
his veins. He had seen that for which he had come into this region, the
girl who had so reached his rude, careless heart. Lightfoot was very near
him!
The girl, all unconscious, was sitting upon the trunk of a fallen tree
which lay close beside a creek. There was an abundance of small pebbles
upon the little strand and the young lady was absent-mindedly engaged in
an occupation in which, to the observer, she took some interest, while
she, no doubt, was really thinking of something else.
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