not swerve an inch from her way when a snake slid by her, while the squirrels came down from the trees and took corn from her fingers. She might as well have been a boy, so lacking was she in any touch of feminine coquetry toward him. He studied her wonderingly.
As they went along the path they reached a large slime-covered pool surrounded by decaying stumps and logs thickly covered with water hyacinths and blue flags. Ammon stopped.
"Is that the place?" he asked.
Elnora assented.
"The doctor told you?"
"Yes. It was tragic. Is that pool really bottomless?"
"So far as we ever have been able to discover."
Ammon stood looking at the water, while the log, sweet grasses, thickly sprinkled with blue flag bloom, over which wild bees clambered, swayed around his feet. Then he turned to the girl. She had worked hard. The same lavender dress she had worn the previous day clung to her in limp condition. But she was as evenly coloured and of as fine grain as a wild rose petal; her hair was really brown, but never was such hair touched with a redder glory, while her heavy arching brows added a look of strength to her big gray-blue eyes.
"And you were born here?"
He had not intended to voice that thought.
"Yes," she said looking into his eyes. "Just in time to prevent my mother from saving the life of my father. She came near never forgiving me."
