he heard the sound of footsteps. They came rapidly as if the person was
half running. Hardly had he located the direction of the sound when a
figure appeared in the opening and hurried toward the door of the cabin.
A dozen yards from him it paused for a moment and turned partly about,
as if inspecting the path over which it had come. With a greeting
whistle Captain Plum jumped to his feet. He heard a little throat note,
which was not the chuckling of Obadiah Price, and the figure ran almost
into his arms. A sudden knowledge of having made a mistake drew Captain
Plum a pace backward. For scarcely more than five seconds he found
himself staring into the white terrified face of a girl. Eyes wide and
glowing with sudden fright met his own. Instinctively he lifted his hand
to his hat, but before he could speak the girl sprang back with a low
cry and ran swiftly down the path that led into the gloom of the woods.


For several minutes Captain Plum stood as if the sudden apparition had
petrified him. He listened long after the sound of retreating footsteps
had died away. There remained behind a faint sweet odor of lilac which
stirred his soul and set his blood tingling. It was a beautiful face
that he had seen. He was sure of that and yet he could have given no
good verbal proof of it. Only the eyes and the odor of lilac remained
with him and after a little the lilac drifted away. Then he went back to
the log and sat down. He smiled as he thought of the joke that he had
unwittingly played on Obadiah. From his knowledge of the Beaver Island
Mormons he was satisfied that the old man who displayed gold in such
reckless profusion was anything but a bachelor. In all probability this
was one of his wives and the cabin behind him, he concluded, was for
some reason isolated from the harem. "Evidently that little Saintess is
not a flirt," he concluded, "or she would have given me time to speak to
her."