feeding among the weeds and rushes, unconscious of any danger. To
these Dane paid little attention. He was waiting for larger game, and
his eyes and ears were keenly alert to the one sound and sight which
would electrify him into immediate action.

His mind naturally turned to the previous evening when he had sat with
the Colonel and his daughter before the big fire-place. The vision of
the girl's face, lighted by the dancing flames, stood out before him
clear and distinct. How her eyes had shone as, urged by the Colonel,
he related story after story of adventures in the heart of the untamed
forest among Indians, slashers, and wild beasts. The time had passed
all too quickly, and when he at length rose to leave, the Colonel
offered him the use of his tent near the cabin. But Dane had
reluctantly declined. He had his own camping-outfit on the shore of
the lake, where he had left gun, blanket, and a small supply of food
that afternoon. He did not mind the walk through the forest, dark
though it was. He was more at home in the woodland ways than on city
streets. His was the instinct of the wild, and he travelled more by
intuition than by sight.

There was another reason why he wished to camp by the lake. He
correctly surmised that the food supply at the settlement was getting
low. The men were not hunters, and although supplied with guns, they
had made little use of them in obtaining game from the surrounding
hills, considering them chiefly as weapons of defence in case of
attack. With Dane, however, it was different. To him the forests and
streams were Nature's great larder, filled with all manner of good
things.

As he lay there thinking of the girl at the settlement, the morning