It was none of his business, of course, who this girl was or where she came from; he was aware, at this moment[25] of vagrant visions, of an unequivocal and not unpleasant interest in this hapless waif whom fortune, with more humor than discretion, had so unceremoniously thrust upon his mercies. She was very good to look at. He had decided that back in the gorge where she had first raised her elfin head from the leaves. And yet, now as he lay there in the dark, he could not for the life of him guess even at the color of her eyes or hair. Her hair at first had seemed quite dark until a shaft of the declining light in the west had caught it, when he had decided that it was golden. Her eyes had been too light to be brown and yet—yes, they had been quite too dark to be blue. The past perfect tense seemed to be the only one which suited her, for in spite of the evidences of her tangibility close at hand, he still associated her with the wild things of the forest, the timid things one often heard at night but . Cautiously he turned his head and looked into the shelter. She lay as he had seen her last, her eyes closed, her breath scarcely stirring her slender body. Her knees were huddled under her skirt and she looked no larger than a child. He remembered that when she had stood upright she had been almost as tall as he, and this metamorphosis only added another to the number of his illusions.

With an effort, at last, he lowered his head and closed his eyes, in angry determination. What the devil had the troubles of this unfortunate female to do with him? What difference did it make to him if her hair and eyes changed color or that she could become grown up or childish at will? Wasn’t one fool who lost himself in the woods enough in all conscience! Besides he had a right to get himself lost if he wanted to. He was his own master and it didn’t matter to any one but himself what became of him. Why couldn’t the little idiot have stayed[26] where she belonged? A woman had no business in the woods, anyway.

With his eyes closed it was easy to shut out sight, but the voices of the night persisted. An owl called, and far off in the distance a solitary mournful loon took up the plaint. There were sounds close at hand, too, stealthy footfalls of minute paws, sniffs from the impertinent noses of smaller animals; the downward fluttering of leaves and twigs all magnified a thousandfold, pricked upon the velvety background of the vast silence. He tried to relax his muscles and tipped his head back upon the ground.

As he did so his lids flew up like those of a doll laid upon its back. The moon was climbing now, so close to the tree tops that the leaves and branches looked like painted scrolls upon its surface. In the thicket shapes were moving. They were only the tossing shadows from his fire, he knew, but they interested him and he watched them for a long time. It pleased him to think of them as the shadows of lost travelers. He could hear them whispering softly, too, in the intervals between the other sounds, and in the distance, farther even than the call of the whippoorwill, he could hear them singing: