Page:BM Bower - Her Prairie Knight.djvu/107

 length, with the firmness of despair. "No, I will not be a lost lamb another once. No, nor a hungry kittie, either—nor a snake, or anything. If you are not going to fish, I shall go straight back to the house."

Dorman sighed heavily, and permitted his divinity to fasten a small grasshopper to his hook.

"We'll go a bit farther, dear, down under those great trees. And you must not speak a word, remember, or the fish will all run away."

When she had settled him in a likely place, and the rapt patience of the born angler had folded him close, she disposed herself comfortably in the thick grass, her back against a tree, and took up the shuttle of fancy to weave a wonderful daydream, as beautiful, intangible as the lacy, summer clouds over her head.

A man rode quietly over the grass and stopped two rods away, that he might fill his hungry eyes with the delicious loveliness of his Heart's Desire.

"Got a bite yet?"

Dorman turned and wrinkled his nose, by way of welcome, and shook his head vaguely, as though he might tell of several unimportant nibbles, if it were worth the effort. 103