ON Catamount Pond young Master had enjoyed a memorable day. He was an expert fisherman, but the lonely quiet of the scene had been more than fish to him: of it was a barren ridge, from the top of which a broken column of dead pine, like a shaft of wrought marble, towered straight and high above the woods. The curving shore had a fringe of lily-pads, starred here and there with white tufts. Around thickets of birch, on a point of land, a little cove was the end of all the deer-trails that came out of Jiminy Swamp. It was the gateway of the pond for all who journeyed thither to eat and drink. There were white columns on either side, and opposite the cove's end was a thicket of tamarack, clear of brush. A deep mat of vivid green moss came to the water's edge. When one had rounded the point in his canoe, he could see into those cool, dark alleys of the deer, leading off through slender tamaracks. A little beyond were the rock bastions of Painter Mountain, five hundred' feet above the water.

The young man, having grown weary of fishing, leaned back, lighted his pipe, and drifted. He could hear the chattering of a hedgehog up in the dry timber, and the scream of a hawk, like the whistle of some craft, leagues away on the sunlit deep of silence. A wild goose steered straight across the heavens, far bound, his wings making a noise like the cleaving of water and the creak of full sails. He saw the man below him and flung a cry overboard. A great bee, driven out of a lily, threw his warning loop around the head of the intruder and boomed out of hearing. Those threads of sound seemed to bind the tongue of the youth, and to connect his soul with the great silence into which they ran.

Robert Master had crossed that desert of uncertainty which lies between college and the beginning of a career. At last he had made his plan. He would try in his own simple way to serve his country. He was a man of "the new spirit," of pure ideals, of high patriotism. He had set out to try to make his way in politics.

He had been one of the "big men," dauntless and powerful, who had saved the day for his alma mater more than once on the track and the gridiron. Handsome was a word which had been much applied to him. Hard work in the open air had given him a sturdy figure and added the glow of health and power to a face of unusual refinement. It was the face of a man with whom the capacity, for stern trials had come by acquisition and not by inheritance. He had cheerful brown eyes and a smile of good-nature that made him beloved. His father was at the big camp, some twenty miles away, his mother and sister having gone abroad. He and his father were fond of their forest home; the ladies found it a bore. They loved better the grand life and the great highways of travel.

Master sat in the centre of his canoe; an elbow rested on his paddle which lay athwart the gunwales. He drifted awhile. He had chosen his life work but not his life partner. He pictured to himself the girl he would love, had he ever the luck to find her. He had thrown off his hat, and his dark hair shone in the sunlight. Soon he pushed slowly down the pond. In a moment he stilled his paddle and sat looking into Birch Cove. Two fawns were playing in the edge of the water, while their dam, with the dignity of a matron, stood on the shore looking down at them. The fawns gambolled in the shallows like a colt at play, now and then dashing their muzzles in the cool water. Their red coats were starred white as if with snow-flakes. The deer stood a moment looking at Master, stamped her feet, and retired into one of the dark alleys. In a moment her fawns followed.

Turning, the fisherman beheld what gave him even greater surprise. In the shadow of the birches, on a side of the cove and scarcely thirty feet from his canoe, a girl sat looking at him. She wore a blue knit jacket and gray skirt. There was nothing on her head save its mass of light hair that fell curling on her shoulders. Her skin was brown as a berry, her features of a noble and delicate mould. Her eyes, blue and large, made their potent appeal to the heart of Master. They were like those of his dreams—he could never forget them. So far it's the old story of love at sight—but listen. For half a moment they looked into each other's eyes. Then the girl, as if she were afraid of him, rose and disappeared among the columns of white birch.

Long he sat there wondering about this strange vision of girlhood, until he heard the halloo of Silas Strong. Turning his canoe, he pushed for the landing.

"L-lucky?" Strong asked.

"Twenty fish, and I saw the most beautiful woman in the world."

"Where?"

"Sitting on the shore of Birch Cove. Any camp near?"

The Emperor shook his head thoughtfully as he lighted his pipe. The two made their way up the trail.

"W-wonder if it's her?" Strong whispered to himself as he walked along.

After supper that evening Silas Strong gathered a heap of wood for a bonfire—a way he had of celebrating arrivals at Lost River camp. Soon he was running upon hands and knees in the firelight, with Socky and Sue on his back.

"Silas Strong!" was the seornful exclamation of Sinth, as she took a seat by the fire, "P-present!" he answered, as he werit on, the children laughing merrily. "Be you a man 'or a fool?"

"Both;" he answered, ceasing his harlequinade. Sinth began her knitting, wearing, a look of injury. "Plumb crazy 'bout them air childern!" she exclaimed.

The "Emperor of the Woods" sat on a log, breathing heavily, with Sue and Socky upon his knees.

"B-bears plenty, Mis' Strong," was the gentle reply of Silas.

"Mis' Strong!" said she, as if insulted. "What ye Mis' Strongin' me for?"

When others were present she was wont to fling back upon him this burning query. Now it seemed to stimulate him to a rather unusual effort.

"S-some folks b-better when ye miss 'em," he suggested, with a smile of good-nature.

Miss Strong gathered up her knitting and promptly retired, from the scene. Sue and Socky lay back on the lap of their Uncle Silas looking into the fire. They now saw in him great possibilities. Socky, in particular, had begun to regard him as likely to be useful if not highly magnificent.

Sue lay back and began to make a drowsy display of her learning:

"Intry, mintry, cutry com,

Apple-seed an' apple-thorn,

Wire, brier, limber lock,

Twelve geese all in a white flock;

Some fly east an' some fly west

An' some fly over the cuckoo's nest."

Miss Strong returned shortly and found the children asleep on the knees of their uncle. In a moment Silas turned his ear and listened.

"Hark!" he whispered.

They could hear some one approaching on the dark trail. A man oddly picturesque, with a rifle on his shoulder, strode into the firelight. He wore knee-breeches and a coat of buckskin. He had a rugged face, a sturdy figure, and was, one would have guessed, some sixty years of age.

A fringe of thin, white hair showed below his cap. He had a white mustache, through which a forgotten cigar protruded. His black eyes glowed in the firelight beneath silvered brows. He nodded as they greeted him. His ruddy face wrinkled thoughtfully as he turned to Gordon.

"It's a long time," said he, offering his hand.

"Some years," Gordon answered, as he took the hand of Dunmore.

"W-welcome!" said Silas Strong.

"Boneka!" Dunmore exclaimed, gruffly, but with a faint smile. For years it had been his customary word of greeting.

"The Emperor and his court!" he went on, as he looked about him. "Who are these?" He surveyed the sleeping children.

"The Duke and Duchess of Hillsborough—nephew and niece of the Emperor," Master answered, giving them titles which clung to Socky and Sue for a twelvemonth.

"The first children I've ever seen in the woods except my own," said the white-haired man.

Zeb ran around the chair of the Emperor, growling and leaping playfully at Socky and Sue.

"The court jester!" said Dunmore, looking down at the dog.

He stood a moment with his back to the blazing logs.

Then he went to the chair of the Emperor, and put his hand under the chin of little Sue and looked into her face. In half a moment he took her in his arms and sat down by the fireside. The child was yawning wearily.

"Heigh-ho!" he exclaimed; "let's away to the Isles of Rest."

He rocked back and forth as he held her against his breast and sang this lullaby:

"Jack Tot was as big as a baby's thumb,

And his belly could hold but a drop and a crumb,

And a wee little sailor was he—Heigh-ho!

A very fine sailor was he.

'He made his boat of a cocoa-nut shell,

He sails her at night and he steers her well

With the wing of a bumble-bee—Heigh-ho!

With the wing of a bumble-bee.

'She is rigged with the hair of a lady's curl,

And her lantern is made of a gleaming pearl,

And it never goes out in a gale—Heigh-ho!

It never goes out in a gale.

'Her mast is made of a very long thorn,

She calls her crew with a cricket's horn,

And a spider spun her sail—Heigh-ho!

A spider he spun her sail.

'She carries a cargo of baby souls,

And she crosses the terrible nightmare shoals

On her way to the Isles of Rest—Heigh-ho!

We're off for the Isles of Rest.

'And often they smile as the good ship sails—

Then the skipper is telling incredible tales

With many a merry jest—Heigh-ho!

He's fond of a merry jest.

'When the little folks yawn they are ready to go,

And Jack Tot is lifting his sail—Hee-hoo!

In the swell how the little folks nod—He-hoo!

Just see how the little folks nod.

'And some have sailed off when the sky was black,

And the poor little sailors have never come back,

But have steered for the City of God—Heigh-ho!

The beautiful City of God!"

The white-haired man closed his eyes and his voice sank low, and the last words fell softly in a solemn silence that lasted for a long moment after the lullaby was finished. Presently Sinth came to take the sleeping child.

"These little folks will take our peace away from us," said he, in a warning tone.

"Why?"

"The call of the sown land is in their voices," said he. "They give me sad thoughts."

Sinth smiled and introduced the young man to Dunmore.

"Boneka!" said the latter as they shook hands.

The curiosity of Master was aroused by the strange greeting. He smiled, and answered, modestly, "I don't understand you."

The stranger sat silent, gazing into the fire, until Silas, who was evidently in the secret, said to his guest, "Tell 'em."

"There was once a very wise and honored chief," began Dunmore, after a pause, and looking into the eyes of the young man. "Long before the lumber hunter had begun to shear the hills, he dwelt among them, with his good people. He was a great law-giver, and his law was all in two words—'Be kind.' Kindness begat kindness, and peace reigned, to be broken only by some far-come invader. But as time went on quarrels arose and the law was forgotten. Thereupon the chief invited a great council and organized the Society of the Magic Word. Every member promised that whenever the greeting 'Boneka' were given him, he would smile and bow and answer, 'Ranokoli.' The greeting meant 'Peace,' and the answer, 'I forgive.'

"Then, one by one, the law-giver called his councillors before him, and to each he said: 'The Great Spirit is in this greeting. I defy you to hear it and keep a sober face.'

"Then he said 'Boneka,' and the man would try to resist the influence of the spirit, but soon smiled in spite of himself, amid the laughter of the tribe, and said 'Ranokoli.' Thereafter, when a quarrel arose between two people, an outsider, approaching, would greet them with the magic word, and immediately they would bow and smile, and answer, 'I forgive.' But, nevertheless, if one had wronged another he was justly punished by the chief. So it was that a great ruler made an end of quarrels among his people."

"A grand idea!" said young Master. "Let's all join that society."

"Those in favor of the suggestion will please say ay." It was Dunmore who put the question, and, after a vote in its favor, dictated the pledge, as follows:

"For value received from my Loving Father, I promise to give to any of His children, on demand, a smile and full forgiveness."

All signed it, and so half in play the old Society of the Magic Word was revived at Lost River camp.

The white-haired man rose and walked to the trail and turned suddenly.

"Strong," said he, "I'm leaving the woods for a week. If they need your help at home they'll send word to you."

With that he disappeared in the dark trail.

The three other men still sat by the camp-fire.

"Who is Dunmore?" Master inquired, turning to Gordon.

The latter lighted his pipe and began the story.

"An odd man who's spent the most of his life in the woods," said Gordon. "Came in here for his health long ago from I don't know where; grew strong, and has always stuck to the woods. Had to work, like the rest of us, when I knew him. Thirty years ago he began work in this part of the country as a boom rat—so they tell me. It was on a big drive way down the Oswegatchie.

"Before we bought the Bear Mountain and Lost River tracts we were looking for a good cruiser—some one to go through here and estimate the timber for us. Well, Dunmore was recommended for the job, and we hired him. He and I travelled over some thirty thousand acres, camping wherever night overtook us. It did not take me long to discover that he was a gifted man. Many an evening, as we sat by our lonely fire in the woods, I have wept and laughed over his poems."

"Poems!" Master exclaimed.

"That's the only word for it," Gordon went on. "The man is a woods lover and a poet. One night he told me part of his life story. Sile, you remember when the old iron company shut down their works at Tifton. Well, everybody left the place except Tom Muir, the postmaster. He was a widower, and lived with one child—a girl about nineteen years old when the forest village died. Dunmore married that girl. He told me how beautiful she was and how he loved her. Well, they didn't get along together. He was fond of the woods and she was not.

"For five years they lived together in the edge of the wilderness. Then she left him. Well—poor woman!—it was a lonely life, and some tourist fell in love with her, they tell me. I don't know about that. Anyhow, Dunmore was terribly embittered. A little daughter had been born to them. She was then three years of age."

"She's the angel y-you met to-day over by the p-pond," Strong put in, looking at Master.

Gordon lighted his pipe and went on with his story.

"Dunmore said that a relative had left him a little money. I remember we were camping that night on the shore of Buckhorn. Its beauty appealed to him. He said he'd like to buy that section and build him a camp on the pond and spend the rest of his life there.

"'But,' said I, 'you couldn't bring up your daughter in the woods.' Buckhorn was then thirty miles from anywhere.

"'That's just what I wish to do,' he answered. 'The world is so full of d———d spaniels'—I remember that was the phrase he used—and there's so much infamy among men, I'd rather keep her out of it. I want her to be as pure at twenty as she is now. I can teach her all I wish her to know.'

"Well, I sold him the Buckhorn tract. He built his camp, and moved there with the little girl and his mother—a woman of poor health and well past middle age. He brought an old colored man and his wife to be their servants, and there they are to-day—Dunmore and his mother and the girl and the two servants, now grown rather aged, they tell me."

"They have never left the woods?" said Master, as if it were too incredible.

"Dunmore goes to New York, but not oftener than once a year," Gordon went on. "He has property—a good deal of property, I suppose, and has to give it some attention. The others have never left the woods."

"Sends home b-big boxes, an' I t-tote 'em in," Silas explained.

"Do you mean to tell me that Dunmore's daughter has never seen the clearing since she was a baby?"

Strong's interest was thoroughly aroused. He took off his coat and laid it down carefully, as if he were about to go in swimming. He was wont to do this when his thoughts demanded free and full expression.

"B-been t' Tillbury post-office w-with the ol' man—n-no further," Strong explained. "Dunmore says she 'ain't never s-seen a child 'cept one. That was a b-baby. Some man an' his w-wife come through here w-with it from the n-north th-three year ago."

"Fact is, I think he feared for a long time that his wife would try to get possession of the child," said Gordon. "Late years, I understand, the girl has had to take care of the old lady. In a letter to me once Dunmore referred to his daughter as the 'little nun of the green veil,' and spoke of her devotion to her grandmother."

Gordon rose and went to his bed in one of the cabins. Strong and the young man kept their seats at the camp-fire, talking of Dunmore and his daughter and their life in the woods. The Emperor, who felt for this lonely child of the forest, talked from a sense of duty.

"S-sail in," he presently said. "S-sail in an' t-tame her."

"I don't know how to begin."

"She'll be there t-to-morrer sure," Strong declared.

"So shall I," said the young man.

"C-cal'late she's w-wownded, too," Strong suggested. "B-be careful. She's like a w-wild deer."

They were leaving the fire on their way to bed. The young man stopped and repeated the words incredulously—"Like a wild deer!"

"T-take the ch-childem with ye," Strong advised. "She'll w-want t' look 'em over."

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