When Winthrope came up with the others, they were gathering green leaves to throw on the fire which was blazing close beside the ant-hill.

“Get a move on you!” called Blake. “You’re slow. Grab a bunch of leaves, and get into the smoke, if you don’t want to be stung.”

Winthrope neither gathered any leaves nor hurried himself, until he was visited by a highly irritated bee. Then he obeyed with alacrity. Blake was far too intent on other matters to heed the Englishman. Leaping in and out of the thick of the smoke, he pounded the ant-hill with his club, until he had broken a gaping hole into the cavity. The smoke, pouring into the hive, made short work of the bees that had not already been suffocated.

Although the antelope skin was drawn into the shape of a sack, both it and the pot were filled to overflowing with honey, and there were still more combs left than the three could eat.

Blake caught Winthrope smiling with satisfaction as he licked his fingers.“What’s the matter with my expedition now, old man?” he demanded.

“I–ah–must admit, Blake, we have had a most enjoyable change of food.”

“If you are sure it will agree with you,” remarked Miss Leslie.

“But I am sure of that, Miss Genevieve. I could digest anything to-day. I’m fairly ravenous.”

“All the more reason to be careful,” rejoined Blake. “I guess, though, what we’ve had’ll do no harm. We’ll let it settle a bit, here in the shade, and then hit the home trail.”

“Could we not first go to the river, Mr. Blake? My hands are dreadfully sticky.”

“Win will take you. It’s only a little way to the bank here and there’s not much underbrush.”

“If you think it’s quite safe–” remarked Winthrope.

“It’s safe enough. Go on. You’ll see the river in half a minute. Only thing, you’d better watch out for alligators.”

“I believe that–er–properly speaking, these are crocodiles.”

“You don’t say! Heap of difference it will make if one gets you.”

Miss Leslie caught Winthrope’s eye. He turned on his heel, and led the way for her through the first thicket. Beyond this they came to a little glade which ran through to the river. When they reached the bank, they stepped cautiously down the muddy slope, and bathed their hands in the clear water. As Miss Leslie rose, Winthrope bent over and began to drink.

“Oh, Mr. Winthrope!” she exclaimed; “please don’t! In your weak condition, I’m so afraid–”

“Do not alarm yourself. I am perfectly well, and I am quite as competent to judge what is good for me as your–ah–countryman.”

“Mr. Winthrope, I am thinking only of your own good.”

Winthrope took another deep draught, rinsed his fingers fastidiously, and arose.

“My dear Miss Genevieve,” he observed, “a woman looks at these matters in such a different light from a man. But you should know that there are some things a gentleman cannot tolerate.”

“You were welcome to all the water in the flask. Surely with that you could have waited, if only to please me.”

“Ah, if you put it that way, I must beg pardon. Anything to please you, I’m sure! Pray forgive me, and forget the incident. It is now past.”

“I hope so!” she murmured; but her heart sank as she glanced at his sallow face, and she recalled his languid, feeble movements.

Piqued by her look, Winthrope started back through the glade. Miss Leslie was turning to follow, when she caught sight of a gorgeous crimson blossom under the nearest tree. It was the first flower she had seen since being shipwrecked. She uttered a little cry of delight, and ran to pluck the blossom.

Winthrope, glancing about at her exclamation, saw her stoop over the flower–and in the same instant he saw a huge vivid coil, all black and green and yellow, flash up out of the bedded leaves and strike against the girl. She staggered back, screaming with horror, yet seemed unable to run.

Winthrope swung up his stick, and dashed across the glade towards her.

“What is it–a snake?” he cried.

The girl did not seem to hear him. She had ceased screaming, and stood rigid with fright, glaring down at the ground before her. In a moment Winthrope was near enough, to make out the brilliant glistening body, now extended full length in the grass. It was nearly five feet long and thick as his thigh. Another step, and he saw the hideous triangular head, lifted a few inches on the thick neck. The cold eyes were fixed upon the girl in a malignant, deadly stare.“Snake! snake!” he yelled, and thrust his cane at the reptile’s tail.

Again came a flashing leap of the beautiful ornate coil, and the stick was struck from Winthrope’s hand. He danced backward, wild with excitement.

“Snake!–Hi, Blake! monster!–Run, Miss Leslie! I’ll hold him–I’ll get another stick!”

He darted aside to catch up a branch, and then ran in and struck boldly at the adder, which reared hissing to meet him. But the blow fell short, and the rotten wood shattered on the ground. Again Winthrope ran aside for a stick. There was none near, and as he paused to glance about, Blake came sprinting down the glade.

“Where?” he shouted.

“There–Hi! look out! You’ll be on him!”

Blake stopped short, barely beyond striking distance of the hissing reptile.

“Wow!” he yelled. “Puff adder! I’ll fix him.”

He leaped back, and thrust his bow at the snake. The challenge was met by a vicious lunge. Even where he stood Winthrope heard the thud of the reptile’s head upon the ground.

“Now, once more, tootsie!” mocked Blake, swinging up his club.

Again the adder struck at the bow tip, more viciously than before. With the flash of the stroke, Blake’s right foot thrust forward, and his club came down with all the drive of his sinewy arm behind it. The blow fell across the thickest part of the adder’s outstretched body.

“Told you so! See him wiggle!” shouted Blake. “Broke his back, first lick– What’s the matter, Miss Jenny? He can’t do anything now.”

Miss Leslie did not answer. She stood rigid, her face ashy-gray, her dilated eyes fixed upon the writhing, hissing adder.

“I–I think the snake struck her!” gasped Winthrope, suddenly overcome with horror.

“God!” cried Blake. He dropped his club, and rushed to the girl. In a moment he had knelt before her and flung up her leopard-skin skirt. Her stockings ripped to shreds in his frantic grasp. There, a little below her right knee, was a tiny red wound. Blake put his lips to it, and sucked with fierce energy.

Then the girl found her voice.

“Go away–go away! How dare you!” she cried, as her face flushed scarlet.

Blake turned, spat, and burst out with a loud demand of Winthrope: “Quick! the little knife–I’ll have to slash it! Ten times worse than a rattlesnake– Lord! you’re slow–I’ll use mine!”“Let go of me–let go! What do you mean, sir?” cried the girl, struggling to free herself.

“Hold still, you little fool!” he shouted. “It’s death–sure death, if I don’t get the poison from that bite!”

“I’m not bitten– Let go, I say! It struck in the fold of my skirt.”

“For God’s sake, Jenny, don’t lie! It’s certain death! I saw the mark–”

“That was a thorn. I drew it out an hour ago.”

Blake looked up into her hazel eyes. They were blazing with indignant scorn. He freed her, and rose with clumsy slowness. Again he glanced at her quivering, scarlet face, only to look away with a sheepish expression.

“I guess you think I’m just a damned meddlesome idiot,” he mumbled.

She did not answer. He stood for a little, rubbing a finger across his sun-blistered lips. Suddenly he stopped and looked at the finger. It was streaked with blood.

“Whew!” he exclaimed. “Didn’t stop to think of that! It’s just as well for me, Miss Jenny, that wasn’t an adder bite. A little poison on my sore lip would have done for me. Ten to one, we’d both have turned up our toes at the same time. Of course, though, that’d be nothing to you.”Miss Leslie put her hands before her face, and burst into hysterical weeping.

Blake looked around, far more alarmed than when facing the adder.

“Here, you blooming lud!” he shouted; “take the lady away, and be quick about it. She’ll go dotty if she sees any more snake stunts. Clear out with her, while I smash the wriggler.”

Winthrope, who had been staring fixedly at the beautiful coloring and loathsome form of the writhing adder, started at Blake’s harsh command as though struck.

“I–er–to be sure,” he stammered, and darting around to the hysterical girl, he took her arm and hurried her away up the glade.

They had gone several paces when Blake came running up behind them. Winthrope looked back with a glance of inquiry. Blake shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said. “Give me your cigarette case. I’ve thought of something– Hold on; take out the cigarettes. Smoke ’em, if you like.”

Case in hand, Blake returned to the wounded adder, and picked up his club. A second smashing blow would have ended the matter at once; but Blake did not strike. Instead, he feinted with his club until he managed to pin down the venomous head. The club lay across the monster’s neck, and he held it fast with the pressure of his foot.

When, half an hour later, he wiped his knife on a wisp of grass and stood up, the cigarette case contained over a tablespoonful of a crystalline liquid. He peered in at it, his heavy jaw thrust out, his eyes glowing with savage elation.

“Talk about your meat trusts and Winchesters!” he exulted; “here’s a whole carload of beef in this little box–enough dope to morgue a herd of steers. Good God, though, that was a close shave for her!”

His face sobered, and he stood for several moments staring thoughtfully into space. Then his gaze chanced to fall upon the great crimson blossom which had so nearly lured the girl to her death.

“Hello!” he exclaimed; “that’s an amaryllis. Wonder if she wasn’t coming to pick it–” He snapped shut the lid of the cigarette case, thrust it carefully into his shirt pocket, and stepped forward to pluck the flower. “Makes a fellow feel like a kid; but maybe it’ll make her feel less sore at me.”

He stood gazing at the flower for several moments, his eyes aglow with a soft blue light.

“Whew!” he sighed; “if only– But what’s the use? She’s ’way out of my class–a rough brute like me! All the same, it’s up to me to take care of her. She can’t keep me from being her friend–and she sure can’t object to my picking flowers for her.”

Amaryllis in hand, he gathered up his bow and club. Then he paused to study the skin of the decapitated adder. The inspection ended with a shake of his head.

“Better not, Thomas. It would make a dandy quiver; but then, it might get on her nerves.”

When he came to the ant-hill, he found companions and honey alike gone. He went on to the cocoanuts. There he came upon Winthrope stretched flat beside the skin of honey. Miss Leslie was seated a little way beyond, nervously bending a palm-leaf into shape for a hat.

“I say, Blake,” drawled Winthrope, “you’ve been a deuced long time in coming. It was no end of a task to lug the honey–”

Blake brushed past without replying, and went on until he stood before the girl. As she glanced up at him, he held out the crimson blossom.

“Thought you might like posies,” he said, in a hesitating voice.

Instead of taking the flower, she drew back with a gesture of repulsion.

“Oh, take it away!” she exclaimed.Blake flung the rejected gift on the ground, and crushed it beneath his heel.

“Catch me making a fool of myself again!” he growled.

“I–I did not mean it that way–really I didn’t, Mr. Blake. It was the thought of that awful snake.”

But Blake, cut to the quick, had turned away, far too angry to heed what she said. He stopped short beside the Englishman; but only to sling the skin of honey upon his back. The load was by no means a light one, even for his strength. Yet he caught up the heavy pot as well, and made off across the plain at a pace which the others could not hope to equal.

As Winthrope rose and came forward to join Miss Leslie, he looked about closely for the bruised flower. It was nowhere in sight.

“Er–beg pardon, Miss Genevieve, but did not Blake drop the bloom–er–blossom somewhere about here?”

“Perhaps he did,” replied Miss Leslie. She spoke with studied indifference.

“I–ah–saw the fellow exhibit his impudence.”

“Ye-es?”

“You know, I think it high time the bounder is taken down a peg.”“Ah, indeed! Then why do you not try it?”

“Miss Genevieve! you know that at present I am physically so much his inferior–”

“How about mentally?”

Though the girl’s eyes were veiled by their lashes, she saw Winthrope cast after Blake a look that seemed to her almost fiercely vindictive.

“Well?” she said, smiling, but watching him closely.

“Mentally!–We’ll soon see about that!” he muttered. “I must say, Miss Genevieve, it strikes me as deuced odd, you know, to hear you speak so pleasantly of a person who–not to mention past occurrences–has to-day, with the most shocking disregard of–er–decency–”

“Stop!–stop this instant!” screamed the girl, her nerves overwrought.

Winthrope smiled with complacent assurance.

“My dear young lady,” he drawled, “allow me to repeat, ‘All is fair in love and war.’ Believe me, I love you most ardently.”

“No gentleman would press his suit at such a time as this!”

“Really now, I fancy I have always comported myself as a gentleman–”

“A trifle too much so, truth to say!” she retorted.

“Ah, indeed. However, this is now quite another matter. Has it not occurred to you, my dear, that this entire experience of ours since that beastly storm is rather–er–compromising?”

“You–you dare say such a thing! I’ll go this instant and tell Mr. Blake! I’ll–”

“Begging your pardon, madam,–but are you prepared to marry that barbarous clodhopper?”

“Marry? What do you mean, sir?”

“Precisely that. It is a question of marriage, if you’ll pardon me. And, you see, I flatter myself, that when it comes to the point, it will not be Blake, but myself–”

“Ah, indeed! And if I should prefer neither of you?”

“Begging your pardon,–I fancy you will honor me with your hand, my dear. For one thing, you admit that I am a gentleman.”

“Oh, indeed!”

“One moment, please! I am trying to intimate to you, as delicately as possible, how–er–embarrassing you would find it to have these little occurrences–above all, to-day’s–noised abroad to the vulgar crowd, or even among your friends–”

“What do you mean? What do you want?” cried the girl, staring at him with a deepening fear in her bewildered eyes.

“Believe me, my dear, it grieves me to so perturb you; but–er–love must have its way, you know.”

“You forget. There is Mr. Blake.”

“Ah, to be sure! But really now, you would not ask, or even permit him to murder me; and one is not legally bound, you know, to observe promises–a pledge of silence, for example–when extorted under duress, under violence, you know.”

Miss Leslie looked the Englishman up and down, her brown eyes sparkling with quick-returning anger. He met her scorn with a smile of smug complacency.

“Cad!” she cried, and turning her back upon him, she set out across the plain after Blake.