It began suddenly to grow light.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Phyllis. "The woods must be on fire! Oh, the poor trees!"
"It isn't fire," said Herring, "it's the moon—'Queen and huntress, chaste and fair—goddess excellently bright'—was ever such luck! I hoped we were going to stand here cosily all night talking about marigolds and cowslips and wallpapers, and now it's our duty to move on. Come, Goody Two Shoes, Policeman Moon has told us to move on. I shall never forget this spot. And I shan't ever be able to find it again."
They toiled forward a little way, and lo! upon a sudden, they came to firm and rocky land that sloped abruptly upward from the swamp. They climbed for several hundred feet and came out upon a bare hilltop, from which could be seen billows of forest and one great horn of Half Moon Lake, silver in the moonlight.
"Why, it isn't a mile to camp," said Phyllis. She swayed a little, tottered, rocked backward and then forward, and fell against Herring's breast in a dead faint.
In a few moments she came to and found that she was being carried in strong arms. It was a novel, delicious, and restful sensation—one which it seemed immensely sensible to prolong. She did not, then, immediately open her eyes.
She heard a voice cheerful, but very much out of breath, murmuring over her:
"New experience. Never carried girl before. Experience worth repeating. Like 'em old-fashioned—like Great-grandmother Saltonstall. Like 'em to faint."
A few minutes later, "Where am I?" said Phyllis.
"In my arms," said Herring phlegmatically, as if that was one of her habitual residing places.