Forbes bit his lip and waited. And behind his back, a singular pantomime was being enacted. A young woman whose heavy red hair fell about her like a cloak, ran into the arms of a breathless boy approaching from the opposite direction. She put her lips to his ear and whispered, "Don't tell him who I am."
"All right, but what's the matter, Aggie? What are you crying for?"
"Never mind. Nothing. Don't tell him my name."
"But what if he asks me?"
"Don't tell him, that's all." She drew herself away from him and started by a circuitous route for home. Howard approached his waiting employer with a new perplexity superimposed on his former perturbation.
"Mr. Forbes, I don't know what you'll think of me—but down there I ran into the game warden."
"Oh, did you!" Forbes' attitude was a trifle absent-minded. "Then you weren't hurt."
"No, sir, I'm all right. But he'd got hold of a partridge some one had shot and he was bound I'd done it. And he made me go along with him and I thought I would never get away."
Howard's voice showed strain. Forbes' groping hand found his shoulder and patted it.