"The beautiful lady" stood looking at him, her left hand upon her chin, her arms bare to the elbows. A smile, an almost imperceptible nod, and the eloquence of her eyes were the only answer she gave him, but they were enough.
"Will you not speak to me?" the young man urged, as he came nearer.
She stood looking, curiously, until he could almost have touched her. Then, gently, she pushed the children away and fled up the trail, her pet following. In a moment she had gone out of sight.
She was like the spirit of the woodland—wild, beautiful, silent.
XV
THERE was a great marsh around a set-back leading off the still water near Lost River camp. There the children had seen many cranes, and they did not forget that certain of them had stood upon one leg. After supper that evening they sat together whispering awhile and presently stole away. There was a trail for frog-hunters that led to their destination. They ran, eagerly, and, just as the sun was going down, stopped on a high bank overlooking the marshes. It was a broad flat covered with pools and tall grasses and bogs, crowned with leaves of the sweet-flag and with cattails and pussy-willows. Now it was still and hazy. The pools were like mirrors with the golden glow of the sky and soft, dark shadows in them.
Far out on the marsh they discovered a crane strolling leisurely among the bogs, and began to chatter about him.
They looked and listened until the sun had gone below the tops of the trees. Then cranes came flying homeward out of the four skies, and, one by one, lighted on the edge of a bog some two or three hundred feet from the children. Sue uttered a little cry of joy. The cranes stood motionless with heads up.