She looked still more confused. “No, I’m not so silly as that. It is loaded,” she said. “You’re always making me apologize to you.”

“Or is it that I make you feel like apologizing to yourself?”

“Perhaps that is it,” she admitted. “But—please don’t go down for the rifle.” She looked at the boar—its thin, powerful body, its vicious green eyes, its greedy, raw mouth—how those tusks and those pointed hoofs could tear and rip and mangle! Then she looked at the handsome, calmly courageous young American. “Please,” she begged. “If anything should go wrong with you, think how it would make me suffer, for I got you into this danger.”

“I’ve a better plan,” he said. “I might[67] climb through on the branches until I was directly over the gun. Then you could distract the brute’s attention by swinging your sash just over his nose. I could jump and grab the gun; I’d have plenty of time to aim and kill him.”

[67]

“That sounds very—unsafe,” she objected.

“At any rate, it will do no harm for me to get as near the gun as possible,” he said. And he began to crawl along a branch in the general direction of the rifle. The boar noted the movement and followed him underneath, snapping its fangs at him, the froth flowing from its ragged lips. Erica watched, her eyes wide, her face gray with dread. Crash! a branch gave way under him. He fell, and so low was he before he could stop himself that one of his feet, clad in a heavy shoe, kicked[68] the boar in the nose. She, seeing him begin to fall, screamed and turned about to descend.

[68]

“Stop! Stop!” he exclaimed, as he drew himself up into the tree. “I’m all right!”

She clambered back just as the boar, dashing for her, flung itself high up the trunk. He looked at her, saw that her eyes were closed and that she was trembling. “Are you going to faint?” he exclaimed. “Quick, unwind your sash and fasten yourself in the tree with it.”

“No,” she said. “I sha’n’t faint. Oh, what a weak, cowardly creature I am!”

“You?” His look and his tone brought the color to her cheeks and a pleased look to her eyes. “You, who were coming down when you thought the boar had me? You are the bravest girl I ever saw. You can be counted on.”

[69]He remembered the boar and again set 

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