At the End Of His Rope, by Florence Morse Kingsley

The Naked Word electronic edition of....
At the End Of His Rope
by Florence Morse Kingsley, 1899



MR. PERCY ALGERNON SMITH, familiarly known as "Cinnamon" Smith, thrust his hands 
deeper into his trousers pockets. "I am not going," he remarked with an air of 
decision. 
"Not going!" cried the joint proprietors of Lone Pine Camp in a chorus. "Not 
going! Why?" 
Mr. Smith vouchsafed no immediate reply; he had fixed an experienced eye upon 
the coffee-pot, which at the moment threatened to inundate the camp-fire with 
its furious contents. "Here, you, Jake," he said peremptorily; "the coffee's 
boiling over!" 
The campers at Lone Pine were on the point of starting out for an all-day's 
fishing excursion up Sunday Brook. It may as well be explained right here that 
the party consisted of four undergraduates of C—— University who were 
temporarily pursuing their education in the bracing air of the Adirondacks. 
That these young gentlemen were thus studiously engaged during that portion of 
the year commonly exempt from mental pursuits argues nothing. Great minds have 
ever been remarkable for concentration of purpose; and everybody knows that the 
late football, rowing, and bicycle seasons were of unusual and engrossing 
interest. It is to be hoped that a future and more enlightened generation will 
so arrange the dull and comparatively unimportant scholastic pursuits that they 
shall not clash with live interests. In a word, to quote from their own forceful 
if inelegant phraseology— Messrs. "Cinnamon" Smith, "Piggy" Brewster, 
"Herodotus" Jones, and "Tommy" Pettigrew had been "plucked" in their 
examinations, and were now "cramming" with more or less enthusiasm and diligence 
under the able direction of Prof. John Gearing. 
Mr. Smith's announcement occasioned considerable badinage of a personal and even 
damaging nature, all of which was received by that young man with commendable 
stoicism and equanimity. 
"Cin's lazy!" drawled "Piggy" Brewster, as he ensconced himself comfortably in 
the stern of the boat, armed with the lightest paddle 
"Cinnamon's going to write to his best girl!" shouted Herodotus Jones, shying a 
mighty quid of spruce-gum at the auburn head of the young gentleman on the 
shore. "Do it in poetry on birch-bark, old boy! Little wavelets a-kissin' the 
beach; green leaves all whisperin' of thee; my heart a-tremblin' with rapture at 
the call of the lone loon across the moonlit waters! Hey, Cin?" 
"Aw— get along with you!" growled the recipient of these graceful sallies. "I'm 
going to bone all day on Greek— that's what I'm going to do." 
A burst of derisive laughter greeted this saying. Then the boat shot out into 
the sparkling waters of Beaver Lake, and speedily disappeared behind the wooded 
island. 
Left to himself, it appeared that Mr. Smith had not remained behind to indulge 
in solitary ease, for no sooner did the last echo of oars and voices die away 
than he fell to work with extraordinary energy and diligence. He swept out the 
camp— being not over-particular as to corners— gathering in the process a goodly 
heap of bacon-rinds, egg-shells, torn paper, and tin cans, which he bestowed in 
the bushes. A motley array of old shoes of various sizes, four and one-half 
pairs of ragged socks, a nondescript assortment of party-colored garments in 
various stages of dilapidation were retired, in company with the camp 
frying-pan, to a dark corner under the bunks, this position being further 
defended by an artistic arrangement of balsam boughs. As a finishing touch, two 
pairs of muddy trousers, a half-emptied tin of condensed milk— to the wrath and 
discomfiture of an industrious swarm of Adirondack flies— and three dog-eared 
novels followed the bacon-rinds into the comfortable obscurity of the 
huckle-berry bushes. 
Mr. Smith paused long enough to wipe his heated brow. "It looks pretty slick," 
he murmured approvingly. "And now for the grub; girls are always hungry." 
A rapid but thoughtful investigation of the camp cupboard ensued, with the 
following-named results: item— two small and somewhat wizened lemons; item— one 
damp and dubious paper bag, containing ginger-snaps minus the snap; item— one 
box of marshmallows. 
"The lemonade'll be on the Sunday-school-picnic order," meditated the youth, as 
he surveyed these tempting articles with a doubtful grimace; "and the less said 
about the snaps the better; but they'll cotton to the marshmallows all right.— 
Jerusalem crickets! there they are now, t'other side of the lake, and I haven't 
even washed my hands!" 
Exactly seven minutes later, Mr. Percy Algernon Smith, arrayed in a golf suit of 
the latest fashionable cut and an immaculate flannel shirt, set off by a 
neck-tie of flaming red— which, he flattered himself, subdued the tint of his 
auburn locks to a positive brown— sauntered jauntily down to the boat-landing. 
"How de do, Miss Daisy! (Jove, but she's a stunner, and no mistake!) Glad to see 
you, Miss Terrill! Won't you come ashore?" 
The elder of the two young persons in the boat hesitated; but the one addressed 
as Miss Daisy was on her feet in a twinkling. 
"Just for an instant, Kate!" she said deprecatingly. "What a sweet place for a 
camp— ours isn't nearly so pretty!— Lemonade?" went on this sprightly damsel, 
fanning her flushed face with a big green fan; "yes, indeed, and it's awfully 
kind of you to think of it Mr. Smith! Aren't you thirsty, Kate?" 
The person addressed as Kate looked about her tentatively. "It certainly is a 
very pretty place," she said sedately; "but we ought not to stop, Margaret." 
"The fellows are all off on the trail to Sunday Brook," remarked the astute Mr. 
Smith, setting out three glasses on the pine board which did duty as a table. 
"They won't be back before evening. The old man's out bug-hunting." 
"Who is the old man?" cried Miss Margaret with and irrelevant gurgle of 
laughter. "And bug-hunting— ugh! Who ever heard of such a thing!" 
"Oh, I mean Gearing! He's bossing the cramming for exams," replied Mr. Smith 
with elegant brevity. "Two lumps of sugar, or three, Miss Daisy?" 
"Three, please. Is he married?" 
"Married! Who— the old man? Ha! ha!— that's a good one! Why, Miss Daisy, Gearing 
never even looks at anything but books and bugs, and is more afraid of a pretty 
girl than he'd be of a boa constrictor!" 
"The idea! How funny! Kate, do look at that big spool up there on the tree! What 
is that for, Mr. Smith?" 
"That spool? Aw— that's another of Gearing's notions. He likes to get off all by 
himself after his bugs— don't want even a guide along to bother him. So he ties 
up one end of a string in camp and unwinds a monstrous spool as he goes along. 
When he gets through with his investigations he winds up, and the string brings 
him into camp again as right as a trivet. See?" 
"The very idea!" 
"Bright man!" chorused the fair voyagers. 
"His spools hold a mile of string, and he generally carries his pockets full of 
'em," pursued Mr. Smith, gallantly presenting a toasted marshmallow to each of 
his guests. "You can bet the fellows don't raise many objections to his 
travels!— I say, Miss Margaret," he added guilelessly, "don't you want some pink 
water-lilies? I know where there's a grist of 'em— beauties too." 
"You go, Margaret," said Miss Terrill indulgently; "I'll stop here and rest. I'm 
too deliciously comfortable to move." 
And producing a volume from the pocket of her jacket, the young lady settled 
back in her luxurious chair— cunningly fashioned out of a barrel and a piece of 
burlap— with the air of an experienced chaperon. 
Before proceeding further with this narrative, it must be distinctly understood 
that Miss Katherine Terrill was a young person in whose veins ran certain saving 
streams of genuine blue blood. Not only was she a Colonial dame by virtue of 
both lines of descent, but through her maternal grandmother she was still 
further linked with greatness in a manner which defied question. 
To quote the often-repeated admonition of Madam Carter Stockard herself, "You 
must never forget, my dear Katherine, what your position as a descendant of Col. 
Brayton Carter, of Virginia, implies." 
"I should require a memory as long as that of Methuselah, dear grandmama, if I 
remembered all that it implies," was the somewhat flippant answer. 
"I am grieved and astonished, my dear Katherine," once remarked Miss Penelope 
Scidmore, principal of the Sadmore Select School for Young ladies, "to learn 
that you, a young person of the most admirable birth and breeding, should for 
one moment have countenanced such a breach of the proprieties!" Miss Scidmore 
had made the painful discovery that certain of her "select" young ladies, under 
the leadership of Miss Terrill, had walked out of the protecting walls of the S. 
S. S. Y. L. without a chaperon; and that, thus alone and unprotected, they had 
pressed into service a team of horses and an empty hay-wagon which they found on 
a side street, and had actually taken a ride therein through the principal 
street of the little towns to the consternation (when he saw them) of the old 
farmer who owned the wagon, and to the still greater consternation (when she 
heard of it) of Miss Scidmore. 
"Why," continued that lady in impassioned tones, "have you thus forgotten what 
is due to yourself and your family?" 
"I am sure I don't know, Miss Scidmore," Katherine had replied with honest 
contrition; "I— I just did it!" By which it will be seen that this young lady of 
high birth was, on occasion, as much the sport of freakish impulse as Katie 
O'Flarity, the daughter of the gardener at Brayton manor. All this by way of 
explanation— though it is in no sense an excuse for what is to follow. 
The day was warm, as has been intimated, and the claims of "The Scarlet Doom" on 
the interest of the reader wavered after a little. Historical novels, dealing 
with the sanguinary past from a cold-blooded American standpoint, were decidedly 
out of place— thought this sapient young person— amid the fresh breezy wilds of 
the Adirondacks. She dropped the book, to fix her undivided attention upon the 
antics of a pair of squirrels which were frisking in primal gladness from bough 
to bough of the big pine. Her eyes followed them with a certain distinct 
satisfaction in the lawless freedom of these creatures of the wilderness, whose 
ancestors cast no chilling shadow upon the joyous present. 
At this point in the course of her aimless meditations her vagrant fancy was 
again arrested by the big spool dangling by a scarlet thread from the branch 
just above her head. As she gazed at this simple object, Miss Terrill completely 
forgot her position in society and the august character of her lineage. After 
full five minutes of reflection, which— as subsequent events proved— might have 
been spent to better advantage, the descendant of the Brayton Carters 
deliberately stood up on her chair and detached the big spool from its position. 

"This is a cobweb party," she said solemnly; "the scientific old professor and 
his box of bugs is the prize." With that, this "model of all the proprieties" 
began to walk away into the woods, winding up the scarlet cord as she went. 
From fragrant, low-dropping balsam to white-limbed birch; from sunny knoll, 
crowded with purple-fruited huckleberries, to solemn stretches of forest, where 
the winds loitered in the odorous branches of the pines, whispering strange, 
ancient secrets of earth and sky; through trackless wastes of sweet fern, where 
the gnats bit fiercely; through dense blackberry thickets, which clutched her 
savagely in their thorny arms; over fallen logs, half rotted away and carpeted 
deep with softest emerald mosses; past swampy spots, where the trim boots sank 
ankle deep in the black mud— deeper and deeper into the pathless wilderness led 
the fine slender clew. 
"It's simply barrels of fun!" sighed the bold adventurer, lapsing into the camp 
vernacular, as she sank breathless on to a bank to rest, "but— I believe I'll go 
back without my prize. It must be nearly dinner-time." 
She reached out after a sprig of wintergreen, where gay scarlet berries 
glimmered like live coals amid the overarching ferns, her brown cheeks dimpling 
as she reflected upon the undoubted consternation of the water-lily hunters. 
Then she sprang to her feet with an air of decision. "I must go back at once; we 
ought not to have stopped at all." 
She glanced down at the bulky form of the big brown spool, and the full extent 
of her folly dawned suddenly upon her. "How can I go back? I've wound up the 
cord!" 
It was characteristic of this young person that, preliminarily to a careful 
consideration of the question, she sank down and laughed— till she cried; this 
to the great astonishment and dismay of divers small woodsfolk, who paused in 
the business of the hour to observe the new and peculiar animal which produced 
such strange noises. 
"I have come a mile," she reflected, sitting up and wiping her eyes; "for this 
spool is full, and number two hangs in the bushes yonder." 
The idea of surprising an elderly student of science at his labors had been 
gradually growing less and less attractive; and now after a period of serious 
reflection it ceased to appear either funny or fascinating in the slightest 
degree. 
"He is undoubtedly a person who would be politely, sarcastically, and crushingly 
disagreeable because I had ventured to meddle with his absurd spools," decided 
Miss Terrill soberly. "I am very glad that I stopped in time; I shall have no 
trouble in reaching the camp from this point. Of course I shall put the spool 
exactly where I found it." 
She rose slowly to her feet and looked meditatively about her. "I came by that 
big tree; I remember the dead branch hanging down to the ground." 
Ah, foolish maid! keener eyes than those pretty brown ones of yours have been 
deceived by the wonderful likeness of everything to every other thing in the big 
woods. The tree with the dead branch certainly led to a perfectly 
familiar-looking bush; and the bush beguiled the weary little feet to an odorous 
group of balsams, where bright-eyed squirrels chattered angrily at the wearer of 
the jaunty red tam. And beyond the balsams there was a cup-like hollow where the 
beautiful deadly "Fly Amanita" thrust its golden globes through the black-leaf 
mould. Then the brambles clutched at her with their thorny fingers, and the 
treacherous mud tried to hold her away from the ripe huckleberries. And all the 
while the gnats and mosquitoes followed hard after— like the hosts of an 
avenging fate. 
But, yes; it was all perfectly plain and not at all far. She would soon catch a 
sparkle of blue water through the trees, and then dinner and a long, delicious 
rest in the hammock! The grewsome tales of wayfarers lost and starving in the 
woods were— she decided— simply figments of weak and elderly imaginations; mere 
bugaboos to keep small children within bounds. Any person of sound judgment and 
educated powers of observation could easily— 
"Gracious!" Miss Terrill rarely made use of such vulgar exclamations, but the 
exigency of the occasion wrung it from her lips. The spool was again empty! She 
looked wildly about her; there was no welcome glimmer of blue water, no 
pervasive odor of a smoky camp-fire, no dinner, no hammock anywhere in sight. 
"Well, there is only one thing to do," decided the girl after a second period of 
reflection, during which the humorous nature of the adventure did not once recur 
to her mind. "I will go back to the second spool once more, and try again. One 
can always do what one must do," she added sententiously, and with the air of 
one who combats an unpleasant suggestion. 
Two hours later, as she wearily retraced her steps for the third time to the 
spot where the second spool hung in the bushes, the situation had resolved 
itself in her mind (she had been a "special" in mathematics) into the following 
concise form: 
"Let A represent the camp, and B the position of the second spool, one mile 
distant from A. How many miles might a person travel in endeavoring to reach A, 
supposing he started from B in a different direction each time?" 
"If the traveler started out from B and traveled in a perfectly straight line 
each time," she murmured— a diagram of the problem presenting itself with 
appalling distinctness before her mental vision— "he might easily travel several 
hundred miles without reaching A. If he traveled in curved lines— as he 
certainly would— why—" 
The undeniable conclusions were too harrowing to contemplate with calmness, 
therefore Miss Katherine Carter Terrill sat down upon a mossy log and shed tears 
for full five minutes. She beheld herself, as it were, the wandering radius of 
an unknown circle, returning innumerable times to point B. and at last lying 
cold and unconscious on the forest leaves, the fatal spool clutched tight in her 
stiffened fingers. 
"I shall never find it— never!" she wailed, grinding the innocent cause of her 
misadventure beneath her boot-heels. "But, oh, how can I let that man find me, 
as he certainly will, if I hold on to this wretched spool! I can't, if I have to 
die of slow starvation— and I am so hungry! But suppose I leave the spool here, 
the unsuspecting old gentleman will wind up to it, and then he will have nothing 
to go by— not even point B!" 
A vision of her oven revered grandparent wandering gaunt and famished through 
interminable wastes of desolate forest filled her with a lively anguish. 
"No, I must not leave him to perish— it would be murder!" she said with a 
shudder. "I will find him and tell him what I have done." 
II
John Gearing glanced hastily over the closely written pages of his note-book by 
the waning light, snapped the cover of his tin specimen case with a 
well-satisfied air, and rose to his feet. 
"It must be getting along toward sunset," he reflected, with a cursory glance at 
his watch. "Capital day's work, though; I shouldn't like to have missed that 
scarlet-headed arachnid. As for the coleopteron, I doubt if it has been 
generally recognized as a genuine crotylid— which it unquestionably is." 
He paused to drop a full spool into his pocket and disengage an empty one from 
the limb of a mighty spruce which stood among its fellows weeping odorous tears 
of purest gum. The bug-hunter eyed it thoughtfully, a cheerful vision of the 
camp frying-pan, replete with sizzling slices of fragrant bacon, to be succeeded 
by a long procession of substantial slapjacks, rising alluringly before him. 
"Jove!" he muttered, "I forgot to eat my lunch!" 
The reflections of the hungry scientist as he strode rapidly onward winding up 
his second spool were both comfortable and complacent. "A more useful device to 
save valuable time than this simple system of spools was never devised," he 
decided. "At this moment I am— approximately— one and one-half miles from 
supper; with no doubtful trail to follow, no delays to puzzle over direction, no 
uncertainty whatever as to the exact point at which I shall—" He stopped short; 
his keen ear had caught the sound of crackling branches. 
"A deer!" he muttered; "and coming right this way!" 
Arachnida, coleoptera, spools, and even supper were forgotten on the instant; 
and the bug-hunter, alert and silent, stood grasping his rifle, his eyes fixed 
on the low-growing tangle of evergreens from which the suspicious sounds had 
proceeded. A moment later and he was staring with undisguised amazement at the 
small figure which limped rapidly toward him. 
"You are not Professor Gearing— I am so glad!" were the astonishing words with 
which the apparition introduced itself. It pushed back a scarlet tam-o'-shanter 
from a tangle of brown curls, and continued: "I don't know who you are, but I am 
Katherine Terrill and I am lost in these dreadful woods. Do take me home!" With 
that the figure sank back against a tree with a sound suspiciously like a sob. 
"I— I do not understand," stammered the astounded bug-hunter lamely. "I can take 
you home, certainly; but I must acknowledge that I am John Gearing." 
The wearer of the scarlet tam started up with a hysterical laugh. "Professor 
Gearing is an old man!" she cried, "and you— you are quite— quite young! I took 
his spool out of the camp, and I can't find the way back!" 
"The spool— eh! You don't mean—" 
"Yes, I do. I took it and wound it up to point B— I mean the second spool," 
faltered the mischief-maker, her cheeks dyed with penitent blushes. "I— I was 
stopping at the camp, you see, for a few moments with a friend, and I saw the 
spool. I can't tell you why I did it." This last with a vain clutch after her 
vanished dignity. "It— it just occurred to me that it might be—" 
"I hung that empty spool there merely as a tag at the end of my string," 
remarked John Gearing meditatively. "I certainly—" 
"Say anything you like to me," interrupted Miss Terrill solemnly; "I deserve it. 
We shall never get home alive— never!" 
John Gearing stared at the speaker for a full minute, then he threw back his 
head and laughed long and loud. "I— I beg your pardon, Miss Terrill," he said at 
length; "but really—" 
"Oh, yes, you may laugh!" said the young lady with an indignant shrug. "I 
laughed too at first. But it hasn't seemed a bit funny for at least six hours. I 
tell you we can't get back! We shall starve to death; and it's— it's getting 
dark!" 
The bug-hunter was sobered in an instant by the pitiful quiver in the tired 
voice. 
"You don't mean to say that you have been wandering about since morning with 
nothing to eat?" he asked anxiously. 
"Nothing but huckleberries— and I loathe huckleberries!" 
John Gearing hastily swung his pack-basket to the ground. "These sandwiches"— 
producing a parcel of dubious aspect— "have suffered somewhat, I fear, knocking 
about all day among my traps; but if you will accept them—" 
"They look perfectly delicious!" declared the young lady with unconcealed 
delight. "But I shall eat only one— it is just possible, you know, that we 
might— in time—" 
"I beg that you will give yourself no further anxiety on that score!" cried John 
Gearing confidently. "We are only a trifle over a mile from camp; we'll be there 
inside of an hour." 
The girl shook her head mournfully. "That we are so near is just the most 
dreadful part of it," she said, winking rapidly to keep back two big tears which 
were trying hard to pass the barrier of her long lashes. "But if you really 
think you can find the way, do let us start at once. Of course we can reach the 
second spool," she added. "I— I was frightened when I saw how late it was 
growing, so I came to meet you. I thought it was my duty to— to tell you—" 
John Gearing surveyed the speaker in puzzled silence. "Do you— er mind telling 
me," he burst out after a long pause, during which the stealthy twilight made 
perceptible advances, "what— that is— why you were so sure that I was somebody 
else— at first, you know?" 
"What must you think of me!" exclaimed Miss Terrill irrelevantly, stopping short 
in the midst of a vicious tangle of blackberry bushes for no other purpose, it 
appeared, than to wring her small hands. "It has all been so dreadful that I 
haven't realized that! You must think me bold and meddlesome and— and generally 
horrid!" 
"I have thought nothing of the kind!" retorted the bug-hunter with unnecessary 
warmth. "It was all the fault of those infernal spools! I wouldn't mind this"— 
with a comprehensive wave of the hand which seemed to include all the hostile 
forces of nature— "if it were not for you. I should get into camp all right, 
some time; but—" 
"You may think so, but you couldn't," said the girl with a pitying glance at the 
stalwart figure. "It will be all the harder for you to bear; and when I think 
that I did it— that it is all my fault! But of course I didn't think— I could 
never have imagined— what a fatal thing I was doing when I touched that spool. 
No, wait till I have told you all." With that she poured forth the tale of the 
day's adventures, closing with a statement of the problem which she had spent 
six unhappy hours in trying to solve. 
"Don't you see," she said in a shaking voice, "how utterly improbable it is that 
we shall ever reach point A?" 
John Gearing had smiled more than once during this recital; he also frowned as 
he stared anxiously into the black depths of the forest which shut them in like 
a wall. 
"Miss Terrill," he said gravely, "your conclusions are undeniably logical and 
unpleasantly correct— from your premises; but luckily there, are other factors 
which you have overlooked, and which must be introduced. One is, that the guides 
are sure to beat the woods for miles about point A. There is, therefore, not the 
slightest danger of our becoming either variable or permanent radii of point B. 
The only question to be considered at present is, shall we make any immediate 
attempt to solve the problem ourselves? You are already weary, and—" 
"You might attach a second spool at point B." interrupted the girl, knitting her 
pretty brows; "our chances would then be multiplied by two." 
"But I object to the preliminary division," said John Gearing decidedly; "it 
simply isn't to be thought of. The darkness has closed in upon us at an 
unconscionably early hour," he went on rapidly. "I can not understand it, 
unless, to add to our perplexity, it is about to—" A drop of water which landed 
squarely on the tip of his nose explained the phenomenon. 
"It is raining," observed Miss Terrill with the calmness of despair. "But of 
course that was to be expected. We will go on," she added firmly. "No— I am not 
at all tired, and I am quite accustomed to the woods." This last with a superb 
gesture of refusal as her victim offered his arm. 
Two minutes later her foot slipped on a treacherous log, and with a cry she 
plunged forward into the darkness. 
John Gearing was at her side in an instant. "My poor little girl," he murmured, 
lifting her with all possible gentleness, "are you much hurt?" 
"At all events I have not sprained my ankle," said the girl with a faint laugh. 
"But I slipped once before to-day, and—" 
John Gearing groaned. "I shall never forgive myself for my outrageous folly!" he 
declared savagely, and quite involuntarily he tightened the clasp of his strong 
arms. 
Miss Terrill laughed again in spite of herself. "Put me down, please, Mr. 
Gearing," she said. "If you should change most of the pronouns in your last 
statement to the second person, it would be quite what I deserve. I fear I shall 
have to stop where I am; but you must go on. Please go at once before it gets 
any darker." 
"And leave you here alone?" 
"Yes." 
By way of answer, John Gearing hastily divested himself of his thick 
shooting-jacket and wrapped it about his companion with an authoritative 
firmness which admitted of no question. 
"I have four matches— and a half, to be exact," he said, after a careful search 
through his various pockets. "Luckily it hasn't rained long enough to wet the 
ground; if the fates aren't too unkind we'll have a camp-fire inside of five 
minutes." 
A flash, a sizzle, an impatient exclamation announced that match number one had 
weakly succumbed to the untoward influences of the place and hour. Two, three, 
and four followed with disheartening unanimity, during intervals plainly 
occupied in a frantic search for drier material. 
"If you only had some paper," ventured a timid voice out of the darkness. 
"Of course! Thank heaven you reminded me before I struck that last half match!" 
Another moment, and a score of closely written pages treating learnedly of the 
coleoptera and arachnida of the great northern wilderness were blazing merrily 
in the midst of a skilfully constructed pile of twigs and branches. 
"Wasn't it fortunate you happened to have that paper?" observed Miss Terrill, as 
she leaned forward to warm her chilled fingers at the now thoroughly established 
fire. 
"Fortunate!" echoed John Gearing, dropping his specimen-box as he stooped to lay 
another stick on the fire— whereat the scarlet-headed arachnid and the 
coleoptera, one and all, wriggled out and away with joyful haste. "It was by all 
odds the most fortunate thing I know of." 
"Perhaps you will think me a coward," began the girl, after a prolonged pause 
which the raindrops filled with a soft, insistent murmur. "Do you think it would 
be very wrong for me— that is, for you—" She turned her head away from the 
searching firelight as she continued in so low a voice that John Gearing was 
forced to bend his tall head to listen— "if they find us? You said they would 
search for us?" 
"They will search for us— certainly, and find us." 
"If they know— that is, if you— if— I must tell them that I took the spool to to 
find you, I could not face them— I could not bear it!" 
"Ah, but the fact is that I found you!" said John Gearing in his deepest voice. 
"Yes— but— the spools!" 
The bug-hunter leaned forward and deliberately dropped a full half dozen of them 
into the red heart of the fire. 
"There are no spools," he said calmly. 
A more unpleasant spot than the virgin forest of the Adirondacks on a wet night 
it would be difficult to find. Mr. Percy Algernon Smith put this fact more 
forcibly; he said— But why repeat the words of a man who has forced his way 
through some six or eight miles of soaking coves, pursued all the way by 
jubilant throngs of mosquitoes— his energies being still further taxed by 
laborious and systematic performance on a big tin horn? 
"I say, Jake," he bawled, pausing after a succession of ear-splitting blasts, 
"d'ye hear anything?" 
The guide nodded, "To the west on us," he said, jerking his thumb over his 
shoulder. "'Tain't fur, neither." 
The sagacious reader has already divined that this is only the beginning of the 
story. Its ending was after the old, old fashion, of which wise people the world 
over never grow tired, and which in truth is the end— or the beginning— of every 
story that is at all worth the telling. In this place it must be set down in 
just four words— afterward they were married. 
It was my good fortune, not many months later, to hear Mrs. John Gearing relate 
the above romantic circumstances, which she did with the prettiest smiles and 
blushes imaginable. 
In closing she declared solemnly that never in all the course of her existence 
had such a welcome, glad, cheerful, happy, enlivening, and altogether delightful 
vision greeted her eyes as the round, freckled face of "Cinnamon" Smith as he 
burst through the dripping branches on that rainy August night. 
But she never so much as mentioned the spools; it was their ashes that told the 
tale.