of a will which, all day, had exerted pressure on a will in revolt—slipped from him, absorbed by the icy stimulant. Even while he wallowed there, his fancy, refreshed, took time to speculate on what sort of mind the fellow must have had who had conceived the remarkable decoration of the bathroom ceiling. Hard-rubbed, reclothed, with an agreeable consciousness of quicker blood in his veins and a brain fully ready again not only to make light, but to make capital of his difficulties, he reentered the bedroom.
He saw first his gun cases on the floor. He gathered them up, and carefully drew out one of the rifles. The bright firelight showed an unscratched barrel and lighted a stock that had never lain on the ground, never perhaps even felt the pressure of a shoulder. He turned it. His eye caught sight of a tiny green oval of paper pasted on the under side of the stock. He raised his eyebrows, and scratched the green paper delicately off. "I ought to have fired those things a few times on the way up," he thought. Still it won't do any harm to let them suppose I am a green hunter." He laid both rifles on the bed, put his hands in his pockets and strolled across to a window. It faced on the clearing. At his left he could see, projecting, the façade of the newer house,
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