"Of course I'll put up my rod at once; and I will take the first opportunity of apologising for my crime; for poaching is a crime, isn't it ?" "Yes," she assented, laconically.
"Can you tell me where he lives--where his house is ?" She raised her whip again and pointed to an opening on the left of the valley, an opening lined on either side by a wild growth of magnificent firs.
"It is up there.

You cannot see it from here," she said.

As she spoke, she took her chin from her hand and sat upright, gathered up her reins, and, with another of the faint inclinations of her head, by way of adieu, rode on up the valley.
Stafford stood with his cap in his hand looking after her for a moment, in a brown study; and, still watching the back of the slight figure that sat the big horse with the grace of an Indian maiden, he began to take down his rod, and, having packed it in his case and fastened his basket, he followed her along the broken bank of the stream.

Presently, when she had gone some little distance, he heard the dogs start barking again, the crack of her whip rang like a pistol-shot, and her bell-like voice echoed amongst the hills, joined with the troubled baaing of the sheep.

Stafford stopped and watched her: there was evidently something wrong; for the dogs had become excited, the sheep were running wildly; but the girl's exquisite voice was as clear and calm as ever, and the big horse cantered over the broken ground, taking a big boulder now and again with lilting jump, as if he were going by his own volition and was well up in all the points of the game.