"
"You are sighing even now for the van and a camp fire--for the hay-camp
through the trees--"
"No!" with a very definite flash of perversity.
"Where is this persistent young nomad of the hay-camp anyway?"
"I--I have wondered myself."
But with a quiver of impatience the horse had pawed the ground and the
tiny bird flew off to a distant clump of palmetto.
Diane rode hurriedly off into the flat-woods.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE NOMAD OF THE FIRE-WHEEL
It had been an unforgettable day, this day in the pine woods. Diane
had forded shallow streams and followed bright-winged birds, lunched by
a silver lake set coolly in the darkling shade of cypress and found a
curious nest in the stump of a tree. Now with a mass of creeping
blackberry and violets strapped to her saddle she was riding slowly
back through the pine woods.
Though the sun, which awhile back had filled the hollow of palmetto
fronds with a ruddy pool of light, had long since dropped behind the
horizon, the girl somehow picked the homeward trail with the unerring
instinct of a wild thing. That one may be hopelessly lost in the
deceptive flatwoods she dismissed with a laugh. The wood is kind to
wild things.
It was quite dark when through the trees ahead she caught the curious
glimmer of a cart wheel of flame upon the ground, hub and spokes
glowing vividly in the center of a clearing.
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