But even more disquieting than his silence was the way he continued to stand at the fence, casting his gaze through the doorway in exploration of the cabin.

Anne looked up at the loaded rifle resting across the deer horns over the door. This defense frightened her almost as much as the danger. The Indian unnerved her hardly more than the thought that she might have to use the gun in self-defense.

It would be the last resort. She would put off its use as long as possible. He continued to stand, a menacing statue, looking at her over the rail.

Hoping that he might possibly go away, she sat down, picked up the Latin book, and began to read. The blurred pages gave her the picture of the Indian and of naught else, save that recurring sentence, “Cena parata est–Dinner is ready.”

She laid down the book and took up “Jack the Giant-Killer.” That little volume yielded nothing but its unwelcome poetry. To her mind, troubled as it was, there nevertheless came back the rhyme:

Whoever can this trumpet blow

Shall soon the giant overthrow.

In spite of these returning distractions, she tried to think of some way she might make the Indian leave without having to use the gun.

Then suddenly the sentence and the rhyme no longer clogged her mind, but became stimulative and suggestive.

She got up and made a roaring fire in the tiny cook-stove, so that she knew the smoke was pouring out of the chimney. She dragged the chair back from the door and pulled out the table, where the Indian could command a full view of it. Then she busied herself preparing a meal.

After a suitable lapse of time, and as it was drawing near to noon, she began, under the still imperturbable gaze of the savage, to set the table. But it was not only for herself she set it. She put down four plates with their proper accompaniment of knives, forks, spoons, cups and saucers.

From its peg she took down the cow’s horn that had called men from the fields in Ohio, and stepped to the door.

“Dinner! D-i-n-n-e-r!” she called, at the top of her voice. “Dinner is ready!”

Then she put the horn to her mouth, and, with her cheeks ballooned like a bugler’s, blew with all her might.

The sound broke the stillness of the woods, and it put the Indian in motion. He had no intention of being caught there by the three men he supposed had been summoned to dinner by that loud blast. Hej fled across the clearing as fast as his legs would carry him and disappeared among the firs.

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