The rest of the day was uneventful, save for the incident of Sami.  I think I told you about Sami, didn’t I?  A kind of brown familiar who follows Desire about.  He is a baby Indian as much a part of the mountain as the leaping squirrels and not nearly so tame.  He is the one thing here that I think Desire is sorry to leave.  And for this reason I hoped he wouldn’t appear before we were gone.  I had done all my packing—­easy enough since I had scarcely unpacked—­and I could hear Desire moving about doing hers.  The place seemed particularly peaceful.  I could, have felt almost sorry to leave my cool, bare room with its tree-stump for a table and all the forest just outside.  But as I sat there by the window there came upon me, for the second time that day, a mounting hurry to be gone.  There was nothing to account for it, but I distinctly felt an inward “Hurry!  Hurry!” So propelling was it that only the knowledge that the “Tillicum” would not float until high tide kept me from finding Desire and begging her to come away at once.  I did go so far as to wander restlessly down into the garden where she had gone to feed the chickens.  Perhaps I would have gone farther and mentioned my misgivings but just then Sami came and I forgot all about them.  I don’t believe I have ever seen any child so frightened as that little Indian!  He simply fell through the bushes behind the chicken house and shot, like a small, brown catapult, into Desire’s arms.  His round face was actually grey with fear.  And he huddled in her big apron shivering, for all the world like some terrified animal.

Naturally the first thing to do was to get the thing that had frightened him.  An axe seemed a likely weapon, so, picking it up, I slid into the bushes at the point where Sami had come out of them.

Perfect serenity was there!  The afternoon light lay golden on the moss above the fallen trees.  No hidden scurrying in the underbrush told of wild, wood things hastening to safety from some half-sensed danger.  No broken branches or trampled earth told of any past or present struggle.  There was no trace of any fearsome creature having passed along that peaceful trail.

I searched thoroughly and found nothing.  On my way back to the clearing I met Li Ho.

’"Find anything, Li Ho?” I asked eagerly.

The Celestial grinned.

“Find honorable self,” said he.  “Missy she send.  Missy heap scared along of you.”

“Nonsense!” I said.  “I can take care of myself.  Even if it had been a bear, I had an axe.”

“Bear!” said Li Ho.  And then he laughed.  Did you ever hear a Chinaman laugh?  I never had.  Not this Chinaman anyway.  It was so startling that I forgot what I was saying.  Next moment I could have sworn that he had not laughed at all.