TRAILING JUNIPER 



&quot; I know,&quot; said Charlie, &quot; she was going over 

 to see if there wasn t some trailing juniper on the 

 rocks. I ll bet I can find her.&quot; 



It was not so easy as he thought. We traversed 

 the woods, skirted one or two farms, and threw our 

 yodels against all the rocks, before we found the 

 imprint of her little foot in one of the thin snow 

 flurries under the cedars. What a fine zest that 

 gave to our search ! I could not quite make out 

 whether I felt like Orpheus or like a trapper. 

 We put the nose of the yellow dog down in the 

 footmark to give her the trail, but the exuberant 

 idiot only barked and obliterated it by rolling in it, 

 for which she was kicked. To know that Griselle 

 had passed that way like balsamic winds was 

 something. It reminded me how well she could 

 play the lost Eurydice. Once we thought we 

 heard her answering our call, and we shouted 

 and listened. A faint mellow response came on 

 the frosty air, but it turned out to be one of those 

 other illusive nymphs that take to the woods and 

 rocks and stay there. 



Such a hunt only adds fuel to a man s fancies, 

 giving to the object of his search an airy unattain- 

 ableness that converts a Gretchen into a Psyche. 

 Strange transcendental possibilities there were in 

 rustic womanhood that kept her just one re 

 move beyond realization, or even comprehension. 

 Wonderful transmutations, when one s scales have 

 dropped, as if ordinary femininity, before it is 

 captured, could pass with fluctuant tenuity through 

 all the phases of Beatrice, Rosalind, Viola. 



275 



