the stream until the sound of the waterfall filled the whole house. No amount of rain could quench the Finnish woman's happiness, however, as she stood in the kitchen, her garments soaked and her face beaming.

"It seemed so wrong to keep the good news from you, when it was really through Miss Beatrice that Olaf came home. I would never have dared to ask any one to write to him in the face of Thorvik's forbidding it. Olaf came very early one morning, when Thorvik happened to be away for the night, and we went straight up to see John Herrick, for he was always the best friend my boy had. He made Olaf promise that he would not show himself in the village, and I know myself that it is wise that he should keep away, but it is hard for me to see so little of him."

Of her son's adventure with the bear, she made very light indeed.

"He did nothing more than he should," she declared. "Of course, he might have been hurt, but there was that dear Miss Nancy. Think what might have come to her!"

Her presence in the kitchen was very welcome, for Nancy's arm was too stiff to be of much service, and Beatrice admitted frankly that, as cook, she was a sorry substitute.

"Willing, but awkward, I should describe myself if I were advertising for a situation," she told them. "Nancy has a special talent for cooking, but I have a genius for breaking dishes and scalding myself."

Christina, therefore, stayed to cook the dinner and to bake a second edition of the cake upon which misfortune had fallen yesterday. Olaf came across the hill through the rain and sat for long in the kitchen with his mother, making her the most peaceful and uninterrupted visit that had been possible since his return. Nancy, going in and out on various errands, heard snatches of tales of the high seas, of whales and hurricanes, of hot foreign ports baking in the tropical sun, of winds that cut you like a knife as you slid across the slippery decks with great waves washing over you, of the longing for the land and home, and also-Olaf came to it slowlyof the restless desire, that grows and grows, of the sailor on leave to be at sea again. “Ah, but you would n't go just yet!" cried Christina, in alarm.

"No, not just yet. John Herrick has been so kind to me that I feel like standing by him in-in something that he has on hand just now." But Olaf leaned back in his

chair and looked out through the blurred windows as though he were already impatient to be off.

They were an oddly assorted pair, he so tall, straight, and American, she, in spite of her ordinary clothes and her careful English, so foreign still. Beatrice thought so as she came into the kitchen in the late afternoon and found them both making preparations to depart. The day had been a long and heavy one to her. Her mind was full of what she had seen the night before, although she had not yet had time to discuss it in private with Nancy. She longed to ride over to the Herricks' house for what purpose, she could not herself say. The pouring rain, however, made such an expedition so unreasonable that she could not think of an excuse urgent enough to explain it.

"I wish you were not going to be so wet," she said to Christina. "You will be soaked again before you get home."

"It is not raining so much now," Olaf observed, reaching for his cap that lay on the window-sill; "it will soon

He interrupted himself suddenly and turned round to them with a delighted grin. He spoke softly and jerked his head toward the window where, to Beatrice's astonishment, she saw dimly through the wet pane that a face was peering in. The close-set eyes and ungainly nose showed that it was Dabney Mills.

"I never knew before just what the word eavesdropper meant," said Olaf. "Think how the water must be pouring off the roof and running down that fellow's neck!"

Seeing that he had been observed, Dabney came to the door and, a moment later, stood, a bedraggled and dejected figure, just inside the threshold.

"I was looking in to see if there was any one at home," he tried to explain, while Olaf supplemented:

"On such a fine day he was afraid you might all be out."

"I went up the mountain to see if I could get back my note-book," Dabney went on, to account for his forlorn condition. "I have been looking for hours, but I could n't find it."

"Maybe the bear put it in her pocket and went away with it," suggested Christina, flippantly. "Anyway, it would be soaked to a pulp by this time.'

"You need n't worry; I picked it up last night when I went back to get the milk-can." Olaf said. He brought the familiar leather

covered book from an inside pocket and held it out to its owner. A wicked twinkle that he could not suppress seemed to fill Dabney Mills with panic-stricken suspicion. "You've been reading it!" he cried. "You had no right. You have been prying into my private affairs."

The other boy's face flushed with anger. "It may be I have n't been brought up a gentleman, like you," he returned hotly, "but I would n't be peering and prying into other people's business, for all that. Whatever mean secrets you have hid away in that book, they are there still, safe and sound. All I did was to write a page at the end. I was afraid that if you did n't have an account of that bear business at once, you might forget just how it happened."

Dabney snatched the book and nervously turned to the last page. Beatrice was so close that she could not help seeing that it was covered with Olaf's square, school-boy writing. The last sentence caught her eye, giving a clue to the rest.

"Even though our hero took the precaution of getting behind the lady who was with him, he did not escape entirely unharmed."

Dabney thrust the book into his pocket and shot Olaf a glance of wicked rage.

"I am very much obliged to you," he said. "You shall hear of my gratitude later. I know more about you than you think."

He went out into the rain, slamming the door behind him.

CHAPTER XII

DABNEY'S CLUE

THERE was a promise of clearing at sunset that evening, for the clouds began to lift and patches of blue sky showed to the westward, a hopeful sign for the morrow. The peak of Gray Cloud Mountain, visible from their door-step, loomed through the mist that had shrouded it from view, and, before dark, showed its towering outlines, clear cut against the clouds. And never, never, so Beatrice and Nancy thought, had they seen a more glorious day than the morrow turned out to be. With the whole world washed clean, with the dripping water dried in an hour by the all-conquering sunshine, it seemed that nothing could be more perfect.

They were just finishing luncheon when there was a loud trampling of hoofs outside, announcing quite a cavalcade, Hester Herrick on her pinto pony, Dr. Minturn with her, and Olaf riding behind.

"I have brought a horse for Nancy," Hester announced, "for I want you both to go riding with me. Bring your bathing-suits so that we can have a swim before we come back. Christina will be here to stay with Miss Deems while you are gone. Dr. Minturn rode by our house this morning. He is in a hurry to get to the village, but he thought he would come over with me. He is coming back this evening to make your aunt a proper visit."

They rode merrily away, the three together, climbing a steeply mounting trail that was new to them. The mountains opposite looked so near that Nancy shouted, "to see if there would be an echo."

"Hardly," commented Hester, "for they are twenty miles away."

In an hour they had reached Eagle Rock, a huge gray mass of granite, set in the midst of a smooth slope of grass and scrubby trees. A clear stream swept in a curve about its foot, spread to a broad pool, and ran babbling away down the hillside. They unsaddled their horses and Hester unrolled her bathing-suit.

"I did not know," said Nancy, a little doubtfully, "that swimming was one of the usual sports of the Rocky Mountains."

"Most of the water is too cold," replied Hester, "but this pool is warm enough. It is the only one I know. Roddy found it long ago and taught me to swim here. It is fed by melted snow, like the others, but it runs shallow for miles above, out in the open where the sun can warm it. And I have brought some fishing tackle, too. We may as well take home some fish, for I am sure your aunt will like them for breakfast as much as Roddy does. Now be very attentive for I am going to teach you how to cast for rainbow-trout."

Beatrice succeeded very ill, displaying a natural talent for tangling her hook in the bushes when she tried to swing it outward in the proper manner. But Nancy, more patient and painstaking, came into better fortune. She had learned to cast, after a fashion, and had managed to dangle her gaycolored fly in the water at the edge of a riffle, just as Hester had instructed her. There came a tug at her line, a magic quiver that seemed to send an electric shock of excitement all up her arm. In that second she became a fisherman.

They landed twelve trout among them, although Hester's spoil was by far the greater. Then they donned their bathing-suits and

Hester dropped into the water with a splash. After a moment of doubt and hesitation her two friends followed her.

"Oh!" cried Beatrice, and "Oh!" echoed Nancy, "I did not know it would be like this!"

To plunge into the crystal-blue water, to know that it was poured down from the vast glaciers and empty snow-fields where no human foot ever comes, to feel all of the tingling freshness and none of the deadly cold-there is nothing like it in the world. The girls laughed and splashed and swam and floated until Hester warned them it was not wise to stay in too long, and they came out reluctantly to dry themselves in the sun.

"That must be a mountain sheep, that dot moving there opposite us," Hester observed, as they sat in a row at the very top of Eagle Rock. "You can see Gray Cloud Pass over beyond the shoulder of this nearest hill. The tuft of green above is that stretch of woods growing around the lake; but see how bare the slope is where it goes up beyond-nothing but solid rock and overhanging cliffs to the very top. There is a little trail that picks its way back and forth over the face of the mountain. It is called Dead Man's Mile, there is so much danger there from unsteady footing and falling rocks from above."

Beatrice remembered how she had come to grief on the lower, easier slope, and shuddered at the thought of the difficulties higher up. Yet she had a strange desire to climb that steep trail some day, the very impossibility of the idea making it the more inviting.

They sat there even after they were dry; but finally Hester, with a sigh, declared that they must go.

"It has been such a pleasant day!" she said. "I hate to have it end. We-we are n't very happy at home just now, Roddy and I."

"What?" exclaimed Nancy. "What can be the matter?"

"I don't know," Hester answered hopelessly. "I really brought you here so that we could talk about it, but it has been so hard to speak that I have n't said anything, and now it is time to go home. Long ago, Roddy used to be like this sometimes; he would look worried and troubled for days, and at last would go off camping in the hills, hunting and fishing and thinking things out; and then he would come home quite cheerful again. That was so far in the past, I had almost forgotten it; but now it has all come

back again. He is miserable and restless, and troubled over something I can't understand. Just last night he asked me the strangest thing. He wanted to know if I could be happy in some other place if he decided not to live here any longer. And I had thought he loved Gray Cloud Mountain best of any place in the world!"

If John Herrick did not tell her his secret, they had no right to do so. Such was the unspoken message that passed between the sisters as Nancy tried to offer comfort, with very little success.

"I suppose there is no use in talking of it," said little Hester, at last, with a sigh. "Things may be better some time. Well, we must be going home."

The ride home was less hilarious than their setting out had been, and Beatrice and Nancy went up the path to the cabin with no very light hearts. In the evening, however, they were made happy again by a visit from Dr. Minturn and his good report of Aunt Anna. "I could not ask for anything better!" he declared, fully as delighted as were they. The beaming warmth of his smile seemed to light the whole room.

"I have something to propose," he went on. "Nancy, here, has grown to be more of a rider than she was when I visited you before, and I have been wondering if she would go over the pass with me to-morrow and spend a few days with Miriam. Mrs. Minturn has asked me, over and over again, if she could n't learn to know both the girls, and this is a good chance. Beatrice can ride over to come back with her, since Nancy should not go over the trail alone."

It was difficult to persuade Nancy to leave her housekeeping, but arguments prevailed at last and she set off next morning with many last messages and instructions to Beatrice, and with a great deal of pleasure and excitement shining in her eyes. John Herrick had sent over the same horse she had ridden the day before, a gentle creature on which she was more comfortable than when mounted upon the gay-spirited Buck. Beatrice was to follow in three days to come back with her. The house seemed very empty without her busy presence, and Olaf, when he came with the milk, declared loudly that nothing was the same at all with Miss Nancy gone.

"And things are n't very cheerful where I live, either," he said. live, either," he said. "Miss Hester has been crying, and that Dabney Mills has been hanging round the place. He brings no good with him, whatever he comes for."