to the fire.

"Don't pay no attention to him," remarked Willock, as if speaking of
some wild animal. "He comes and goes, and isn't troublesome if you
feeds and sleeps him, and don't try to lay your hand on him."

Bill Atkins rose. "But _I_ always light up when he comes," he
remarked, reaching stiffly for a lantern which in due time glimmered
from the partition wall. "Are you hungry, Wilfred? We never feed till
late; it gives us something to sleep on. I lie awake pretty constantly
all night, anyhow, and when I eat late, my stomach sorter keeps me
company."

Wilfred declared that he was not in the least hungry.

"I'm afraid you're disappointed, son," observed Willock, filling his
pipe anew.

Wilfred turned to him with a frank smile. "Brick--it's just awful!
It's what comes from depending on something you've no right to consider
a sure thing. I never thought of this cove without Lahoma in it;
didn't seem like it could be so empty.... How did she get acquainted
with Annabel?--and with my brother?"

"It come about, son. I see at once that the bunch of 'em was from the
big world. I come home and told Bill, 'Them's the people to tow Lahoma
out into life,' says I. So they invited her to spend the winter with
them, the Sellimers did, and show her city doings."

"Yes--but how did it come about?"

"Nothing more natural. I goes over to their tent and I tells them of
the curiosities and good points of these mountains, and gets 'em to
come on a sort of picnic to explore. So here they comes, and they gets
scattered, what with Bill and Lahoma and me taking different ways--they
liked Lahoma first time they see her, as a matter of course. And so,
that Miss Sellimer, she gets separated from all the rest, and I shows
her a dandy hiding-place where nobody couldn't find her, and I shows
her what a good joke it would be to pretend to be lost. So I leaves
her there to go to tell her crowd she dares 'em to find her. Are you
listening?"

"Of course."

"Well, while she was setting there waiting to be searched for, of a
sudden a great big Injun in a blanket and feathers and red paint jumps
down beside her and grabs her and picks her up, and about as quick as
she knew anything, she was gagged and bound and being bore along
through the air. I reckon it was a terrible moment for her. Now there
is a crevice in the top of the mountain that nobody don't never
explore, because it's just a crack in the rock that ain't to be