rian industry captain at this unwarrantable
intrusion and interruption.

So presently they all forthfared into the sun-bright, snow-blinding,
out-of-door world, and Virginia gathered up her courage and took her
dilemma by the horns.

"I believe I have seen everything now except that tent-place up
there," she asserted, groping purposefully for her opening.

Adams called up another smile of acquiescence. "That is our telegraph
office. Would you care to see it?" He was of those who shirk all or
shirk nothing.

"I don't know why I should care to, but I do," she replied, with
charming and childlike wilfulness; so the three of them trudged up the
slippery path to the operator's den on the slope.

Not to evade his hospitable duty in any part, Adams explained the use
and need of a "front" wire, and Miss Carteret was properly interested.

"How convenient!" she commented. "And you can come up here and talk to
anybody you like--just as if it were a telephone?"

"To anyone in the company's service," amended Adams. "It is not a
commercial wire."

"Then let us send a message to Mr. Winton," she suggested, playing the
part of the capricious _ingenue_ to the very upcast of a pair of
mischievous eyes. "I'll write it and you may sign it."

Adams stretched his complaisance the necessary additional inch and
gave her a pencil and a pad of blanks. She wrote rapidly:

"Miss Carteret has been here admiring your drawings. She took one of
them away with her, and I couldn't stop her without being rude. You
shouldn't have done it without asking her permission. She says--"

"Oh, dear! I am making it awfully long. Does it cost so much a word?"

"No," said Adams, not without an effort. He was beginning to be
distinctly disappointed in Miss Virginia, and was inwardly wondering
what piece of girlish frivolity he was expected to sign and send to
his chief. Meanwhile she went on writing:

"--I am to tell you not to get into any fresh trouble--not to let
anyone else get you into trouble; by which I infer she means that
some attempt will be made to keep you from returning on the evening
train."

"There, can you send all that?" she asked sweetly, giving the pad to
her host.

Adams read the first part of the letter length telegram with inward
groanings, but the generous purpose of it struck him like a whip-blow
when he came to the thinly-veiled warning. Also it shamed him for his
unworthy judgment of Virginia.

"I than