she had
eventually spared! Suppose, on the great night of the first experiment
with Toandoah's little rocket, Ta-te, jealous of a rival in the small
Thunder Bird which could out-soar all the winds of Earth--out-soar even
the air, their cradle--should meanly seize upon the black, silk
parachute, light as soot, anchored to the golden egg, the little
recording apparatus! Suppose it should whirl both off, away from the
eager hands stretched out to claim them, hide them in a dark recess of
the mountain side, maybe, where they could not be found for
days,--possibly never!

Ta-te _could_ play fast and loose with her father's reputation, she
knew; at least, with the witness to his success as an inventor.

"If the wind should do that," she thought, "then the World, some part of
it--the horrid World--will say that Mr. Hartley Graham's last thoughts
about that mile-long will were wise ones: that it was better--better to
leave all that money 'hung up' awaiting the possible return of that
madcap younger brother--who'll make ducks and drakes of it, most
likely--than--than to turn it over to a Thunder Bird," with a faint
flash of a smile, "in spite, oh! in spite of the fact that daring
volunteers--skilled aviators--are wild to take passage in the far-flying
Bird."

Yes! even that youthful hotspur who used the cream of rough-edged paper,
and was willing to try anything once, though it should be once for all.

The girl's thought reverted to him now as she gazed into the bungalow
fire, seeing in the gusty flicker of every log that menacing
spiral,--the brooding wind's eye.

It claimed her, that wild, red eye, even while her companions of the
White Birch Group were excitedly discussing their picturesque plans for
the morrow; for the celebration of their annual festival in honor of the
birch trees bursting into leaf, for the odes, the songs, the dances, the
planting, each, of a silvery sapling.

It mesmerized her, did Ta-te's eye, with its setting of flame, even to
the exclusion of enthusiasm about the big dance--the joyous Together--in
the evening, of which Una raved in anticipation now and again, and for
which these two friends and rivals in the matter of eyelashes had
brought their prettiest party dresses.

The elders presiding over the destinies of both had given a happy
consent to Tanpa's invitation, and the two were now the guests for a few
days of the mountain Group at their camp on the egg-shaped Bowl.

The sigh of the m