e ye into the dar-rk woods!"
skirled Andrew, equally excited, and filled with awe of the raven
parachute now springing, like a great, black mushroom, out of the
night--and of the firefly which had been up so high.

"Oh! it is--it is drifting towards the dark spruce woods--where we'll
have hard work to find it."

In the wild chase after the prize, Pemrose made a good third, as she
thus shouted her fear.

"See--oh! see, it _is_ landing," she cried again, "c-coming
down--touching earth."

Yes! for one fleeting instant it did alight upon a mound, the shooting
starlet, the little electric dry cell, winking brilliantly against the
background of somber evergreens, now dark as Erebus, that girdle old
Greylock's crown.

Then, freakish firefly, there, it was off again, the prey of the nickum
gusts, before ever a hand could touch it--the black parachute rotating
like a whirligig.

Never--oh, never--was such a chase for such a prize since mountain was
mountain and man was man!

Once again the steely clog, the weight of the five-inch box containing
the recording apparatus, the precious log, almost dragged it to a
standstill! But the summit gusts were strong.

Even the college boy began to have heart-quakes and Pemrose
heart-sinkings.

"Jove! What a stunt you're pulling off on us, you old black crow of a
parachute--you booby-headed umbrella!" groaned he. "C-can't you stay put
for just a second? Or are you bent on leading us a dance through the
woods?"

He began to lose hope of its landing in his lap, that breezy athlete, as
it made straight for the jaws of darkness now, the inky spruce-belt--the
parachute coquetting with its pursuers, like a great black fan.

Was--was it the wind then?

Something--something caught it up, the golden log--the first record from
space--something snatched it up and whisked it off, off into those
blackamoor woods, while the feet of the foremost runner were still many
yards away.

"'Twas na the wind! 'Twas mon or deil; I saw it loop out frae the
boggart trees!" roared Andrew.

And now in his skirl there was a wild ring of superstition that turned
girlish hearts quite cold.

"I saw it loup out frae the dark--dar-rk woods!" he insisted hoarsely.

Ah! but those dim spruce woods were faintly illumined now with strange
little dots and dashes of light--the firefly winking passionately, as if
somebody, some thief, were running with it.

And _they_ ran, too, its rightful owners, in full cry,