via had decided
that he was insane--and that _she_ had been insane not to have
realized this awful truth before.

Then she knew that she must humor him--what might happen if she
crossed this strange man of iron will, who had only to ask her to do
such a ridiculous thing and she did it?

To run away from camp! Fun! Yes, it was funny, very----

"When we get to the station I will go on ahead," he had said, to her
immense relief. "Then, when I have told uncle you are coming, and I
have gotten him into his good clothes--uncle is very vain when there
are ladies around--then I shall return for you," and he had waved
himself like a tall young sapling, in that conceited self-conscious
pose peculiar to the stage and to--but Tavia was not sure. Perhaps,
after all, he might not be altogether unbalanced.

With many protestations of his earnestness he had left her at the
little railroad station, and as she saw him saunter down the
tan-barked path, she had been glad; then again she was sorry.

It was dreadful to be all alone there, and night coming on. Even the
station was locked; to whom could she go or whom could she ask for
money to get back to the dear old camp?

For two long hours she had sat there, then the old station agent
hobbled along, and opened the ticket office. Tavia told him something
of her plight, but instead of saying that she had come away from her
friends on the word of a perfect stranger, she pardonably made the man
out to be a distant cousin.

"Hum! That fellow with the long hair? Well, I guess they'll git him
to-night. He's got loose from the sanitarium on the hill, and there's
been a lot of looking for him in the last two weeks. Seems to me he's
jest about toured the country," said the old man as he dusted the
window shelf with his cap. "I reckon they'll git him now. And you was
out with that chap?"

"Why--yes, no, that is----"

"Your cousin, eh? Say, miss, he ain't nobody's cousin. But like as not
he thinks he is cousin to the president himself."

"If I could only borrow a dollar!" sighed Tavia.

"Well, you could if I hadn't been caught with that trick twice this
summer. Why, if I gave you a dollar, girl, you would make me believe I
was your cousin, too."

This retort angered Tavia, and she determined to ask no further favors
from this old man. Though he did wear the uniform of a Civil War
veteran, he certainly had poor manners.

"What will happen?" she asked herself, confident that something