, believe myself!"

She picked out a few more ties, and came to another and larger
culvert. "Suppose a train should come," she gasped. The strain of the
past few days was having its natural revenge--reaction. Her depression
had soured into hilarity. "Well, I'll run the bridge--I have always
heard it is the only safe way." She looked up, far beyond the ties.
She would have closed her eyes, but that strange feeling of
sight-security, which does not depend upon sight, compelled her to
look--but not at the ties.

Every time she planted her foot down she expected to go through, foot
and all, but, somehow, she did not sink down between the ties.

"It would take a funnel to put me safely down that way," she decided.
"I guess I would have to have a very big hole to drop through."

It seemed to Tavia that everything she had to do must be made easy for
her, even dropping through railroad ties!

She had crossed the bridge and now she stood for a moment mocking it.

"I should burn my bridges behind me," she mused, "but it takes time
and talent, even to burn bridges."

Those who knew Tavia would scarcely have recognized her now, could
they have viewed her through the glass with which she was magnifying
her faults. Tavia had been tried, she had tried herself, and after
having had an opportunity to board any of three trains going toward
camp, here she was again--stranded!

"I'm a first-class simpleton," she decided. "Dorothy was right; always
right. I'm a rattle-brain; and they think I am drowned. That is more
reasonable, and more charitable, than to think I could be so foolish."

"I guess I couldn't get along very well without Dorothy," she went on
thinking, as she trudged forward. "She always kept me together. But at
least I'll try to do her training justice now. I'll try to walk back
to camp."

A narrow path ran beside the rails. This, Tavia thought had been
trodden down by tramps. Beyond, there seemed nothing but woods, and it
was getting dusk. Well, there must be houses or huts somewhere, and
she would walk on.

Peering through the trees, Tavia thought she saw a white speck. It
might be a bird--no, it was too large! What could it be?

It moved swiftly--now she could see it was--not a person! But it
couldn't be anything else, since there really were no ghosts. But were
there really none? Just now Tavia felt as if nothing was certain, not
even her own personality.

There it was again, out in the clear path! All in w