e, always eager to find out about new roads and
new trails, had been questioning one of the guides at the boathouse.

"He says there's a walk called the 'river trail' only two miles long
that we could take, and meet the 'Comet' at a bridge at the end. Don't
you think some of us could take it, Dr. Hume? It's right through the
most wonderful pine forests,--one of the most beautiful walks in the
Adirondacks, he says."

"But who will run the motor car?" asked the doctor, beetling his shaggy
eyebrows.

"I will," Ben volunteered, and it was accordingly arranged that Dr. Hume
and Percy should conduct the girls along the river trail while Miss
Campbell and Ben proceeded by the road in the car.

It was all very simple. Miss Campbell was to take a nap while Ben looked
after the "Comet's" needs and in the course of half an hour, or at their
leisure, they were to take the road. In the meantime, the others, with
good walking, would have ample time to make the two miles through the
forest. They bade each other a casual farewell since they were to meet
again so soon, and led by the doctor, plunged into the forest.

The ground had been cleared of undergrowth, so that looking up the side
of the mountain, at the foot of which gurgled a little river, one could
see a vast multitude of tall straight pine trees and occasionally the
flash of a silver birch. Rank on rank they stood in infinite
perspective; and sometimes an aged beech tree generalled their march and
sometimes a magnificent oak spread out his venerable arms with a gesture
of command. But the rank and file were pines; gray grenadiers, still
upright with the years; young stripling pines, eager to be on the march.
And always they seemed to be going the same way over the mountains to
the frontiers of the world, and always through their branches came the
murmur of their martial song.

Nowhere had Billie seen so impressive, so magnificent a forest. She
thought of the cryptomerias in Japan, but they were more like the
gigantic pillars of a cathedral, while these hurrying hordes of pines
and birches were like human beings. They suggested romances: lovers in
the forests; knights in armor; wicked enchantresses.

Once Dr. Hume paused and pointed to a cleared space beyond. There,
standing under a great pine tree looking at them with startled eyes were
a doe and her young. In another instant they were gone, leaving the
campers holding their breath.

In a little more than an hour the