r last name?"

"Well,--you see--she hasn't any," Billie stammered. "She--her father has
forgotten who he was."

"So?" ejaculated the stranger. "And they live?"

"They live on Indian Head Mountain in a little cabin."

"Will you pardon me if again I seem inquisitive? The young lady--you say
she lives in what you call a _cabeen_ and yet she seems not to be
poor--that is, in appearance, I mean."

Billie flushed again. It did seem very much like gossiping to answer all
these questions, but this stranger was commanding,--rather elegant in
his manner.

"The young lady has friends, perhaps? People who have helped her?"

"Yes, that is it," said Billie.

"Another question and I shall not trouble you further. Where is
this--er--_cabeen_?"

"It is on a ledge over 'Table Top' on 'Indian Head Mountain,'" answered
Billie promptly, having good reason to remember that location. "Take the
road to the right at the end of this street and it takes you straight
there. It's called 'Indian Head Road.'"

The stranger took a notebook and pencil from his pocket and wrote down
the names. When he closed the book, Billie saw that it was of Russian
leather with a coat of arms in dull gilt embossed on the back. The
pencil fitted into a flat gold case on which also was the coat of arms.
She glanced quickly at Phoebe and her heart gave a leap. It was not
difficult to connect coats of arms and grand things with Phoebe. Billie
could easily picture her in the midst of fine surroundings.

"She is a princess," she thought wistfully. "And beautiful and good."

The stranger also was watching Phoebe. His face worked with emotion and
he said something in German in a low voice.

"And her father?" he asked suddenly. "Where is he?"

"At the cabin," answered Billie.

"You are indeed very kind," and the stranger, making a low foreign bow,
joined his companion in the touring car and in two minutes the great
machine was lost in the distance.

Billie's mind was filled with conjectures on the journey to Phoebe's
home a little later. When they left the car to climb the path to the
cabin, she lingered behind the others, thinking deeply, although she had
seen Richard from below standing on the very edge of a rocky shelf
scanning the road with the doctor's telescope.

With a shy obstinacy new to her candid nature she pretended not to
notice him or to mind that Phoebe with ingenuous joy had run ahead to
speak to him first.

"I've been waiting for you a