mile. She liked his fine face and
his clear brown eyes.

"Very well, doctor," she said. "I see you know your business. I'll be
obedient."

Taking the lamp he went downstairs.

It could hardly be the gray-eyed Billie and her friends returning, he
argued. They would never come creeping back in that stealthy manner.

"Well, who is it?" he called in a low voice.

Mrs. Lupo came out of the shadows and stood before him.

"Lady going die?" she asked in a terrified whisper.

"Pretty ill, but she's coming around."

The woman looked vastly relieved.

"Young lady know?"

"She has never come back."

Mrs. Lupo raised both hands in a gesture of despair.

"The marsh--I never told--I'm wicked woman!" she exclaimed.

"Good heavens!" said the doctor, "you mean to say you sent them through
that bog? It's full of suck holes. You have done enough wickedness for
one day. Where is your husband? Hurry up, quick. Wake up the villagers.
Get lanterns. Go find them!"

Mrs. Lupo seized a lantern from the gallery.

"I go myself," she said, and disappeared. All that night Mrs. Lupo
searched Table Top. She knew the trail as intimately as the mountain
girl, but at dawn she had found nothing. But as the light spread over
the marsh, she saw something lying on the very edge of the most
dangerous quicksand in the place. It was Nancy's hobble skirt.

"Oh, oh!" groaned the poor woman over and over with a kind of savage
chant. "Oh, oh! I'm punished now."

Rolling the skirt into a bundle she turned her face from Sunrise Camp
and disappeared in the pine forests.

About an hour after Mrs. Lupo had left the camp, the doctor heard the
noise of hurrying footsteps on the gallery at the front and hastening
downstairs he found Ben Austen and his guide.

"Miss Campbell--how has she stood it? Is she all right?" demanded Ben
breathlessly.

"Not so loud," answered the doctor. Then he told Ben in a few words what
had happened. "She doesn't even know you have been lost," he said.

While the two men were talking together in whispers, the girl looked
about her with much curiosity. Was she in a palace? The high roof, the
rugs and chairs were things new to her. And this was called a "camp"!
What was the inside of a real house like, she wondered.

"That virago!" she heard Ben say. "No wonder she drives Lupo to drink.
This young lady here has saved us all and guided me back through the
swamp." He indicated the barefooted girl. "I suppose we would have