t the really joyous tone in
which he hailed his uncouth acquaintance from "Home."

"Hello, Snackenberg! Here am I! Give me a ride?"

"Well, well, well! Son of all the Cooks! What you doin' here? Allowed
you was sailin' the 'blue and boundless' just about now!" cried the
teamster and leaning forward shook the lad so heartily by his own hard
hand that Melvin squealed and protested:

"Well, we can't stand here, you know. I'll just help this young lady
in--she's from the States--and you can jog on."

The team was of the sort that is always willing to stop, and the
"equipage" was easily entered by merely stepping into its open rear. It
swung low to the ground, after the fashion of Nova Scotian carts, and
for seats it had a bundle of clean straw.

In another moment the animals had been goaded to fresh effort, their
owner had turned about on the chain where he balanced himself for a seat
and also turned a corner into a side street that climbed the hill behind
the town. Then he ordered:

"Fire ahead! Tell everything you know; and I say, Sissy, did you ever
see a purtier pair of creeturs than them be? I'm prouder of 'em than I
could be of the finest team o' thoroughbreds ever stepped. Gee, there!
Haw, I tell ye!"

Beyond, at the postoffice, the truants had been suddenly missed; and
with varying degrees of anxiety their elders were asking one another:

"What do you suppose has become of Dorothy and that queer boy?"

But Molly was more vexed than anxious and she looked upon Monty with
rising disfavor. She guessed that they were having some fun from which
she was shut out and which Montmorency Vavasour-Stark would never have
had the originality to suggest.

"Oh! I wish I knew! Maybe they're eating each other up! Yesterday she
asked if he was a 'wildcat' and I told her 'yes.' Maybe, maybe--Oh! Why
did you make us walk in front, namby-pamby so, Papa dear? If we'd been
with them we'd know what they are doing and what has happened. Oh! dear!
If I hadn't been in front I'd have been behind!" she complained. Nor was
she greatly pleased by the laugh which her Irish-cism raised.

CHAPTER IX

AN OX-OMOBILE AND A SAILBOAT

Even Melvin had not expected that Dorothy and he would long be away from
the rest of the party, though he did not realize that he was in any wise
responsible to them, since his duties as camp-helper had not yet begun.
But he enjoyed his freedom from the society of so many strangers and
found Dorothy