ssible."

The man looked at her with a startled expression. "Why, I don't know.
No, ma'am, I'm afraid a rig couldn't make it in this storm. It's
halfway up the mountain--do you happen to know the young lady that was
lost up there, yesterday?"

"Has a young lady been lost up there?" The eyes of Mrs. Singleton
Corey dwelt upon him compellingly.

"Yes, ma'am, since yesterday forenoon. We just got word of it a while
ago. They're sending out searching parties now. She was staying at
Toll-Gate--"

"Is Toll-Gate a town?"

"No, ma'am. Toll-Gate is just the name of a creek. There's a cabin
there, and they call it Toll-Gate cabin. The girl stayed there."

"Ah. Can you have some sort of conveyance--"

"Only conveyance I could promise is a saddle horse, and that won't be
very pleasant, either. Besides, it's dangerous to go into the woods, a
day like this. I don't believe you better try it till the weather
clears. It ain't anything a lady had ought to tackle--unless maybe it
was a matter of life and death." He looked at her dubiously.

Mrs. Singleton Corey pressed her lips together. Any recalcitrant club
member, or her son, could have told him then that surrender was the
only recourse left to him.

"Please tell your searching party that I shall go with them. Have a
saddle horse brought for me, if you can find nothing better. I shall
be ready in half an hour. Tell one of the maids to bring me coffee, a
soft-boiled egg and buttered toast to my room." She turned and went
up the stairs unhurriedly, as goes one who knows that commands will be
obeyed. She did not look back, or betray the slightest uneasiness, and
Barney, watching her slack-jawed until she had reached the top, pulled
on a cap and went off to do her bidding.

Mrs. Singleton Corey was not the woman to let small things impede her
calm progress toward a certain goal. She proved that beyond all doubt
when she ordered a saddle horse, for she had last ridden upon the back
of a horse when she was about fourteen years old. She had a vague
notion that all horses nowadays were trained from their colthood to
buck--whatever that was. Rodeo posters and such printed matter upon
the subject as her eye could not escape had taught her that much, but
she refused to be dismayed. Moreover, she was aware that it would
probably be necessary for her to ride astride, as all women seemed to
ride nowadays: yet she did not falter.

From her beautifully fitted traveling bag she produced