e trees upon a hillside; skirted this and
ploughed along its foot for half a mile or so and then turned out
again into a broad, level valley. Now the mountains were more than
ever blurred and indistinct, receding into the distance.

"Do we not go into the mountains?" Mrs. Singleton Corey laid aside her
aloofness to ask, when the valley seemed to stretch endlessly before
them.

"Sure. We'll strike 'em pretty soon now. Looks a long ways, on account
of the storm. You any relation to the girl that's lost?"

"I do not know her at all." But trouble was slowly thawing the
humanity in Mrs. Singleton Corey, and she softened the rebuff a
little. "It must be a terrible thing to be lost in these mountains."

"Far as I'm concerned," spoke up Hank from behind them, 'they're
either two of 'em lost, or there ain't anybody lost. I've got it
figured that either she's at the camp of that feller that's stayin' up
there somewheres around Taylor Rock, or else the feller's lost too.
I'll bet they're together, wherever they be."

"What feller's that, Hank?" the driver twisted his head in his muffled
collar.

"Feller that had the lookout on Mount Hough las' summer. He's hidin'
out up there somewheres. Him an' the girl used to meet--I know that
fer sure. Uh course I ain't sayin' anything--but they's two lost er
none, you take it from me."

The driver grunted and seemed to meditate upon the matter. "What did
that perfessor wade clear down to Marston through the storm for, and
report her lost, if she ain't lost?"

"He come down to see if she'd took the train las' night. That's what
he come for. She'd went off somewheres before noon, and didn't show up
no more. He didn't think she was lost, till Morton told him she hadn't
showed up to take no train. That's when the perfessor got scared and
phoned in."

The driver grunted again, and called upon his leaders to shake a
leg--they'd have walking enough and plenty when they hit the hill, he
said. Again they neared the valley's rim, so that pine trees with
every branch sagging under its load of snow, fringed the background.
Like a pastel of a storm among hills that she had at home, thought
Mrs. Singleton Corey irrelevantly. But was it Jack whom the man called
Hank referred to? The thought chilled her.

"What's he hidin' out for, Hank? Funny I never heard anything about
it." The driver spoke after another season of cogitation, and Mrs.
Singleton Corey was grateful to him for seeking the inform