ation she
needed.

"Well, I dunno what _fur_, but it stands to reason he's on the dodge.
All summer long he never showed up in Quincy when he was relieved.
Stayed out in the hills--and that ain't natural for a young city
feller, is it? 'N' then he was ornery as sin. Got so't I wouldn't pack
grub up to him no more. I couldn't go 'im, the way he acted when a
feller come around. 'N' then when they closed up the station, he made
camp up there somewheres around Taylor Rock, and he ain't never showed
his nose in town. If I knowed what _fur_, I might 'a' did something
about it. They's a nigger in the woodpile somewheres, you take it from
me."

"Well, but that ain't got anything to do with the girl," the driver
contested stubbornly. "I know her--she's a mighty fine girl, too; and
good-looking as they make 'em. I hauled their stuff up last
summer--and them, too. They seem like nice enough folks, all of 'em.
And I saw her pretty near every time I hauled tourists up to the
lake."

Hank chuckled to himself. "Well, I guess I know 'er, too, mebby a
little better'n what you do. I ain't saying anything ag'inst the girl.
I say she was in the habit of meeting this feller--Johnny Carew's the
name he went by--meetin' him out around different places. They knowed
each other, that's what I'm sayin'. And the way I figure, she'd went
out to meet him, and either the two of 'em's lost, er else they're
both storm-stayed up at his camp. She's mebby home by this time. I
look for 'er to be, myself."

"You do, hey?" The driver twisted his head again to look back at Hank.
"What yuh going up to help hunt her for, then?"

"Me, I'm just goin' fur the ride," Hank grinned.

They overtook Murphy, plodding along in the horse-trampled, deep snow,
with a big, black hat pulled down to his ears, an empty gunny sack
over his shoulders like a cape, a quart bottle sticking out of each
coat pocket. They took him into the sleigh and went on, through
another half mile of lane.

After that they began abruptly to climb through pine forest. In a
little they crossed the railroad at the end of a cut through the
mountain's great toe. Dismal enough it looked under its heavy blanket
of snow that lay smoothly over ties and rails, the telegraph wires
sagging, white ropes of snow. Mrs. Singleton Corey glanced down the
desolate length of it and shivered.

After that the four horses straightened their backs to steady,
laborious climbing up a narrow road arched over with