rance. To the girl who had not seen him for weeks, that flushed,
self-conscious man was a different Garry than she had ever known
before. Hungrily her gaze went from open shirt to caked boots, from
steady hands to clear eyes which made her own eyes shy. And then
Miriam Burrell, cool and poised Miriam, did what many another maid in a
checkered apron has done in similar situations. She lifted that stiff
gingham to hide her unutterable happiness. But before he could speak
she found her voice; nor was it very steady, at that.

"I thought you were that party of idlers come back," she hesitated.
"How--how tanned you are becoming, Garry! I thought they--oh, I can't
tell you how glad I am to see you so--so well. I'm making biscuits for
supper--that is, I've just been practising until now. It seemed as
though I'd forgotten something that was necessary to the recipe,
because they were flatter after they were cooked than when I put them
in the oven. And most marvelously heavy, too! But it was just the
baking-powder, that was all. Do you--do you think you'd care to help?"

[Illustration: "Oh, I can't tell you how glad I am to see you--so
well."]

Steve was very late in returning to camp that night. Throughout the
rest of the afternoon he set himself a pace, knee-deep in slushy mud,
which Garry could not have maintained. But when he paused there in the
dark where he always stopped for a moment and a tumult of voices swept
down to meet him, he forgot his fatigue. He had lifted his battered
hat from his head, striving to distinguish a single note in all that
treble of girlish laughter when, framed suddenly against the background
of light within, he saw a slender silhouette take up its station in the
doorframe. Barbara was still peering out across the darkness when he
came up to her.

"We've been waiting dinner for you for almost an hour," she rebuked
him, in place of what might have been a commonplace greeting. "We've
been waiting in the face of Mr. Morgan's insistence that it was
practically useless. He has been telling us that when a man here in
the hills fails to turn up for a meal you never bother to look for him;
you know that the worst has happened."

Over her head the first eyes that Steve encountered that evening were
those of Archibald Wickersham. While shaking hands with the girl, he
bowed in grave welcome to the tall figure in leather puttees and
whipcord riding-breeches, and Wickersham, from the far