agreed with him in this estimate. "It _is_ terribly
lonesome in there at times. I've had enough of it. I'm ready for the
comforts of civilization."

Berrie turned in her seat, and was about to take up the reins when
Wayland asserted himself. "Wait a moment. Here's where my dominion
begins. Here's where you change seats with me. I am the driver now."

She looked at him with questioning, smiling glance. "Can you drive? It's
all the way down-hill--and steep?"

"If I can't I'll ask your aid. I'm old enough to remember the family
carriage. I've even driven a four-in-hand."

She surrendered her seat doubtfully, and smiled to see him take up the
reins as if he were starting a four-horse coach. He proved adequate and
careful, and she was proud of him as, with foot on the brake and the
bronchos well in hand, he swung down the long looping road to the
railway. She was pleased, too, by his care of the weary animals, easing
them down the steepest slopes and sending them along on the comparatively
level spots.

Their descent was rapid, but it was long after dark before they reached
Flume, which lay up the valley to the right. It was a poor little
decaying mining-town set against the hillside, and had but one hotel, a
sun-warped and sagging pine building just above the station.

"Not much like the Profile House," said Wayland, as he drew up to the
porch. "But I see no choice."

"There isn't any," Berrie assured him.

"Well, now," he went on, "I am in command of this expedition. From this
on I lead this outfit. When it comes to hotels, railways, and the like o'
that, I'm head ranger."

Mrs. McFarlane, tired, hungry, and a little dismayed, accepted his
control gladly; but Berrie could not at once slip aside her
responsibility. "Tell the hostler--"

"Not a word!" commanded Norcross; and the girl with a smile submitted to
his guidance, and thereafter his efficiency, his self-possession, his
tact delighted her. He persuaded the sullen landlady to get them supper.
He secured the best rooms in the house, and arranged for the care of the
team, and when they were all seated around the dim, fly-specked oil-lamp
at the end of the crumby dining-room table he discovered such a gay and
confident mien that the women looked at each other in surprise.

Berrie was correspondingly less masculine. In drawing off her buckskin
driving-gloves she had put away the cowgirl, and was silent, a little sad
even, in the midst of her enjoyment of his