nd dirt.

"Oh, but you should have seen me the day Pete came!" cried Marion,
with a pathetic little laugh. "I've actually got some flesh on my
bones now."

Indescribable luxuries followed: a hot bath, wonderful clean garments,
and Claire's happy fingers combing the tangles out of the tawny hair.

"But I'll never be really and truly clean again, Claire!" cried Marion
ruefully, holding out her hands.

Claire clasped them tenderly, while Marion, on a sudden thought,
related to her Haig's speech about baths; and they laughed together.

"You've so many things to tell me," said Claire, with a curiosity she
could not quite repress.

"Yes," answered Marion, blushing.

It was nearly midnight when they sat down to supper, but none of them
cared for time. Marion was not sleepy. She and Haig and Pete had slept
well in a deserted cabin the last night of their journey, before a
huge fire, in circumstances positively pleasant in comparison with
what they had passed through. But she was hungry. As she never
expected to be really and truly clean again, she doubted that she
should ever get enough to eat. Claire did the best she could on that
score, and that was something. There was chicken with cream gravy; and
potatoes, baked in their skins, and seasoned with butter and salt and
paprika; and three kinds of jelly to be spread on buttered toast; and
angel cake. In the midst of the feast there were steps on the veranda,
and a knock on the door; and Curly appeared, bearing two bottles of
champagne.

"Mr. Haig says you're all to drink Pete's health, an' he ought to live
to be a hundred," said Curly, grinning, and gazing in wonderment at
Marion, whose exploit had caused her to assume somewhat the nature of
a goddess in his simple mind.

When the door had closed on Curly, Huntington stood for a moment
awkwardly holding the bottles, an expression almost of consternation
on his face. He had once made some remarks about Haig's champagne. But
he had the sense not to act the part of a skeleton at the feast.
Pete's health was drunk by all; and might he live to be a hundred!

In another hour Marion was in bed, in a real bed, in her own pink
room, between sweet, clean sheets, and warm again at last, but
shivering in sheer excess of comfort, and crying a little perhaps from
overwhelming joy. For she knew in her heart--something she could not
yet tell even Claire.

* * * * *

Bill Craven was mend