s had
been pretty definite and he continued to back along the narrow ledge.
"Stop!" screamed Katherine, while the audience roared with laughter,
"'We turn not on Paso del Mar!'"

The word "turn" seemed to give Sandhelo a brilliant new idea, and,
without warning, he rose on his hind legs, whirled around in a dizzy
semi-circle, and started back in the direction whence he had come.
Katherine, unable to check his inglorious flight, hung on grimly. He
left the narrow ledge and started climbing the hill, leaving the
black-hearted Bernal in full possession of the Paso del Mar. At the top
of the hill Katherine slid off Sandhelo's back, the soft grass breaking
her fall, and lay there laughing so she could not get up, while Sandhelo
raced on to his favorite grazing ground.

"To think it had to turn out that way, when I was dying to see the part
where you fall into the lake," lamented Migwan, when the cast had
collected itself on the beach. "It wasn't at all the real thing."

"Some of it was," said Sahwah. "The beginning was all right."

"And the mule did go home 'riderless' eventually," said Katherine,
rubbing her bumped elbow. "Didn't he make speed going around that
narrow, slippery ledge, though?" she went on. "I expected him to go
overboard every minute. But he tore along as easily as if he were
running on a velvetine road."

"On a what?" asked Slim.

"She means a corduroy road, I guess," said Gladys, and they all shouted
with laughter.

"Ho-ho-ho!" chuckled Slim, "that's pretty good. Velvetine road! Would
there be any binnacles on it, do you suppose?" he added teasingly.

"That's right, everybody insult a poor old woman what ain't never had a
chance to get an eddication!" sobbed Katherine, shedding mock tears into
her handkerchief. "What's the difference? Doesn't velvetine sound just
as good as corduroy? And, anyhow, it's better style this year than
corduroy."

"Hear the poor, ignorant, old lady talk about style," jeered Sahwah. "I
didn't think you ever came out of your abstraction long enough to know
what was in style."

"Even in her absentmindedness she seems to have a preference for fine
things, though," said Gladys, beginning to giggle reminiscently. "Do you
remember the time she walked out of Osterland's with a thirty-dollar hat
on her head?"

Katherine rose as if to forcibly silence her, but Sahwah held her back
and Gladys proceeded for the edification of the boys. "You see," said
Gladys, "she was in ther