re stones built
into pillars to hold up the roof.

"Poor Ponce de Leon," sighed Ruth. "How disappointed he must have been
when he found out that his life was slipping away in spite of the
Fountain of Youth. I wonder if he really believed he had found it?"

"He couldn't have--when he came to die," remarked Russ, practically.

"But it is a pretty story," Ruth said, softly. "Poor Ponce de Leon!"

"The Indians told him this was the fountain," said Paul, who had been
reading history. "Near this fountain was found a large coquina cross.
The cross was located by the discovery of a silver casque, which
contained documents telling of the matter, and one seems to fix the date
of the first visit of Ponce de Leon to Florida. That was in 1513,
according to the documents found in the casque.

"Am I boring you?" he asked quickly, for he thought the two former
vaudeville actresses looked as though they wanted to talk of something
else besides dry historical facts.

"No, indeed!" cried Alice. "I just love to hear about this."

"Do go on," urged Ruth, and even Miss Pennington condescended to say:

"It sounds interesting."

"I'll read you what one of the old documents said," went on Paul. "'As we
bore down upon him we found him to be an Indian, in a skin boat with a
skin sail, running to a point twenty feet in the air, with a bow at the
top. In the boat, which I describe in my descriptive image, I went ashore
with the Indian. We landed near a spring that they call the Fountain of
Youth; there they had a temple built where they worshipped the sun, and
there I built a cross out of coquina, which is a natural formation of the
sea, and I laid it with the rising and setting sun. In the heart of the
cross I placed a descriptive image of myself, and took possession in the
name of our beloved Catholic King.'

"That's in the document," went on Paul, "and the paper was given to the
United States, through courtesy of the Governor of Sevilla, in 1908."

"How interesting," murmured Alice. "And to think that we are standing on
such historic ground! Think of the ancient Indians worshipping the sun
here," and she looked up at the flaming orb.

"The sun is paying altogether too much attention to me!" complained Miss
Pennington, with a laugh. "It will spoil my complexion, in spite of the
Fountain of Youth. I must be going."

"Oh, by the way, Russ," she called back over her shoulder, "Mr. Pertell
was looking for you."

"Was he?" asked the yo