ut Miss Jane jest nachelly taken a
hour writin' dis!"

Now he was as impatient to be away from Zack as he had been for Zack to
come. A few minutes later, down in the woodland pasture under a
spreading beech, he stretched at full length in the bluegrass and
reverently gazed at the little envelope. His own note had not called
for an answer of great--indeed, of any--importance. (The first one had,
and the second!--but the last was, he thought, a model of convention.)
However, Zack had said she was a long time writing it;--at least, his
eyes could lingeringly dwell over line after line, page after page,
traced by her hand!

What did meet his eyes was:

"This is the happiest birthday I have ever known!"

He wondered if she, too, had found note writing difficult!

As the morning wore on he saw the family carriage, with Uncle Zack in
his beaver hat, move toward the pike, and he surmised that the Colonel,
Nancy and Miss Liz were going in state to pay their respects to Jane.
Then he went slowly home. It was very quiet with them away. Someone back
near the kitchen was turning an ice cream freezer, which produced a
rather unpleasant suggestion of Sunday company, and a long and tiresome
feast. He saw the upstairs maid.

"Where's Mister Dale?"

"He's done gone out, sah."

"How was he feeling?"

"I don' know, sah. I didn' see him!"

All of this was true, but Dale had gone out the previous evening,
instead of today as the maid supposed when she found his bed in
disorder. The mountaineer had regularly perpetrated this ruse each night
before starting on his vigil, so, should he any morning be late getting
home, the servant would merely suppose he had risen early. But, once
snug in his hiding place near Tusk's cabin, he would fitfully yield to
cat-naps--alternately dozing a few minutes and watching half an hour.
That the first of these brief slumbers did not hold him in its soothing
clasp throughout the night, was merely proof of his dominant purpose to
remove every obstacle which would keep the school from opening in
September. Yet he had become wretchedly in need of sleep; his eyes were
bloodshot, and his pulse ran fast.

In another two hours Brent, through the library window, saw the carriage
returning majestically along the pike. He glanced at the clock, then at
the telephone, then softly closed the door and called Jane.

She took a few minutes to thank him again, graciously, conventionally;
nor did she mention the pr