eight revived the horror he had felt
as he leaped through the window and rushed to the mountain.

"Who planned such a death-trap as that, anyway?"

"I did."

"You! A girl!"

"Yes. Why not. It's great fun, usually."

"You'd better have been learning to sew."

"I can sew, but I don't like it. Angelique does that. I do like
climbing and canoeing and botanizing, and geologizing, and
astronomizing, and----"

Adrian threw up his hands in protest.

"What sort of creature are you, anyway?"

"Just plain girl."

"Anything but that!"

"Well, girl, without the adjective. Suits me rather better;" and she
laughed in a way that proved she was not suffering from her mishap.

"This is the strangest place I ever saw. You are the strangest family.
We are certainly in the backwoods of Maine, yet you might be a Holyoke
senior, or a circus star, or--a fairy."

Margot stretched her long arms and looked at them quizzically.

"Fairies don't grow so big. Why don't you sit down? Or, if you will,
climb up and look toward the narrows on the north. See if Pierre's
birch is coming yet."

Again Adrian glanced upward, to the flag floating there, and shrugged
his shoulders.

"Excuse me, please. That is, I suppose I could do it, only seeing you
slip--I prefer to wait awhile."

"Are you afraid?"

There was no sarcasm in the question. She asked it in all sincerity.
Adrian was different from Pierre, the only other boy she knew, and she
simply wondered if tree-climbing were among his unknown
accomplishments.

It had been, to the extent possible with his city training and his
brief summer vacations, though unpracticed of late; but no lad of
spirit, least of all impetuous Adrian, could bear even the suggestion
of cowardice. He did not sit down, as she had bidden, but tossed aside
his rough jacket and leaped to the lower branch of the pine.

"Why, it's easy! It's grand!" he called back and went up swiftly
enough.

Indeed, it was not so difficult as it appeared from a distance.
Wherever the branches failed the spiral ladder had been perfected by
great spikes driven into the trunk and he had but to clasp these in
turn to make a safe ascent. At the top he waved his hand, then shaded
his eyes and peered northward.

"He's coming! Somebody's coming!" he shouted. "There's a little boat
pushing off from that other shore."

Then he descended with a rapidity that delighted even himself and
called a bit of praise from Margot.

"I'm so gl