n Westley, very tired from his climb but not in
the least repentant of his disobedience, enjoyed immensely a long rest
with Mother Tilly's good things spread out on a rock at his elbow.

At three o'clock John Westley realized that the trail he had chosen was
not taking him back to the village; at four he admitted he was lost. All
his boyish exhilaration had quite left him; he would have hugged his
despised guide if he could have met him around one of the many turns of
the trail; he ached in every bone and could not get the thought out of
his head that a man could die on Kettle Mountain and no one would know
it for months!

He chose the trails that went _down_ simply because his weary legs could
not _climb_ one foot more! And he had gone down such steep inclines that
he was positive he had descended twice the height of the mountain and
must surely come into some valley or other--then suddenly his foot
slipped on the needles that cushioned the trail, he fell, just as one
does on the ice--only much more softly--and slid on, down and down,
deftly steering himself around a bend, and came to a stop against a dead
log just in time to escape bumping over a flight of rocky steps, neatly
built by Nature in the side of the mountain and which led to a grassy
terrace, open on one side to the wide sweep of valley and surrounding
mountains and closed in on the other by leaning, whispering birches.

It was not the amazing view off over the valley, nor the impact against
the old log that made his breath catch in his throat with a little
surprised sound--it was the sudden apparition of a slim creature
standing very straight on a huge rock! His first joyful thought was that
it was a boy--a boy who could lead him back to the Wayside Hotel, for
the youth wore soft leather breeches and a blouse, loosely belted at the
waist, woolen golf stockings and soft elkskin shoes, but when the head
turned, like a startled deer's, toward the unexpected sound, he saw,
with more interest than disappointment, that the boy was a girl!

"How do you do?" he said, because her eyes told him very plainly that he
was intruding upon some pleasant occupation. "I'm very glad to see you
because, I must admit, I'm lost."

The girl jumped down from her rock. She had an exceptionally pretty face
that seemed to smile all over.

"Won't you come down?" she said graciously, as though she was the
mistress of Kettle Mountain and all its glades.

Then John Westley did wh