up into her cheeks, her eyes a-shine. She had missed the fact that the
Judge was jesting. She had thought him in sober, scientific earnest.

"It's an awfully nice thing if you dig a plant or soil your hands in
hunting, or anything like that, to know that there are four or five
different kinds of vegetable soap where you can easily reach them, if
you know them. If you lose your way or have a long tramp, it's good to
know which plants will give you drink and where they are. And if you're
short of implements, you might at any time need a mescal stick, or an
arrow shaft or an arrow, even. If Donald were lost now, he could keep
alive for days, because he would know what wood would make him a bow and
how he could take amole fiber and braid a bow string and where he could
make arrows and arrow points so that he could shoot game for food. I've
taught him to make a number of snares, and he knows where to find and
how to cook his greens and potatoes and onions and where to find his
pickles and how to make lemonade and tea, and what to use for snake
bite. It's been such fun, Judge Whiting, and he has been so interested."

"Yes, I should think he would be," said the Judge. "I am interested
myself. If you would take an old boy like me on a few of those trips, I
would be immensely pleased."

"You'd like brigand beefsteak," suggested Linda, "and you'd like cress
salad, and I am sure you'd like creamed yucca."

"Hm," said the Judge. "Sounds to me like Jane Meredith."

Linda suddenly sat straight. A dazed expression crossed her face.
Presently she recovered.

"Will you kindly tell me," she said, "what a great criminal judge knows
about Jane Meredith?"

"Why, I hear my wife and daughter talking about her," said the Judge.

"I wonder," said Linda, "if a judge hears so many secrets that he
forgets what a secret is and couldn't possibly keep one to save his
life."

"On the other hand," said Judge Whiting, "a judge hears so many secrets
that he learns to be a very secretive person himself, and if a young
lady just your size and so like you in every way as to be you, told me
anything and told me that it was a secret, I would guarantee to carry it
with me to my grave, if I said I would."

One of Linda's special laughs floated out of the windows. Her right hand
slipped across the table toward the Judge.

"Cross your heart and body?" she challenged.

The Judge took the hand she offered in both of his own.

"On my soul," he said,