d settled on one point. There was nothing in the coat now
that could possibly have startled the girl or annoyed her. Whatever had
been there that caused her extremely peculiar conduct she had carried
away with her. Peter had settled convictions concerning Linda. From the
first instant he had looked into her clear young eyes as she stood in
Multiflores Canyon triumphantly holding aloft the Cotyledon in one
hand and with the other struggling to induce the skirt of her blouse to
resume its proper location beneath the band of her trousers, he had felt
that her heart and her mind were as clear and cool and businesslike
as the energetic mountain stream hurrying past her. Above all others,
"straight" was the one adjective he probably would have applied to her.
Whatever she had taken from Henry's pockets was something that concerned
her. If she took anything, she had a right to take it; of that Peter
was unalterably certain. He remembered that a few days before she
practically had admitted to him that Anderson had annoyed her, and a
slow anger began to surge up in Peter's carefully regulated heart. His
thoughts were extremely busy, but the thing he thought most frequently
and most forcefully was that he would thoroughly enjoy taking Henry
Anderson by the scruff of the neck, leading him to the sheerest part of
his own particular share of the mountain, and exhaustively booting him
down it.

"It takes these youngsters to rush in and raise the devil where there's
no necessity for anything to happen if just a modicum of common sense
had been used," growled Peter.

He mulled over the problem for several days, and then he decided he
should see Linda, and with his first look into her straight-forward
eyes, from the tones of her voice and the carriage of her head he would
know whether the annoyance persisted. About the customary time for her
to return from school Peter started on foot down the short cut between
his home and the Strong residence. He was following a footpath rounding
the base of the mountain, crossing and recrossing the enthusiastic
mountain stream as it speeded toward the valley, when a flash of color
on the farther side of the brook attracted him. He stopped, then hastily
sprang across the water, climbed a few yards, and, after skirting a
heavy clump of bushes, looked at Linda sitting beside them--a most
astonishing Linda, appearing small and humble, very much tucked away,
unrestrained tears rolling down her cheeks, a