h of us. It was merely time for us to howl after such fearful nerve
strain, so we howled."

"Well, that's all right," said Peter. "Now I'll tell you something. If
you had gone away in that ambulance to an anesthetic and an operation,
no wildcat that ever indulged in a hunger hunt through this canyon could
have put up a howl equal to the one that I would have sent up."

"Peter," said Linda, "there is nothing funny about this; it's no tame
for jest. But do men have nerves? Would you really?"

"Of course I would," said Peter.

"No, you wouldn't," contradicted Linda. "You just say that because you
want to comfort us for having broken down, instead of trying to tease us
as most men would."

"He would, too!" said Katy, starting to the Bear Cat with a load of
utensils. "Now come on; let's go home and be gettin' craned up and ready
for what's goin' to happen to us. Will they be jailin' us, belike, Miss
Linda?"

Linda looked at Peter questioningly.

"No," he said quietly. "It is very probable that the matter never will
be mentioned to you again, unless Judge Whiting gets hold of some clue
that he wishes to use as an argument against matured Japs being admitted
in the same high-school classes with our clean, decent, young Americans.
They stopped that in the grades several years ago, I am told."

Before they could start back to Lilac Valley a car stopped in the canyon
and a couple of men introducing themselves as having come from Judge
Whiting interviewed Katy and Linda exhaustively. Then Linda pointed out
to them an easier but much longer route by which they might reach the
top of the canyon to examine the spot from which the boulder had fallen.
She showed them where she and Katy had ascended, and told them where
they would be likely to find Oka Sayye.

When it came to a question of really starting, Linda looked with
appealing eyes at Peter.

"Peter," she said, "could we fix it any way so you could drive Katy and
me home? For the first time since I have begun driving this spring I
don't feel equal to keeping the road."

"Of course," said Peter. "I'll take your car to the nearest farmhouse
and leave it, then I'll take you and Katy in my car."

Late that evening Judge Whiting came to Lilac Valley with his wife and
daughter to tell Linda that the top of the cliff gave every evidence
of the stone having been loosened previously, so that a slight
impetus would send it crashing down at the time when Donald lay in his
acc