kets. We can pack our bags and leave them
here, and Mr. Sadler will send for them. When we get there we can go to
bed if we like, and have time enough for a good sleep before breakfast,
and then we can take the morning stage and leave this place and everybody
in it. Now please don't be hasty and tell me all this is foolish.
Remember, if you stay here you have a quarrel on your hands, and I shall
have hours of misery until that quarrel is settled; and no matter how it
is settled, things will be disagreeable afterwards."

"Harriet," said Mr. Archibald, suddenly twisting himself so that he sat on
the side of the bed, "your idea is a most admirable one. It suits me
exactly. Let us run away. It is impossible for us to do anything better
than that. Have you told Margery?"

"No," she answered, "but I will go to her at once."

"Be quick and quiet, then," said her husband, who had now entered fully
into the spirit of the adventure; "nobody must hear us. I will dress, and
then we will pack."

"Margery," said Mrs. Archibald, after three times shaking the sleeping
girl, "you must get up. Your uncle and I are going away, and you must go
with us."

Margery turned her great eyes on Mrs. Archibald, but asked no questions.

"Yes," said Mrs. Archibald, "we cannot stay in this camp any longer, on
account of Mr. Raybold and various other things. Matters have come to a
crisis, and we must go, and more than that, we must slip away so that the
others may not go with us."

"When?" asked Margery, now speaking for the first time.

"As soon as it is daylight."

"So soon as that?" said the girl, a shadow on her brow which was very
plain in the light of the candle which Mrs. Archibald had brought with
her. "Surely not before breakfast?"

"Margery," said Mrs. Archibald, a little sharply, "you do not seem to
understand--you are not awake; we must start as soon as it is light. But
we cannot discuss it now. We are going, and you must go with us. You must
get up and pack your things in your bag, which we shall send for."

Suddenly a light came into Margery's eyes and she sat up. "All right,"
said she, "I will be ready as soon as you are. It will be jolly to run
away, especially so early in the morning," and with that she jumped out of
bed.

CHAPTER XXVI

AN ELOPEMENT

A little more than an hour after Mrs. Archibald had made known her project
to her husband the three inhabitants of the cabin stole softly out into
the delicate li