very few minutes. A little below there is a path. Let me see
you safe down first, Mr. Falkirk. Can you manage that oak
branch?--stop when you get to the bottom--Stand there, now.'

With the aid of his younger friend's hand and eyes Mr. Falkirk
made an abrupt descent to the place indicated--a ledge not very
far but very sheer below them. From a position which looked
like a squirrel's, mid way on the rock with one foot on the
oak, Rollo then stretched out his hand to Wych Hazel.

'Am I to stop when I get to the bottom?--most people like to do
it before,' she said.

'You must. Come a little lower down, if you please. Take Mr.
Falkirk's hand as soon as you reach footing.'

It was no place for ceremony, neither could she help it. As
she spoke, he took the young lady in both hands as if she had
been a parcel, and swung her lightly and firmly, though it
must have been with the exercise of great strength, down to a
rocky cleft which her feet could reach and from which Mr.
Falkirk's hand could reach her. Only then did Mr. Rollo's hand
release her; and then he bounded down himself like a cat. Once
more, very nearly the same operation had to be gone through;
then a few plunging and scrambling steps placed them in a
clear path, and the sound of the waters of the fall told them
which way to take. With that, Rollo lifted his hat again
gravely and fell back behind the others. Wrapping herself in
her mood as if it had been a veil, Wych Hazel likewise bent
her head--it might have been to both gentlemen; but then she
sped forward at a rate which she knew one could not and the
other would not follow, and disappeared among the leaves like
a frightened partridge.

What was she like when they reached the party on the height?
With no token of her adventures but the pink wreath round her
hat and the pink flush under it, Miss Hazel sat there _a la
reine_; Mr. Kingsland at her feet, a circle of standing
admirers on all sides; her own immediate attention
concentrated on a thorn in one of her wee fingers. Less
speedily Mr. Falkirk had followed her and now stood at the
back of the group, silent and undemonstrative. Rollo had gone
another way and was not any longer of the party.

CHAPTER VII.

SMOKE.

To Chickaree by the stage was a two-days' journey. The first
day presented nothing remarkable. Rollo was their only fellow
traveller whom they knew; and he did nothing to lighten the
tedium of the way, beyond the ordinary courtesies.