e man who told the Bird Woman said that
was the only place the wires were down. We drove away in, and it was
dreadful--over stumps and logs, and we mired to the hubs. I suppose you
know, though. I should have stayed in the carriage, but I was so tired.
I never dreamed of getting lost. I suspect I will be scolded finely.
I go with the Bird Woman half the time during the summer vacations. My
father says I learn a lot more than I do at school, and get it straight.
I never came within a smell of being lost before. I thought, at first,
it was going to be horrid; but since I've found you, maybe it will be
good fun after all."

Freckles was amazed to hear himself excusing: "It was so hot in there.
You couldn't be expected to bear it for hours and not be moving. I can
take you around the trail almost to where you were. Then you can sit in
the carriage, and I will go find the Bird Woman."

"You'll be killed if you do! When she stays this long, it means that she
has a focus on something. You see, when she has a focus, and lies in the
weeds and water for hours, and the sun bakes her, and things crawl over
her, and then someone comes along and scares her bird away just as she
has it coaxed up--why, she kills them. If I melt, you won't go after
her. She's probably blistered and half eaten up; but she never will quit
until she is satisfied."

"Then it will be safer to be taking care of you," suggested Freckles.

"Now you're talking sense!" said the Angel.

"May I try to help your arm?" he asked.

"Have you any idea how it hurts?" she parried.

"A little," said Freckles.

"Well, Mr. McLean said We'd probably find his son here"

"His son!" cried Freckles.

"That's what he said. And that you would do anything you could for us;
and that we could trust you with our lives. But I would have trusted
you anyway, if I hadn't known a thing about you. Say, your father is
rampaging proud of you, isn't he?"

"I don't know," answered the dazed Freckles.

"Well, call on me if you want reliable information. He's so proud of you
he is all swelled up like the toad in AEsop's Fables. If you have ever
had an arm hurt like this, and can do anything, why, for pity sake, do
it!"

She turned back her sleeve, holding toward Freckles an arm of palest
cameo, shaped so exquisitely that no sculptor could have chiseled it.

Freckles unlocked his case, and taking out some cotton cloth, he tore it
in strips. Then he brought a bucket of the cleanest