mountain folk. Frank thought it the most beautiful hair he had ever
seen.

Her eyes were brown and luminous, and the color of health showed through
the tan upon her cheeks. Her parted lips showed white, even teeth, and
the mouth was most delicately shaped.

"Hivvins!" gasped Barney, at Frank's shoulder. "Phwat have we struck, Oi
dunno?"

Then the girl cried, her voice full of impatience:

"You-uns has shorely been long enough in gittin' har!"

Frank staggered a bit, for he had scarcely expected to hear the uncouth
mountain dialect from such lips as those but he quickly recovered,
lifted his hat with the greatest gallantry, and said:

"I assure you, miss, that we came as swiftly as we could."

"Ye're strangers. Ef you-uns had been maounting boys, you'd been har in
less'n half ther time."

"I presume that is true; but, you see, we did not know the shortest way,
and we were not sure you wanted us."

"Wal, what did you 'low I whooped at ye fur ef I didn't want ye? I
nighly split my throat a-hollerin' at ye before ye h'ard me at all."

Frank was growing more and more dismayed, for he had never before met a
strange girl who was quite like this, and he knew not what to say.

"Now that we have arrived," he bowed, "we shall be happy to be of any
possible service to you."

"Dunno ez I want ye now," she returned, with a toss of her head.

"Howly shmoke!" gurgled Barney, at Frank's ear. "It's a doaisy she is,
me b'y!"

Frank resolved to take another tack, and so he advanced, saying boldly
and resolutely:

"Now that you have called us down here, I don't see how you are going to
get rid of us. You want something of us, and we'll not leave you till we
find out what it is."

The girl did not appear in the least alarmed. Instead of that, she
laughed, and that laugh was like the ripple of falling water.

"Wal, now you're talkin'!" she cried, with something like a flash of
admiration. "Mebbe you-uns has got some backbone arter all. I like
backbone."

"I have not looked at mine for so long that I am not sure what condition
it is in, but I know I have one."

"An' muscle?"

"A little."

"Then move this rock har that hez caught my foot an' holds it. That's
what I wanted o' you-uns."

She lifted her skirt a bit, and, for the first time, they saw that her
ankle had been caught between two large rocks, where she was held fast.

"Kinder slomped in thar when I war fishin'," she explained, "an' ther
big rock dropped