ompany and became at once Jo's escort by common consent.

"Now life's worth living, Thaine's here. Let's have dinner," the boys
urged.

It was not Leigh Shirley's fault that Thaine should be placed between her
and Jo at the spread of good things to eat; nor Jo's planning that she
should be between Thaine and Todd Stewart. But nobody could be unhappy
today.

In the late afternoon the crowd strolled in couples and quartettes and
groups up and down the picturesque place.

Thaine had been with Jo from the moment of his coming and Leigh was glad
that she had not yielded to his request of the afternoon before. She had
become a little separated from the company as she followed a trail of
golden sunflowers down the edge of the wide space between the stream and
the foot of the headlands towering far beyond it. The sun had disappeared
suddenly and the gleam of the blossoms dulled a trifle. Leigh sat down on
a slab of shale to study the effect of the shadow.

"Are you still looking for a letter that will bring Prince Quippi back?"
Thaine Aydelot asked as he climbed up from the rough stream bed to a seat
beside her.

"I'm watching the effect of sunshine and shadow on the sunflowers," Leigh
replied.

"It will be all shadow if you wait much longer. The clouds are gathering
now and we must start home."

"Then I must be going, too. It's a lovely, lazy place here, though. Some
time I'm going to the top of those bluffs, away off there."

"Let's go up now," Thaine suggested.

"But it's too late. I mustn't keep the crowd waiting," Leigh insisted.
"It's a stiff climb, too."

"I can drive up. I know a trail through the brush. Let me drive you up,
Leigh. It won't take long. There's something worth seeing up there,"
Thaine insisted.

"Well, be quick, Thaine. We'll get into trouble if we are late," Leigh
declared.

The trail up the steep slope twisted its way back and forth through the
low timber that covered the sides of the bluffs, and the two in the buggy
found themselves shut away in its solitary windings.

"What a shadowy road," Leigh said. "And see that cliff dropping down
beyond that turn. How could there be such a romantic place out on these
level plains?"

"It was my fairy land when I was a little tot," Thaine replied. "I came
here long ago and explored it myself."

"I'd like to come here sketching sometime. See how the branches meet
overhead. The odors from the bluffside are like the odors of the woodland
back in