ntinued to
stand obstructingly in the middle of his log doorstep, one hand on the
knob of the half closed door behind him, his eyes fixed very curiously
on Johnny's flushed disorder.

"What kind of an 'any one' are you looking for?" said Barry slowly.

"Oh--a--well, I guess you've got to help me out on this. You know the
country. There's no use stalling. It's a girl--a foreign-looking girl."

"And what are you doing at six in the morning looking for a
foreign-looking girl?"

"It's the darndest luck," Johnny broke out explosively. "We--we got lost
last night going to a picnic on Old Baldy--and then we got
separated----"

"How?"

"How?" Johnny stared back at Barry Elder and found something oddly fixed
and challenging in that young man's eyes.

"Why how--how does any one get separated?" he threw back querulously.

"I can't imagine--especially when one is responsible for a girl."

"Gosh, Barry, you're talking like a grandmother. Aren't you going to
give me anything to eat? What's the matter with you, anyway? You act
devilish queer----"

Again he confronted the coldness of Barry's gaze and his own face
changed suddenly, with swift surmise.

"Say, has she been here?" he broke out. "You've seen her, haven't you? I
was sure I saw tracks. . . . Has she--has she told you anything?"

Barry leaned a little nearer the door-frame, drawing the door closer
behind him. Through the crack Sandy's pointed noise and exploring eyes
were fixed inquiringly upon the visitor and he whined eagerly as,
scenting disapprobation in the air, he yearned to meet this trouble
halfway.

"I think you had better," Barry told him.

"Better? Better what?"

"Better tell me--everything."

"Oh, all right, all right! _I've_ nothing to conceal. I didn't go off my
chump and behave like a darn lunatic in grand opera!"

Then very quickly Johnny veered from anger into confidence.

"Here's the whole story--and there's nothing to it. She's crazy--crazy
with her foreign notions, I tell you. At first I thought she was trying
to put something over on me, but I guess she's just genuinely crazy.
It's the way she was brought up. They go mad over there and bite if
you're left alone in a room with a girl."

Definitely Barry waited.

"We were up there on the mountain," said Johnny more lucidly. "We'd
lost the others--no fault of ours, Barry--you needn't look like a movie
censor--and we found we'd got to make a night of it. We were just worn
out and goi