rom the
valley below came the long clear note of a bugle, probably of some
coaching party. An impudent woodpecker seated on a limb above her
commenced an insistent, aggravating tapping.

Alberdina made another struggle to loose her bonds and then settled back
weeping. At last merciful sleep brought her oblivion. The mountains
shimmered in the heat waves. The sunlight slanting through the trees
cast flickering golden shadows on the carpet of pine needles. The tinkle
of a cowbell broke the stillness. In her dreams the Swiss girl was
reminded of her own cherished uplands, where in the festive
cheese-making time she had gathered with other maids and youths and
danced to the music of the zither. Zither, did she say? But, had she
been dreaming then, all the while? Was not that a zither now mingling
its fairy music with the notes of the cow bell? Alberdina opened her
eyes.

"Helb! Helb! I asg you helb!" she called.

The music stopped instantly and a man, tall, slender, with an
indescribably distinguished air, approached, carrying the zither under
his arm.

"You called?" he asked courteously.

Alberdina burst into a torrent of excited German. She rolled her
prominent eyes to indicate her bonds. Streams of tears flowed down her
cheeks, or taking a short cut, ran over the bridge of her nose and
dropped down a precipice to her heaving bosom. Phoebe's father watched
her with an expression of gentle bewilderment. He seemed to be trying to
recall something an infinite distance away, like one of those
inexplicable reminiscences that flash through our minds and are gone
before we can grasp their significance.

"It's useless," he said, shaking his head. "But something has happened
to you? Oh, yes, you have been tied up."

Taking a bone-handled clasp knife from his pocket, he carefully cut the
ropes wound about her. Alberdina bounded out of the chair like a big,
fleshy catapult.

"Ach, himmel, I thangs mag to you, sir," she cried respectfully, for
there was something in this wanderer which commanded deference, although
he did wear a threadbare suit and mountain brogans.

"You know who did this, my girl?" he asked.

She shook her head and ran into the camp beyond. The locker rooms on the
two sleeping porches were in confusion. The contents of drawers and
trunks had been dumped to the floor and writing portfolios overhauled.
But, apparently, nothing had been taken, because there was nothing
valuable enough to tempt the most e