ving parties, and
here Dr. Hume looked for help in rescuing Phoebe's father.

The owner of the house, a thin sallow-faced man with pale shifting eyes
came out to speak to them.

"You ain't meanin' it's old crazy Frenchy you're after?" he asked. "I
don't wonder he's lost if it's him."

"That's the man," answered Dr. Hume, "but I don't understand what you
mean."

"I guess he's got wind he's suspected of settin' Razor Back Mountain on
fire and he's vamoosed. He ought to be shut up anyhow. He's a dangerous
character runnin' around the country."

Billie was shocked and angry.

"He is not," she burst out. "I know Mr.--Mr. French quite well----"

The man broke into a loud rasping laugh.

"Mr. French!" he repeated.

"He's incapable of setting a mountain on fire and he is as gentle and
courteous as possible."

There was another laugh. This time it came from within the house and
Billie and the doctor recognized the voice of Mr. Lupo.

"You're a friend of Lupo, I see," remarked the doctor looking very hard
at the man.

"I guess that's none of your affair," answered the other angrily. "And
nothin' agin' him nor me either, for the matter o' that."

The doctor lifted his eyebrows.

"I'd like to hire two or three guides. Are there any about?"

"There ain't no guides connected with this here establishment goin' to
go huntin' for crazy Frenchy," announced the man roughly, "if that's
what you're wantin' with them. Most of 'em is fightin' the flames
anyhow."

The doctor sat silently for a moment looking at the mountaineer, whose
eyes shifted uneasily under his steady gaze.

"I would advise you and your friend, Lupo, not to meddle too much in
this affair," he said, as the inn keeper with a snarling laugh shuffled
back into the house.

Billy turned the automobile and they went slowly down the street.

"If we were in the Kentucky or the Virginia mountains, I should call
this a feud," remarked the doctor, "but up here there is something more
than a revenge for a quarrel two generations old that creates a
situation of this kind. That man has got some ugly reason for
withholding his guides. He's a sinister looking wretch, and no man with
a shifting pair of eyes can be trusted around the corner."

"But what are we to do?" asked Billie.

"If we can't get guides,--we'll just go alone," answered Dr. Hume. "I
think we'll have to find your Mr. French, Miss Billie, seeing that a lot
of cut-throats are trying to keep us from