he town has a more
or less fixed population of about 2,500, most of whom are retired folk
of means or earn their living directly or indirectly through the
supplying of amusements, comfort, and sustenance for the thousands of
pleasure and recreation seekers that visit the place every year.

Each of the lakes is about four miles long and half as wide. A narrow
river, strait, or rapids nearly a mile long connects the two. Originally
this rapids was impassable by boats larger than canoes, and even such
little craft were likely to be overturned unless handled by strong and
skillful canoemen; but some years earlier the state had cleared this
passage by removing numerous great boulders and shelves of rock from the
bed of the stream so that although the water rushed along just as
swiftly as ever, the passage was nevertheless safe for all boats of
whatever draught that moved on the two lakes which it connected.

The lower of the twin bodies of water had been named Twin-One because,
perhaps, it was the first one seen, or more often seen by those who
chose or approved the name; the other was Twin-Two. Geographically
speaking, it may be, these names should have been applied vice versa,
for Twin-Two was fed first by a deep and wide river whose source was in
the mountains 200 miles away, and Twin-One received these waters after
they had laved the shores of Twin-Two.

The road followed by Katherine and Hazel in their automobile drive to
Stony Point was a well-kept thoroughfare running from the south end of
Twin-One, in gracefully curved windings along the east border of the
lake, sometimes over a small stretch of rough or hilly shoreland, but
usually through heavy growths of hemlock, white pine, oak, and other
trees more or less characteristic of the country. Here and there along
the way was a cottage, or summer house of more pretentious proportions,
usually constructed near the water or some distance up on the side of
the hill-shore, with a kind of terrace-walk leading down to a boat
landing.

The trip was quickly made. Stony Point the girls found to be a
picturesque spot not at all devoid of the verdant beauties of nature in
spite of the fact that, geographically, it was well named. This name was
due principally to a rock-formed promontory, jutting out into the lake
at this point and seeming to be bedded deep into the lofty
shore-elevation. Right here was a cluster of cottages, not at all
huddled together, but none the less a cl