ct was not strong, but
Virginia had told her always to trust the creek, which would ever lead one
down whence she had come.

Once her heart almost stopped beating. Away in the top of a great spruce
she heard a hammering sound. It echoed through the silent woods like great
blows of an ax, and some long moments passed before Vivian could assure
her frightened heart that it was only a flicker searching for his dinner.

Her box was filled with kinnikinnick and she would go back. If Carver were
not at the ford, they must make the trip up the trail the next day in
spite of Virginia's plan for a ride to Lone Mountain. If necessary, she
would be brave enough to explain matters, and then they would understand.

She turned to go down the mountain, when suddenly from above her came a
sound of breaking underbrush as though some creature were bursting from
its covert. Vivian stood motionless, too terrified to move or to scream.
It was not Carver--that was certain. He would never be upon the mountain.
It was far more likely to be a bear. Why not one here as well as farther
up the canyon where they had caught that monster from the sight of which
she had not yet recovered? Thoughts passed like flashes through her brain
while that awful sound of breaking twigs continued. Hundreds and hundreds
of them came, crowding one another for space--thoughts of St. Helen's,
snatches of poems she had learned, memories of things which had frightened
her as a child. And last of all, perhaps because without knowing it she
had reached a great tree and sunk in a little heap at its foot, came the
picture of a sallow youth in eye-glasses and a linen duster, who had once,
ages ago, crashed through some underbrush somewhere else!

The crashing ceased. Some one stepped into the trail above her. The
thought of a bear had somehow given place to her old knight-errant of the
soda-fountain. And yet when she looked up, expecting to see his pale,
sickly countenance, she saw instead the khaki-clad form and the surprised
blue eyes of the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger!

He was the very person she had wished to see. She could make her speech
now, and be spared her long ride, and yet she found herself studying the
line between his eyes and wondering why other people did not have a line
there, too. It was the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger who spoke first.

"If that were an oak tree," he said, "I'd think you were consulting an
oracle; but since it isn't, maybe you're jus