d at last on the
rocky mountainside and looked down into the still, white faces of
Billiard, Susie and Inez. How could she ever have let them out of her
sight? How could she ever break the news to the mother?

"Merely stunned," replied the doctor, examining the victims with rapid,
practised fingers. "See, the girls are coming to their senses. It's
nothing short of a miracle that-- Hello, Susie, what did you say?"

"It wasn't gold at all," murmured the child faintly; "just quartz, but
he wouldn't b'lieve it."

Billiard opened his eyes slowly. "She says gold don't look like gold
in a mine, but I got a pocketful of--" His sentence ended in a groan
of pain, and the hand he was trying to thrust into his trousers fell
limply at his side.

"Aha!" cried the doctor. "Let's see what we have here."

"A break?" questioned the assayer.

"Bad sprain, I think, but it will keep the young man out of mischief
for one while. Are your legs all right? Then I reckon we better move
on to town."

So it happened that no serious results came from their latest prank,
but Tabitha, in her thankfulness that all her brood was safe and sound,
fell into a fit of bitter weeping as soon as the children were back in
the Eagles' Nest once more and the rescuers had departed.

"Don't," begged Janie tearfully. "I loves 'oo! I was dood!"

"Please don't," pleaded the other sisters in great distress. "We'll
never do it again."

"It was all my fault," cried Toady contritely. "I'm ever so sorry."

"It was not," muttered Billiard, wincing with the pain in his arm, but
truly repentant. "I dared 'em to go. Honest, Tabby, _I_ was to blame!
Will you--will you--er--forgive me? I'm horribly--sorry. Won't you
try me again?"

So sincere was his tone, so straightforward his confession, so manly
his bearing, that Tabitha could not fail to be convinced of his
earnestness of purpose, and drying her eyes, she took Billiard's
proffered hand in a hearty grasp, saying with quivering, smiling lips,
"Let's all try each other again."

"Let's!" cried the rest of the brood; and they meant it, every one.

CHAPTER X

SUSANNE ENTERTAINS A CALLER

"Let's make some candy. It's too hot to play."

Susie and the twins were sitting idly on a great, shaggy, redwood log
in the scanty shade of the house, fanning themselves as briskly as
their tired arms would move, and longing for the cool of sundown.

Irene looked startled at the older sister's sugg