rnoon.

The next day Scotty used all his powers to effect a journey to the
glen, too. He had some difficulty, however, for it was Saturday and
Granny wanted him with her; but by dint of assistance from Hamish he
accomplished his aim, and in the afternoon he drove away on the front
seat of the big sleigh between Grandaddy and Callum, full of exuberant
joy.

The Glen was a small community at a bend in the River Oro, just a mile
east of the schoolhouse. Though it was near his home, Scotty had not
been in it since he was a baby. He was wildly eager to see the place.
To him it was a great metropolis, for it contained a tavern and a
store, yes, and a real mill where they made flour. And Hamish had
promised to show him the great water wheel that made the mill go, and
they were to spend an hour at Thompson's store, and most of all he was
anxious to learn the outcome of the boys' mysterious plans of the night
before.

The day was delightful, with all the world a gleam of blue and silver,
the glittering landscape softened here and there by the restful grey
tints of the forest. The blue skies with their dazzling white clouds,
and the shimmering white earth with its bright blue shadows, were so
bewilderingly alike that one might well wonder whether he was in heaven
or on earth. The air was electric, setting the blood tingling, and, as
the sleigh slipped along down the winding road that led to the river,
Scotty churned up and down on the seat and could with difficulty
restrain himself from leaping out and turning somersaults in the snow.

The highway suddenly emerged from a belt of pine forest and descended
into a little round valley made by the bend in the river. Here lay
"the Glen," the central point of the surrounding communities. Scotty
grew quieter and his eyes bigger as they followed the winding steep
road that led into its depths. There was the mill by the river, giving
out a strange rumbling sound; and beside it the house of old Sandy
Hamilton, the miller; and there, on the northern slope of the river
bank, was Weaver Jimmie's little shanty, with the loom clattering away
inside; and right at the corner stood Thompson's store and opposite it
Peter Nash's tavern.

So many houses all in one clearing! Scotty could scarcely believe his
eyes. And yet the poor little place had, after all, a greater
importance than the child could imagine. The Glen was to the grown
part of the community what the school was to the y