sweetest
expression around his mouth, Kate! As if he was just so full of the
old nick he couldn't behave if he tried. You know--little quirky
creases at the corners, and a twinkle in his eyes--oh, good night!
He's just so good looking, honestly, it's a sin. But his disposition
is spoiled. He gets awfully grouchy over the least little thing--"

"Marion, how old is he?" Kate had been holding her hair away from her
face and staring all the while with shocked eyes at Marion.

"Oh, I don't know--old enough to drive a girl perfectly crazy if he
smiled at her often enough. Do you want to go up and meet him? He'd
like you, Kate--you're so superior. He simply can't stand me, I'm such
a mental lightweight. His eyes keep saying, 'So young and lovely,
and--nobody home,' when he looks at me. You go, Kate. Take him up a
loaf of bread; that he had brought from town tastes sour."

"Marion, I don't believe a word you're saying! I can tell by your eyes
when you're trying to throw me off the track. But old or young,
handsome or ugly, it was a dreadful thing for you to spend the night
up there, alone with a strange man. I simply walked the floor all
night, worrying about you! I'd have gone up there in spite of the
altitude, if the fire had not been between. I only hope Fred and the
professor don't get to hear of it. I was so afraid they would reach
home before you did! But since they didn't, there's no need of saying
anything about it. They left right away, before any of us had gotten
anxious about you. If the man who told me doesn't blurt it to every
one he sees--what in the world possessed you, Marion, to phone down to
the Forest Service that you were up there and going to stay?"

"Well, forevermore!" Marion lifted her head from her arm to stare at
Kate. Then she laughed and lay back luxuriously. "I was afraid you
wouldn't know where to look for the bread," she explained meekly, and
turned her face away from the sunlight and took a nap.

Kate finished with her hair rather abruptly, considering the leisurely
manner in which she had been brushing it. She glanced often at Marion
sprawled gracefully and unconventionally in the hammock with one
cinder-blackened boot sticking boyishly out over the edge. Kate's eyes
held an expression of baffled curiosity. They often held that
expression when she looked at Marion.

But presently the professor came, dragging his feet wearily and
mopping his soot-blackened face with a handkerchief as black.