d
Pollyanna to herself, raising her eyes to the patches of vivid blue
between the sunlit green of the tree-tops. "Anyhow, if they were up
here, I just reckon they'd change and take Jimmy Bean for their little
boy, all right," she finished, secure in her conviction, but unable to
give a reason for it, even to herself.

Suddenly Pollyanna lifted her head and listened. A dog had barked
some distance ahead. A moment later he came dashing toward her, still
barking.

"Hullo, doggie--hullo!" Pollyanna snapped her fingers at the dog and
looked expectantly down the path. She had seen the dog once before, she
was sure. He had been then with the Man, Mr. John Pendleton. She was
looking now, hoping to see him. For some minutes she watched eagerly,
but he did not appear. Then she turned her attention toward the dog.

The dog, as even Pollyanna could see, was acting strangely. He was
still barking--giving little short, sharp yelps, as if of alarm. He was
running back and forth, too, in the path ahead. Soon they reached a side
path, and down this the little dog fairly flew, only to come back at
once, whining and barking.

"Ho! That isn't the way home," laughed Pollyanna, still keeping to the
main path.

The little dog seemed frantic now. Back and forth, back and forth,
between Pollyanna and the side path he vibrated, barking and whining
pitifully. Every quiver of his little brown body, and every glance from
his beseeching brown eyes were eloquent with appeal--so eloquent that at
last Pollyanna understood, turned, and followed him.

Straight ahead, now, the little dog dashed madly; and it was not long
before Pollyanna came upon the reason for it all: a man lying motionless
at the foot of a steep, overhanging mass of rock a few yards from the
side path.

A twig cracked sharply under Pollyanna's foot, and the man turned his
head. With a cry of dismay Pollyanna ran to his side.

"Mr. Pendleton! Oh, are you hurt?"

"Hurt? Oh, no! I'm just taking a siesta in the sunshine," snapped the
man irritably. "See here, how much do you know? What can you do? Have
you got any sense?"

Pollyanna caught her breath with a little gasp, but--as was her
habit--she answered the questions literally, one by one.

"Why, Mr. Pendleton, I--I don't know so very much, and I can't do a
great many things; but most of the Ladies' Aiders, except Mrs. Rawson,
said I had real good sense. I heard 'em say so one day--they didn't know
I heard, though."

The