me on--we'll have to hurry.
Billy, you slip along and saddle up the ponies one-time quick!"

Billy departed noiselessly.

"He never said 'Plenty!'" said Wally disappointedly, gathering himself
up from the grass.

"It was an oversight," Jim laughed. "Now then, Norah, come along. What
about the miserable remains?"

"The remains aren't so miserable," said Norah, who was on her knees
gathering up the fragments of the feast. "See, there's a lot of bread
yet, ever so many scones, heaps of cake, and the fruit, to say nothing
of butter and jam." She looked up shyly at the Hermit. "Would you--would
you mind having them?"

The Hermit laughed.

"Not a bit!" he said. "I'm not proud, and it is really a treat to see
civilized food again. I'll willingly act as your scavenger, Miss Norah."

Together they packed up the remnants, and the Hermit deposited them
inside his tent. He rummaged for a minute in a bag near his bed, and
presently came out with something in his hand.

"I amuse myself in my many odd moments by this sort of thing," he said.
"Will you have it, Miss Norah?"

He put a photograph frame into her hand--a dainty thing, made from the
native woods, cunningly jointed together and beautifully carved. Norah
accepted it with pleasure.

"It's not anything," the Hermit disclaimed--"very rough, I'm afraid. But
you can't do very good work when your pocket-knife is your only tool. I
hope you'll forgive its shortcomings, Miss Norah, and keep it to
remember the old Hermit."

"I think it's lovely," Norah said, looking up with shining eyes, "and
I'm ever so much obliged. I'll always keep it."

"Don't forget," the Hermit said, looking down at the flushed face. "And
some day, perhaps, you'll all come again."

"We must hurry," Jim said.

They were all back at the lunching-place, and the sight of the sun,
sinking far across the plain, recalled Jim to a sense of half-forgotten
responsibility.

"It's every man for his own steed," he said. "Can you manage your old
crock, Norah?"

"Don't you wish yours was half as good?" queried Norah, as she took the
halter off Bobs and slipped the bit into his mouth.

Jim grinned.

"Knew I'd got her on a soft spot!" he murmured, wrestling with a
refractory crupper.

Harry and Wally were already at their ponies. Billy, having fixed the
load to his satisfaction on the pack mare, was standing on one foot on a
log jutting over the creek, drawing the fish from their cool
resting-place in t