ncline rose back of them and this was broken with
deep ravines. Mollie could neither see nor hear anyone. Yet it seemed to
her that she was not alone. She had a sense of some unknown presence.

She crept back into the room and put on her crimson dressing gown and
slippers. She was bent on making a discovery. It could not be Naki or his
wife, whose light footfalls she had heard moving swiftly around the
house. They were nowhere to be seen. She was nervous about going out, as
Miss Sallie had made dreadful suggestions about wolves and wild cats, yet
she slipped out on the tiny porch. Far away through the trees and up the
steep hillside she saw flying like a deer, a thin, brown creature. Was it
human or a sprite? Mollie could not guess. She caught a glimpse of it,
but it had been impossible to observe it accurately, so fast it flew.
There was only a whirr of flying feet, and a flash of brown and scarlet
to be seen. Could it be the famous ghost of Lost Man's Trail?

At this same moment Naki came around from the back of the house. "I
thought I heard some one," he grumbled, looking suspiciously at Mollie.

"Yes, so did I," she answered. "And I saw some one or something fly up
the steep side of that hill."

Naki did not answer. Mollie thought he looked at her queerly.

"You must have been mistaken, Miss," he declared. "Nothing could have
gone up that ravine over yonder. There's only an Indian trail back there.
Nobody travels much over that hill. It's all cliffs and dangerous."

Mollie shook her pretty head. She did not argue, but she knew what she
had seen.

"I am going to try climbing it, some day, just the same," she thought to
herself, "but of course, I must get used to finding my way about first. I
must find out just what I saw this morning."

"Where have you been, Mollie?" asked Grace, opening her eyes as Mollie
came back to bed.

"What's up?" called Ruth from the next room, where she slept with Miss
Sallie.

"Oh, nothing," Mollie answered, fearful of being thought superstitious.
"I thought I heard a sound at the door, but I was mistaken."

"Girls," Ruth demanded later, as they sat over their breakfast, "is there
anything in the world so good to eat as bacon fried by Ceally over an
open fire?" Ruth helped herself to all that was left on the dish.

"Ruth Stuart!" called Barbara. "How dare you take all the bacon, when you
have just declared it was so delicious? Miss Sallie, make her divide with
me."

Miss Stua