er which the
girls walked. By one pool was a shallow bit of beach, and Ruth, coming
upon this alone, suddenly cried out:

"Oh, Helen! Jennie! I am a Miss Crusoe. Come here and see the
unmistakable mark of my Man Friday."

"What do you mean, you ridiculous thing?" drawled Jennie. "You cannot be
a Crusoe. You are not dressed in skins."

"Well, I like that!" rejoined Ruth, raising her eyebrows in apparent
surprise, "I should think I was covered with skin. Why not? Am I
different from the remainder of humanity?"

Of course they laughed with her as they came to view her discovery upon
the sand. It was the mark of a human foot.

"And no savage, I'll be bound," said Helen. "That is the mark of a
mighty brogan. A white man's foot-covering, no less. See! There is
another footprint."

"He certainly was going away from here," Jennie Stone observed. "Who do
you suppose he is?"

"I wonder if his eyes are blue and if he has a moustache?" queried
Helen, languishingly.

"Bet he has whiskers and chews tobacco. I known these Western men. Bah!"

"Jennie takes all the romance out of it," said Ruth, laughing. "Now I
don't care to meet my Man Friday at all."

They ate a picnic lunch before they rode out of the lovely canyon. Mr.
Hammond was always good company, and he exerted himself to be
interesting to the three girls on this occasion.

"My!" Helen remarked to Jennie, "Ruth does make the nicest friends,
doesn't she? See how much fun--how many good times--we have had through
her acquaintanceship with Mr. Hammond."

Jennie agreed. But her attention was attracted just then to something
entirely different. She was staring up the cliff path that Mr. Hammond
had praised as being just the natural landmark needed for the scene the
company wished to picture.

"Did you see what I saw?" drawled the plump girl. "Or am I thinking too,
too much about mankind?"

"What is the matter with you?" demanded Helen. "I didn't see any man."

"Not up that rocky way--there! A brown coat and a gray hat. Did you
see?"

"Ruth's Man Friday!" ejaculated Helen.

"I shouldn't wonder. But we can't prove it because we haven't the size
of yonder gentleman's boot. Humph I he is running away from us, all
right."

"Maybe he never saw us," suggested Helen.

They called to Ruth and told her of the glimpse they had had of the
stranger.

"And what did he run away for, do you suppose?" demanded Jennie.

"I am sure you need not ask me," said Ruth. "What d