ood," scoffed Linda, rising to very nearly his height
and reaching for the lunch basket. "'Little' is good, Peter. If I could
do what I like to myself I would get in some kind of a press and squash
down about seven inches."

"Oh, Lord!" said Peter. "Forget it. What's the difference what the
inches of your body are so long as your brain has a stature worthy of
mention?"

"Good-bye!" said Linda. "On the strength of that I'll jazz that sketch
all up, bluey and red-purple and jade-green. I'll make it as glorious as
a Catalina sunset."

As she swung the car around the sharp curve at the boulders she looked
back and laughingly waved her hand at Peter, and Peter experienced a
wild desire to shriek lest she lose control of the car and plunge down
the steep incline. A second later, when he saw her securely on the road
below, he smiled to himself.

"Proves one thing," he said conclusively. "She is over the horrors.
She is driving unconsciously. Thank God she knew that curve so well she
could look the other way and drive it mentally."

CHAPTER XIX. The Official Bug-Catcher

Not a mile below the exit from Peter's grounds, Linda perceived a
heavily laden person toiling down the roadway before her and when she
ran her car abreast and stopped it, Henry Anderson looked up at her with
joyful face.

"Sorry I can't uncover, fair lady," he said, "but you see I am very much
otherwise engaged."

What Linda saw was a tired, disheveled man standing in the roadway
beside her car, under each arm a boulder the size of her head, one
almost jet-black, shot through with lines of white and flying figures
of white crossing between these bands that almost reminded one of winged
dancers. The other was a combination stone made up of matrix thickly
imbedded with pebbles of brown, green, pink, and dull blue.

"For pity's sake!" said Linda. "Where are you going and why are you
personally demonstrating a new method of transporting rock?"

"I am on my way down Lilac Valley to the residence of a friend of mine,"
said Henry Anderson. "I heard her say the other day that she saved
every peculiarly marked boulder she could find to preserve coolness and
moisture in her fern bed."

Linda leaned over and opened the car door.

"All well and good," she said; "but why in the cause of reason didn't
you leave them at Peter's and bring them down in his car?"

Henry Anderson laid the stones in the bottom of the car, stepped in and
closed the door behind