he gasped. "I THOUGHT there was something mighty
familiar even about the skeleton of you! Oh, Peter, Peter, where did you
get this, and how could you do it?"

For a while a mist blurred her eyes. She reached for the coat and
started to replace the things she had gathered up, then she shut her
lips tight.

"Best time to pull a tooth," she said tersely to a terra cotta red
manzanita bush, "is when it aches."

When Peter returned from the spring he was faced by a trembling girl,
colorless and trying hard to keep her voice steady. She held out the
coat to him with one hand, the package of papers with the other, the
folded drawing conspicuous on the top. With these she gestured toward
the declivity.

"Mouse nest in your pocket, Peter," she said thickly. "Reversed the coat
to shake it out, and spilled your stuff."

Then she waited for Peter to be confounded. But Peter was not in the
faintest degree troubled about either the coat or the papers. What did
trouble him was the face and the blazing eyes of the girl concerning
whom he would not admit, even to himself, his exact state of feeling.

"The mouse did not get on you, Linda?" he asked anxiously.

Linda shook her head. Suddenly she lost her self-control.

"Oh, Peter," she wailed, "how could you do it?"

Peter's lean frame tensed suddenly.

"I don't understand, Linda," he said quietly. "Exactly what have I
done?"

Linda thrust the coat and the papers toward him accusingly and stood
there wordless but with visible pain in her dark eyes. peter smiled at
her reassuringly.

"That's not my coat, you know. If there is anything distressing about
it, don't lay it to me."

"Oh, Peter!" cried Linda, "tell the truth about it. Don't try any
evasions. I am so sick of them."

A rather queer light sprang into Peter's eyes. He leaned forward
suddenly and caught the coat from Linda's fingers.

"Well, if you need an alibi concerning this coat," he said, "I think I
can furnish it speedily."

As he talked he whirled the garment around and shot his long arms into
the sleeves. Shaking it into place on his shoulders, he slowly turned in
front of Linda and the surprised Katy. The sleeves came halfway to his
wrists and the shoulders slid down over his upper arms. He made such a
quaint and ridiculous figure that Katy burst out laughing. She was very
well trained, but she knew Linda was deeply distressed.

"Wake up, lambie!" she cried sharply. "That coat ain't belonging to
Mr. Pa