sked Margery. "I wonder if I can guess?"

"I don't know. You might all try, and see how near you come to it."

"I think we're going to go home by walking!" said Margery.

"I believe we'll go through the chain of lakes that begins at Little
Bear in a boat, or in boats!" said Dolly.

But, though they all took turns in guessing, Eleanor only smiled wisely
when the last guess had been made.

"You were very nearly right, Margery," she said. "We are going to
tramp home, but not the way we came. We're going to take the long way
round. We're going straight up and through the mountains and down the
other side, and then we'll have a long trip on fairly level ground, but
we won't go straight home."

"Where, then?" asked Dolly.

"Why, we'll combine everything on the one trip, Dolly, and we'll wind
up at the seashore. By the time we've had a little swimming and
sailing there it'll be time to think about what we're going to do in
the autumn--school, and, work, and all the other things."

"Oh, that's splendid!" cried Margery, her eyes shining. "I've always
wanted to go up in the real mountains, where you were so high that you
could see all around the country. We'll do that, won't we? Here we're
in the mountains, really, but it doesn't seem like it. Everything's so
high, you can't see over."

Eleanor pointed to the distant hills, blue in the haze that hung over
them.

"Do you see Mount Grant, the big one in the center, there?" she said.
"And do you see that other mountain that seems to be right next to it?
That's Mount Sherman. And right between them there's a little gap.
Really, it's quite wide, though you can't tell that from here. Well,
that's Indian Notch, and we get through the mountain range by going
through it. It's a fine, wild country, but there's a good road through
the notch now, and sometimes one meets quite a lot of automobiles going
through. I think it will be a glorious trip, don't you, girls?"

"I certainly do!" said Bessie King. "I'm like Margery. I've always
wanted to see the real mountains. I used to dream about them, and
sometimes I'd think I'd really been there. But I guess it was just
because I dreamed so much that I got to thinking so."

Eleanor looked at her curiously.

"Maybe your people came from the mountains, Bessie," she said. "It's
very strange that some natural things seem to get into the blood of
peoples and races. Like the mountains, and the sea, and great rivers.
Som