elbow upon her knee, and held her needle suspended by its
thread. Sue darned away, and got a great hole laid lengthwise with
smooth lines, before her threatening move had been provided for. Then a
red knight came with gallant leap, right down in the midst of the white
forces, menacing in his turn right and left; and Martha drew a long
sigh, and sat back, and poised her needle-lance again, and went to work;
and it was Sue's turn to lean over the board with knit brows and holden
breath.

Something peered over the rock above them at this moment. A boy's head,
from which the cap had been removed.

"If only they'll play now, and not chatter!" thought Dakie Thayne, lying
prone along the cliff above, and putting up his elbows to rest his head
between his hands. "This'll be jolly, if it don't turn to eavesdropping.
Poor old Noll! I haven't had a game since I played with him!"

Sue would not withdraw her attack. She planted a bishop so that, if the
knight should move, it would open a course straight down toward a weak
point beside the red king.

"She means to 'fight it out on that line, if it takes all summer,'"
Dakie went on within himself, having grasped, during the long pause
before Sue's move, the whole position. "They're no fools at it, to have
got it into a shape like that! I'd just like Noll to see it!"

Martha looked, and drew a thread or two into her stocking, and looked
again. Then she stabbed her cotton-ball with her needle, and put up both
hands--one with the white stocking-foot still drawn over it--beside her
temples. At last she castled.

Sue was as calm as the morning. She always grew calm and strong as the
game drew near the end. She had even let her thoughts go off to other
things while Martha pondered and she wove in the cross-threads of her
darn.

"I wonder, Martha," she said now, suddenly, before attending to the new
aspect of the board, "if I couldn't do without that muslin skirt I made
to wear under my _pina_, and turn it into a couple of white waists to
carry home to mother? If she goes away, you know"--

"Aigh!"

It was a short, sharp, unspellable sound that came from above. Sue
started, and a red piece rolled from the board. Then there was a
rustling and a crashing and a leaping, and by a much shorter and more
hazardous way than he had climbed, Dakie Thayne came down and stood
before them. "I had to let you know! I couldn't listen. I was in hopes
you wouldn't talk. Don't move, please! I'll fin