Highacres

st morning and lost himself on Kettle Mountain, he would never have fo

om at the Wayside Hotel and had fiercely hated the doctor, back in the city, who had printed on a slip of office paper definite rules for him, John Westley, aged thirty-five, to follow; hated the milk and eggs that he knew awaited him in the dining-roo

uch like a truant schoolboy, John Westley had followed this path. A sense of adventure stimulated him, a pleasant little breeze whipping his face urged him on. He stopped at a cottage nestled in a grove of fir trees and persuaded the housewife there to wrap him a lunch to take with him up the trail. The good woman had packed many a lunch for her husband, who was a gui

s boyish exhilaration had quite left him; he would have hugged his despised guide if he could have met him around one of the many turns of the trai

then suddenly his foot slipped on the needles that cushioned the trail, he fell, just as one does on the ice--only much more softly--and slid on, down and down, deftly steering himself around a bend, and came to a stop against a dead log just in time to es

ding very straight on a huge rock! His first joyful thought was that it was a boy--a boy who could lead him back to the Wayside Hotel, for the youth wore soft leather breeches and a blouse, loosely belted at

ainly that he was intruding upon some pleasant occupation.

. She had an exceptionally pretty

ously, as though she was the mistress

fore--he fainted. He made one little effort to rise and walk down the rocky

in his face and a pair of anxious brown eyes close to his own.

all rig

e in a moment. Ju

y with which she lifted him

t, but I knew what to do," she said p

ound. "Where

etween going and coming, and Mr. Toby Chubb gets there in an hour with his new automobile when it'll go, but if you follow the Sunrise tr

lapped his han

nder I got lost! And

f a person could just bore right through Kettle you'd come out on the s

ad suddenly thought how carefully his

down this trail to Sunnyside--that's where I

onder birch grove, but I suppose--your garments look so very m

y Travis. I hate it. Nearly every girl I know is named something nice--Ro

Jerauld might misunderstand him. He thought, as he watched from the corner of his eye, every movement of the slim, strong, boyish form, that she

man's head. Then she brightened, for even the discomfiture of having to bear the name Jeraul

perished on the face of Kettle Mountain. I am plain John Westley, stopping over at Wayside, and I can swe

're rested you must go home with me. And you'll have to stay all night 'ca

panion, he might have tried immediately to pull himself together enough to go on t

u are. And I thought you were a

t of the time, 'cept when I dress up or go to school. You see I've always gone with Little-Dad on Silverheels when he went to

er alone all ove

it Devil's Hole. Little-Dad made me promise never to go beyond the turn from Sunrise trail. I'd like to, too. But there are lots of jolly tram

d cement-mixers, suddenly felt that he

ch like a great many other rocks all over the mo

her very brown hands aro

here since I was ever so little. I've always pretended that fairies lived in the mountains."

then there's lots higher up and you slide down and you think you're in the val

where and the colors are so different! And the woodsy glens and ravines--they're so mysterious. I've h

plainly convinced. "Fairies

nd. But I still call this my Wishing-rock and I come here and stand on it and wish--only there aren

u were wishing

ppy girl and I am, but I guess everybody always has somethin

ody does, Jerry. I think that's what keeps us going on

"Only I suppose it couldn't bec

He asked it coaxingly, in

and--Sunnyside--and Kettle." Her voice was plaintively wistful, her eyes shining. "I know it's different. From up here I can watch the automobiles come along and they always turn off and go around the mountain and never come to Miller's Notch unless they get lost. And the trains all go that way and--and it must be different! It's like the books I read. It's the world----" She sank back on her knees. "Once I tried to walk and once I rode Silverheels, but I never seeme

erry, child of the woods--he felt as her mother must have felt! There was a mystery about the girl that held his curiosi

want it so very much! But, maybe, child, you'll find that what you have right here is far bett

hen you'll meet Sweetheart and Lit