In a comfortable hotel, half European, half Japanese, they found themselves settled that evening, with the mountains rearing their tops all around them and Fujisan a nearer neighbor than ever before. The stream, Hayagawa, babbled noisily within hearing, and the lofty pines gave out a sweetly pleasant odor.

"This is the most restful spot I have found in Japan," sighed Miss Helen. "I was quite worn out when we reached here, but that delicious warm bath has acted like a charm. There must be some quality about these springs beyond their mere temperature."

"And such lovely bath-rooms, too," agreed Nan, "so clean and sweet-smelling. It seems good to be in the hills again, doesn't it? We are so used to seeing them at home that one misses them after a time."

"I should really like to stay here a long while," remarked Mrs. Corner. "The gardens are so attractive and the little town has all sorts of enticing shops, I noticed. Then there are a number of delightful trips to make, I am told."

"Oh, dear," sighed Nan. "And we must go to Nikko and to Kyoto and a dozen other places which I suppose will be quite as fascinating. If only the twins didn't have to go back to college we could just stay on till we had seen all."

"There is no reason why you shouldn't stay on with Helen and Mary Lee," returned her mother.

Nan shook her head. "No, once having hold of you I realize how valuable you are and I don't feel as if I could let you go back without me."

"Don't let us plan the going back yet a while," interposed Miss Helen. "Just when we are beginning to have a sense of peace and rest we should enjoy it. Let the morrow take thought for itself."

Jack and Jean were already down among the wood-carvers in the village and came back after a while with their hands full of pretty things. They tried to coax the others to make an immediate visit to the shops, but no one was enterprising enough to undertake the errand that evening.

"We will go to-morrow," said Nan. But alas, when the morrow came it brought rain again, and no one cared to venture till afternoon, when finding time hanging heavily on her hands, Nan ventured forth alone, clad in her rain cloak and carrying a gay oiled paper umbrella. The streets were almost deserted but in front of one of the shops a jinrikisha was waiting. Because she was curious to see who might be the other shopper out on that rainy afternoon, Nan entered the wood-carving establishment and came suddenly face to face with Neal Harding.

"Miss Nan!" he exclaimed. "Isn't this luck? I was just wondering in which hotel you were staying. The chief has given me a week's leave, as he thought I was a little done up. That is, I am not to be recalled unless some special pressure of work demands, and so I thought this would be just the place for me."

"But why did you seek us in a perfectly strange wood-carver's shop?" asked Nan.

He laughed. "It does look as if I were making a house to house search for you, doesn't it? I had an errand here for one of my friends who left an order for some carving which has not been delivered as promised. Where are you stopping?"

"At the Fujiya."

"And all stood the journey well, I hope?"

"Very well." Nan was rather non-committal.

"And you stopped at Kamakura as you intended and went to Enoshima, I suppose."

"Yes, we did all that. We were two nights at Kamakura and have been here but one."

"If I had only known I could get the holiday, I might have been with you. I feel quite defrauded when I think of it. One of the other men was to have been off this week, but he found it would suit him better to get leave later, consequently I was offered the time in his place. May I go with you? Were you going to buy some carvings?"

"I was going to amuse myself by looking around. After being housed all morning I wanted to get a bit of the outside world." She gave no permission but he took it for granted and followed on as she went from one charming object to another. "I may as well be pleasant to him," reflected Nan, "for he may be my brother-in-law some day," and she began to unthaw a little. "You said you had not been well," she began. "I hope it was nothing serious and that you are feeling better."

"Oh, it is nothing very serious. It has been pretty hot and I have been working rather hard of late, so I was a trifle run down; that is all. I shall be fit as a fiddle by the end of my stay here. There are some tremendously interesting excursions to be made from this centre, you know. One is to Lake HakonÉ and another is to that grewsome spot O-Jigoku. There is a magnificent view of Fujisan from there. You will need an alpenstock if you go. Here is a good one. Let me get it for you. You can keep it to carve names on, names of places you visit and people you meet. May I put my humble initials on it?"

What could Nan do but consent? And she stood silently by as he made the initials of her own name first, placing his own under them, the little Japanese shopkeeper looking on with a smile, probably to see how much less dextrous these foreigners were than her own countrymen who produced such wonders of carving.

Nan accepted the stick with a meek "Thank you," and felt herself very disloyal to Jack, this giving her cause to make only a hurried survey of mosaics and inlaid woods, of dainty carvings and ingenious toys. She bought one or two things to give countenance to her errand in the rain and then declared she must return, steadily ignoring all suggestions to visit other shops or to take tea in one of the many pretty little tea-houses. Mr. Harding dismissed his jinrikisha and walked to the hotel with her where he received a warm welcome.

"You are the one thing needed to make us a complete party," declared Jack. "A lot of women without one man to countenance them is an anomalous organization," and so he was taken in quite as a matter of course.

A trip to Lake HakonÉ was arranged for the very next day, if it did not rain. "We must make the most of you," Jack told Mr. Harding, "for if you have only a week it may rain half of it and we don't want to put off anything that ought by rights to include you." She expected to appropriate the young man as a right, Nan noticed.

But Jack's plan did not come out entirely as she expected, for as they were sitting on the verandah that evening, Jean grabbed her twin sister's arm. "Jack, Jack," she exclaimed, "here is that Mr. Warner that came over on the steamer with us."

"Oh, bother!" cried Jack shaking her head with a frown. "I don't suppose he will have sense enough to realize that he will be in the way."

"You couldn't expect him to after being nice to him on the steamer," returned Jean.

"Oh, well, that was because he came in handy to walk with and to tuck in my steamer rug and things like that. He is a silly ass, and I don't want him around. You will have to take him off my hands, Jean."

"Indeed I shall not then," returned Jean. "I don't like him any better than you do, and I am quite sure I never gave him any occasion for thinking so, which is quite the opposite of the way you did."

"Well, all is, I hope he won't see us," returned Jack, changing her seat so that her back would be to the garden.

"Who is the man?" Nan asked having overheard the conversation.

"Oh, he is a softy we met on the steamer. He knows some of our friends and is perfectly respectable, of course, otherwise mother would not have allowed us to have anything to do with him. There wasn't any one else around, and you know what Jack is. He served her for the time being. I don't mean there was anything like a flirtation, but she was nice to him and he trotted after her as men like that do when a girl is half-way kind to him. We thought we were rid of him when we left the steamer, but you see here he is."

"Well, my dear, one is very liable to run up against acquaintances like that when both are traveling in the same country; it happens over and over again. Jack will have to take the consequences, of course."

But this was precisely what Jack did not intend to do, and for this very reason she cajoled and demanded until Mr. Harding was helpless in doing anything but what she expected. Nan, while pleasantly polite to this young man, gave him no opportunity of returning to a comradeship and he was more and more convinced that she wished to keep him at a distance.

Mr. Warner was not one to avoid a group of pretty girls and as soon as he caught sight of Jack the same evening, he made straight for her with every exclamation of pleasure and surprise. He was not a bad-looking person, and was perfectly assured in his own mind that he possessed every quality a girl could desire. He was an inveterate punster and was always doing what Jack called "monkey tricks." Nan could see that he promised to be something of a bore, as he was invariably flippant and frivolous, taking nothing seriously and ready to make jokes of everything. No spot too sacred, no object too impressive to become the target of his supposed wit. He quite resented Mr. Harding's presence as an admirer of Jack's, and to Nan's amusement always spoke as if he were an interloper whom Jack might reasonably wish to be rid of.

Because of all this, Nan more than once relieved the situation by allowing the young man to become her escort and met him on his own ground with frivolous speeches, so that he began to think that, after all, this elder sister was almost as desirable as Jack, and when he couldn't get pudding he would quite cheerfully take pie.

However, there were occasions when Nan could not sacrifice herself even for Jack, and she would get out of the way, having discovered a secluded spot from which she could get a view of the sea with Enoshima within vision, and on the other hand the stately form of great Fujisan.

The excursion to Lake HakonÉ did not take place at once on account of morning showers, but a day later it was agreed upon and with Mr. Warner, an attachment which they would willingly have been rid of, they all set out through the green mountain-paths, where the high bamboo grass colored the landscape vividly, and where many wild flowers peeped from the thickets. It would have been a more successful expedition but for the persistence with which Mr. Warner joked about everything in the heavens above, the earth beneath and the waters under the earth, allowing no one to enjoy either beauty or solemnity without interpolating either a pun or a silly speech of some kind, so that at the last every one was in a bad humor and whisperingly arranged a secret session. Little slips of paper were tucked into the hand of first one and then another by Jack. Each read: "Meet us at the deserted tea-shed back of the Bachelor's quarters at eight this evening." So by ones and twos the conspirators crept forth, keeping out of sight as much as possible lest they be seen and overtaken by the marplot, as they had come to call Mr. Warner.

Promptly the small company gathered, Jack's three sisters and Mr. Harding. "We simply cannot have our expedition spoiled by that silly monkey-on-a-stick," announced Jack. "We must get away for our trip to O-Jigoku without his seeing us. He has no better sense than to butt in without being invited and we cannot have him. Has any one mentioned that we were going?"

No one had, and Jack proceeded to unfold her plan. "I propose that we get up very early and meet somewhere, get breakfast at some little out-of-the-way tea-house and then start. What do you say?"

All agreed. "It carries me back to our college days," said Nan, "when we used to scheme in order to outwit the sophs."

"Mother and Aunt Helen are not going, I suppose," remarked Jean.

"Oh, no, the climb after we leave our chairs will be too hard for them," returned Mary Lee. "Now we must settle just where we are going to meet. Of course, we girls will have no trouble, but Mr. Harding must be certain."

"Suppose we say that little place just beyond the last carving-shop; it is unpretentious and no one would think of it; the only trouble is that one can see right into those places as soon as the shoji are pushed aside."

"And what is more one can hear," put in Mary Lee. "I don't see how they can possibly keep secrets in Japan when the partitions between rooms are nothing but screens."

"Why not meet right here?" proposed Mr. Harding. "We can make a dÉtour and come out somewhere beyond where I will have the chairs meet us."

This was considered the best arrangement, and the party separated as they had come, Nan agreeing to tole Mr. Warner off in such direction as should prevent his seeing from whence the others came.

Early the next morning they crept forth, climbed the hill to the shed where they had met the evening before and, piloted by Mr. Harding, made their way to a spot further on where the chairs were waiting. The mists were rolling up from the mountains and Fujisan's crest was quite hidden. There was no sign of a living creature, but once or twice a blithe lark caroled forth his morning song. The waving green of the bamboo stretched on each side, making a perfect jungle, and trees of beech, oak or fir arched overhead. It was decided to stop at one of the tea-houses of the little village of Kiga where they could get breakfast and then continue their journey. A pretty place was chosen where there was a garden and a pond of goldfish, a spot not unlike many others near by, but it seemed the most attractive, and the smiling maids were perhaps more inviting than those they had passed by.

Exultant at having entirely outwitted the ubiquitous Mr. Warner, and refreshed by their breakfast of tea, eggs and rice cakes, they started on, stopping to feed the fishes first and to view the pretty little garden. Only the rush of mountain streams broke the silence as they went on to the pass of O Tomi Toge. Here they halted, for the rest of the journey must be made on foot and with a careful guide.

"Oh, look!" exclaimed Nan as she descended from her chair and cast her eyes in the direction of a great valley. "Such a view of Fujisan I never had."

"Glorious! Splendid!" came from one and another. The mists were still curling around the crown of the solitary peak, but this rendered it even more beautiful, with a foreground of pines and box-trees, and nearer still, growths of snowy flowers, as if reflected from the snowy peak of the mountain itself.

"It smells very queer," remarked Jean sniffing daintily, "but then Japan is so full of queer odors that I am not surprised."

"We must be near the 'Valley of the Greater Boiling,'" decided Nan.

"There is no doubt of that," remarked Mr. Harding; "look at those blighted trees, and see that stream dashing over those rocks of black and yellow. This must be the very entrance to the Stygian valley."

A precipitous and awe-inspiring climb they had now, following the guide with the utmost caution lest they slip through and become engulfed in the boiling mud. No vegetation was here, but the earth and the rocks bore evidences of a blasting, sulphurous heat. In some spots, smoke issued and there were ghastly sputterings and splittings of the earth's crust.

"Isn't it the very epitome of all that is horrible and frightful?" said Nan. "Jack, please be very careful. I heard of some one who lost his life by falling into that awful place, and more than one has been burned severely."

Jack promised and did intend to be very careful, but she was a venturesome young person and could not withstand the temptation to go a little nearer the edge of the dark stream. But fortunately Mr. Harding was watching and dragged her back in time to prevent a misstep into the seething sulphur. Jack herself turned pale as she realized the danger, for the guide, taking a pole, cautiously plunged it into the crust near which she had ventured and immediately it sank deep, deep down into depths of boiling mud.

Nan covered her eyes. "Oh, Jack," she quavered, "just suppose you had gone an inch nearer."

"But I didn't," returned Jack lightly.

"You would have but for Mr. Harding." Nan turned eyes still full of horror on Jack's preserver, while Jack herself held out her hand.

"Thank you," she said. "I came near getting into a bad scrape, didn't I?" She walked off in a direction which gave her safety, really more overcome than she was willing to admit.

"I want to thank you, too," said Nan in a low voice to the young man. "I cannot face the thought of what might have happened but for your quick eye and——" She paused and turned her head, unable to keep back the tears which nervousness brought to her eyes.

"Don't, please don't," said Mr. Harding coming to her side. "Let us leave this terrible place and go somewhere out of danger where you can sit down and get calm. You are trembling still."

He led her to a sheltered spot and presently she was herself again. Mary Lee and Jean had already returned, Jean being quite too timid to venture so far as the others. Jack meekly followed behind Nan and her companion, for once feeling too young to demand attention, and altogether ashamed of having given her dear Nan such cause for alarm. She sat apart quite in the manner of a younger Jack who so often felt herself a culprit. "We must not say anything to Aunt Helen and mother about this," charged Nan as she rose to her feet. "Remember, Jack, not a word to any one, not even to Mary Lee or Jean. There is no use in giving needless worry to them, for even now that it is all over and you are safe, it would distress mother and call up all sorts of visions."

"Dear me," returned Jack plaintively, "I am sure I shall only be too glad not to have it known that I was such a silly thing. The worst of it is," she added, "that I cannot feel that I am superior to Mr. Warner after this."

This brought a laugh and relieved the tension. Then after one more look at the curling white smoke, the bare, leafless valley, they left the place and took the narrow path which led them back to what seemed an upper world.

"I feel as if I had been to the mouth of the underworld," said Nan. "It is early yet; suppose we go around by Lake HakonÉ; it is so lovely a spot that perhaps it will drive away the horror of this. We shall enjoy it more to-day with no punster along, and moreover it is a much brighter day and we shall see the reflections more clearly."

This plan was unanimously approved and returning by another path, they came to the bottomless lake in whose perpetually cold waters Fujisan was reflected in all its beauty, for now the mists had rolled away and the Lady Mountain revealed herself without her veil.

A tea-house near at hand furnished them with lunch and after a rest and another stop to feed the fishes in Kiga's tea-house garden they went on their way, arriving at Myanoshita to find that Mr. Warner was off in search of them and could not imagine how they had escaped his watchful eye.

"We told him you started very early," Mrs. Corner said merrily, "and that neither your Aunt Helen nor I had seen you before you went."

Later on when the young man did appear he was charged with being a sleepy-head and so well were the tables turned that he believed himself alone to blame for being left out of the day's expedition.

[Pg 209]