In half an hour the sensational news was all over the little community on the mountain. Ferris was astonished, but he had always been too discreet to inquire too closely into the antecedents of his crew and was not likely to be shocked by dramatic revelations.

Billy the sailor seemed so unperturbed that Tom thought he must have known something all along; but that was unlikely. Probably his own sprightly career had fortified him to bear up under startling disclosures of a dubious character. Mr. Fairgreaves said he had known that “our silent comrade was carrying a burden.” Meanwhile the taciturn man who was the subject of all this excitement went to work as usual.

And Tom sought out Audry Ferris. She was sitting on the lowest step leading to the vast, bleak veranda of the hotel; she was reading a book and had an air of advertising her loneliness and exclusion from the general stir. Perhaps it was only the vastness of the unfrequented veranda which gave this appearance of conspicuous isolation.

“Audry,” said Tom, “I guess you’ve heard the big news.”

“I’m sure I’m very glad,” she said; “my brother told me.”

“I meant to tell you but I hardly know what I’ve been saying and doing this morning. Sounds like a movie play, doesn’t it? Anyway, I’d rather speak to you the last thing—”

“Are you going away?”

“Just for a day or so again, down to camp. The old man, old Caleb, is there, you know. Audry,” he added after a pause, “there’s something I want to say to you. Because I know you’d rather have me be honest with myself than be anything else. Before I discovered that dead man, I had already made up my mind that I wasn’t going to give—Whalen—Dyker—away. I thought it all out and I decided not to. I guess you were right—I’m not saying you weren’t. Only I found out I couldn’t do it. Maybe it wasn’t only because he saved my life. I guess all the time I kinder thought he couldn’t be guilty; just sort of instinct as you might say. So you see you mustn’t give me credit.”

“I’m glad, Tom; I’m glad everything came out as it did. All’s well that ends well.”

“Only I don’t want the credit,” said Tom.

“I wonder why he ran away if he was innocent,” she said.

“I don’t know,” said Tom, “I didn’t ask him. Maybe he lost his nerve; just the same as you lost your nerve when you thought about stepping over the crevices along the trail. He wasn’t any older than you are now.”

“Oh, I suppose you regard me as a perfect kid. And I know you think I’m a coward. Do you think I’m a coward?”

“No,” said Tom hesitatingly, “but I think maybe it would be good if you—sort of—went—were—you know—more adventurous. I learned a lot in the trip I just took. Maybe you won’t know just exactly what I mean, but you can get your ideas of what you ought to do from being out in the woods and away on the water and all that. Maybe those things are just as good as books.”

Again she looked straight at him with her big, sober, listening eyes.

“This is what I mean,” Tom said. “You see, I got to know Ned Whalen and you didn’t. I got to know him by being off in the woods with him and seeing all what he could do, and what kind of a man he is. And I kinder felt it was right to be loyal to him. And you see I was right. So maybe reading and kind of deciding things that way isn’t best. You can’t say there are two sides to scouting, studying and thinking—and then having adventures. It’s having the adventures that help you. Maybe I’m all wrong but if you’re not brave in one way you won’t be brave in another. Anyway, just like you say, everything’s all right that ends well.”

“It’s a quotation, Tom, ‘All’s well that ends, well.’”

“I don’t know much about quotations,” he said.

“Are you sure you’re coming back? You didn’t do one thing as you promised to do.”

“I’m sure I’m coming back—to-morrow.”

“I do think maybe you’re right, Tom.”

“You think all those people down in Woodstock are wonderful people, because they write and paint and carve things, and all that. But they’re not as much as Whalen. He’s big in every way. When you’re just near him you feel it even though he doesn’t say much. Maybe you don’t know what I mean.”

“I think I do know. Are you surely coming back to-morrow night? You know you said you were going to do one thing and then you didn’t do it. So how can I know what to think?”

“I did just what I wanted to do, didn’t I? Nobody can tell me what I ought to do. And I’m coming back to-morrow night—because I want to.”

“Would you like me to hike out to the ledge with you; all the way?”

“Sure, and I’ll show you all the initials.”

“Esther B’s?”

“If I can find it.”

“I don’t believe there’s any such one there. That’s why you’re afraid you can’t find it. I bet you know a real girl by that name.” A pause. “Don’t you?”

“No, I don’t. We’ll carve our own initials away out on the ledge, hey?” Tom said. “Farther than any of the others—away, way out at the end of the trail. Hey?”

“Oh let’s,” said Audry....