“I am, Billy—­who wouldn’t be well and happy a morning like this?  And I’ve got a piece of news for you, too—­good news; Mrs. Thayor is coming along with us.  How will the new trail be—­a little rough for her, do you think?”

“Not a bit of it!  Clear going all the way—­besides it isn’t more than two miles there and back.  Freme has made a clean job of it.  There’s a short swamp just before we get to the pond, but I guess we can manage to get the ladies across without their getting wet.”

“Oh, that air—­just smell it, Billy!” reiterated the owner of Big Shanty enthusiastically.  Think of the poor people in the city who have none of it.  I must send for Randall as soon as we get settled, and some of those fellows we met at The Players that day, and let them have a whiff of it—­do them a lot of good.  Randall loves it.  Poor boy—­he needs a change now worse than I did.  And have you seen Mrs. Thayor this morning?”

“No.”

“Well—­you never saw her look better; she tells me she slept splendidly.  Why, think of it, my boy, she actually came down to breakfast—­a thing I have not known her to do in years.”

“I’m mighty glad to hear Mrs. Thayor is better,” returned Billy thoughtfully—­he wished it might include her manners.  “She did not seem well yesterday or the day before.”

“No—­one of her old headaches.  It must have been pretty hot, even in the ‘Wanderer.’  Here they are now!”

Alice and Margaret appeared on the veranda.

“Good morning, Mr. Holcomb,” said Alice, nodding pleasantly.  “You see,” she added with her most captivating smile, “you must show me this wonderful little pond my daughter has told me about, too.  May I come?”

Holcomb lifted his slouch hat from his head.

“Why, certainly, Mrs. Thayor.  We can make it there and back by noon,” and his eyes wandered over the trim and graceful figure accentuated so charmingly by her short skirt.

Margaret had also followed the lines of the costume.  “You must always wear a short skirt, mother—­it is most becoming.”

“And so comfortable, my dear,” added Alice nonchalantly as she placed both hands about her flexible waist and half turned.  It was her stronghold, this figure—­she would have been adorable in sackcloth and ashes, she knew, but she preferred a tailor-made.

Soon the little party, lead by Holcomb, were seen picking their way along the trail; Margaret keeping close to the young woodsman and plying him with innumerable questions.  She thought she had never seen him look so handsome, debonair and manly.  Then, too, his wide knowledge of the woods was a delight to her.  Little by little he explained, as he followed the trail, those secrets of woodcraft not found in books.

At length the trail ended in an opening at the edge of a small pond—­nameless, and round as a dollar, its circumference framed in an unbroken line of timber.  A few rods from this opening, where the little party was now seated, a big trout plunged half out of the water.