“You struck the nail on the head that time, Miss Price,” said Nicholas.  “There is an extinct volcano over here in the northeast and in its side is a huge cavern.  People around here used to believe that all these frightful storms issued from the cavern.  Every spring and every fall there was a perfectly corking one that tore up the whole place, and they called the mountain ‘Ni-Ko San,’ or Two-Storm Mountain.  Then an old party who was a saint, I believe, and very wise, placed a curse on the storm demon and named the place ‘Nikko San,’ Mountain of the Sun’s Brightness.”

“The demon seems to have returned,” remarked Billie.

“Oh, he did.  That was the point.  The magic curse had to be repeated every year, and the saint gave the receipt to a priest and it was handed down from one generation to another in the priest’s family for nearly nine hundred years, but the demon still pursued, as you have probably observed.”

They were all silent for a while.  Mary was making a picture in her mind of the aged priest in his white robes standing like a midget on the side of the vast mountain exorcising the storm king.  That personage, she imagined, was a gigantic figure formed principally of black clouds with a terrifying human countenance.  Every breath was a whirlwind or a hailstorm and when he struck the side of the mountain with his staff the lightning flashed—­

Here Mary’s thoughts were interrupted by just such a flash uncomfortably near.

Billie leaped to her feet.

“Oh, Nicholas,” she cried, “do you think Papa could still be looking for me?  Suppose he should be out now in all this frightful wind!  I hadn’t thought of it until this moment.”

“He’ll be all right, Miss Billie,” answered Nicholas soothingly.  “Don’t you worry.”

“Don’t you tell me not to worry,” cried Billie, almost angrily.  “Do you think Papa would look after himself if he thought I was lost on the mountain?  Oh, heavens, why did we count those old broken statues?”

Nicholas laughed.

“Excuse me,” he said, choking back his amusement at sight of Billie’s reproachful eyes which even the dim lantern light could not hide.  “What are you going to do?” he added, as Billie seized the lantern from his hand.

“I’m going to wave this at the door and yell with all my strength until I haven’t any voice left.  If Papa is anywhere near he may see it and come straight here.”

Nicholas, who, having also had much training in camps and outdoor life, had not felt the least uneasiness about Mr. Campbell’s safety, now quietly took the lantern from Billie and began waving it to and fro at the door, while they both shouted again and again.  But their voices were lost in the roar of the tempest.  Billie stifled a sob.

“Papa!” she whispered to herself.  “Dearest, dearest Papa!”

While she spoke a flash of lightning lit up the side of the mountain, and in that momentary illumination Billie saw her father toiling up the path against the wind and rain.