“Five hundred dollars’ worth of digging holes in the ground!” Marion gasped, giggling a little.  “Good night!”

“Now please wait until you hear the rest of it!” Kate’s tone sharpened a little with impatience.  She moved a petulant elbow while a tired waitress placed two glasses of water and a tiny plate of white and brown bread upon the table.  The minute the girl’s back was turned upon them she cast a cautious eye around the clattering throng and leaned forward.

“Four men—­men with a little capital—­are going into it, and pay Fred and the professor for doing their assessment work.  Four five-hundreds will make two thousand dollars that we’ll get out of them, just for looking after their interests.  And we’ll have our twenty acres apiece of timber—­and you’ve no idea what a tremendous lot of money that will bring, considering the investment.  Fred’s worked so hard lately that he’s all run down and looks miserable.  The doctor told him the mountains would do him a world of good.  And the professor wants to do something definite and practical—­they are filling up the college with student-teachers, willing to teach some certain subject for the instruction they’ll get in some other—­and they’re talking about cutting the professor’s salary.  He says he will not endure another cut—­he simply cannot, and—­”

“And support an elocutionist?”

“Now, hush!  It isn’t—­”

“Do I draw any salary as chaperone, Kate?”

“Now, if you don’t stop, I’ll not tell you another thing!” Kate took a sip of water to help hide a little confusion, clutching mentally at the practical details of the scheme.  “Where was I?”

“Cutting Doug’s salary.  Is it up on a mountain, or up in the State, that you said the place was?  I’d like being on a mountain, I believe—­did you ever see such hot nights as we’re having?”

“It’s up both,” Kate stated briefly.  “You’d love it, Marion.  There’s a log house, and right beside it is a trout stream.  And it’s only six miles from the railroad, and good road up past the place.  A man who has been up there told Doug—­the professor.  Tourists just flock in there.  And right up on top of the mountain, within walking distance of our claims, is a lake, Marion!  And great trout in it, that long!—­you can see them swimming all around in schools, the water is so clear.  And there is no inlet or outlet, and no bottom.  The water is just as clear and as blue as the sky, the man told the professor.  It’s so clear that they actually call it Crystal Lake!”

“Well, what do you know about that!” breathlessly murmured Marion in her crooning voice.  “A lake like that on top of a mountain—­in weather like this, doesn’t it sound like heaven?” She began to pick the pineapple out of her fruit salad, dabbing each morsel in the tiny mound of whipped cream.