“I’m sure I don’t,” Aggie remarked.  It was growing dusk, and she peered out into the forest round us.  “There is something crackling out there now,” she said.

“Only a bear, likely,” Bill assured her.  “We have a sight of bears here.  No, ma’am, they want danger.  And every holdup’s an advertisement.  You see, the Government can’t advertise these here parks; not the way it should, anyhow.  But a holdup’s news, so the papers print it, and it sets people to thinking about the park.  Maybe they never thought of the place and are arranging to go elsewhere.  Then along comes a gang and raises h—­, raises trouble, and the park’s in every one’s mouth, so to speak.  We’d get considerable business if there was one this summer.”

At that moment the crackling outside increased, and a shadowy form emerged from the bushes.  Even Bill stood up, and Aggie screamed.

It was, however, only poor Mr. Bell.

“Mind if I borrow some matches?” he said gruffly.

“We can’t lend matches,” Tish replied.  “At least, I don’t see the use of sending them back after they’ve been lighted.  We can give you some.”

“My mistake,” he said.

That was all he said, except the word “Thanks” when I reached him a box.

“He’s a surly creature,” Tish observed as he crackled through the brush again.  “More than likely that girl’s better off without him.”

“He looks rather downhearted,” Aggie remarked.  “Much that we think is temper is due to unhappiness.”

“Much of your charitable view is due to a good dinner too,” Tish said.  “Here we are, in the center of the wilderness, with great peaks on every hand, and we meet a fellow creature who speaks nine words, and begrudges those.  If he’s as stingy with money as with language she’s hard a narrow escape.”

“He’s had kind of a raw deal,” Bill put in.  “The girl was stuck on him all right, until this moving-picture chap came along.  He offered to take some pictures with her in them, and it was all off.  They’re making up a play now, and she’s to be in it.”

“What sort of a play?” Tish demanded.

“Sorry not to oblige,” Bill replied.  “Can’t say the nature of it.”

But all of us felt that Bill knew and would not say.

Tish, to whom a mystery is a personal affront, determined to find out for herself; and when later in the evening we saw the light of Bell’s camp-fire, it was Tish herself who suggested that we go over and visit with him.

“We can converse about various things,” she said, “and take his mind from his troubles.  But it would be better not to mention affairs of the heart.  He’s probably sensitive.”

So we left Bill to look after things, and went to call on Mr. Bell.  It was farther to his camp than it had appeared, and Tish unfortunately ran into a tree and bruised her nose badly.  When it had stopped bleeding, however, we went on, and at last arrived.