shaggy horse a light tap with the rein and the odd outfit went rattling away.

“Peter Piper,” said the Indian girl, nodding after the man.

“You mean that’s his name?” Florence asked in surprise.

The girl nodded.

“Oh!” Mary exclaimed. “And did he pick a peck of prickly pears?”

The Indian girl stared at her until they all burst into fits of laughter.

For all that, it was a sober Florence who journeyed back to Palmer. Strange words were passing through her mind. “Maybe it’s haunted. Raise anything. Can’t sell anything. No market—you want things that don’t grow on the ground.” Her world seemed to have taken on a whirling motion that, like clouds blown by the wind, showed first a bright, then a darker side. What was to come of it all?

“A ticket to adventure,” she thought at last. “Perhaps that man was more right than he knew.”

CHAPTER III
SEVEN GOLDEN CANDLESTICKS

Three days later Florence found herself seated on the shore of the little lake that lay at the edge of their claim. She was alone. “How still it is,” she whispered. Not a leaf moved. The dark surface of the lake lay before her like black glass.

“The land of great silence,” she thought. She shuddered and knew not why.

This was to her a strange world. All her life she had known excitement. The rattle of elevated trains, the honk of auto horns, the drum of airplane motors, all these seemed still to sound in her ears.

“Rivers,” she whispered thoughtfully, “have eddies. There the water that has been rushing madly on comes to rest. Do lives have eddies? Has my life moved into an eddy?”

She did not enjoy the thought. Adventure, thrills, suspense, mystery, these were her favorite words. How could one find them here? And yet, there was the cabin that lay just up the rise. Their cabin now, it had belonged to others. Russians probably, spies perhaps.

“What if they come back?” Mary had whispered during their return journey from that first visit. “What if they demand the cabin?”

“We’ll throw them out,” Florence had said, making a savage gesture. “I wonder if we would?” had been Mary’s reply. Florence wondered about that now. She wondered about many things. Why had she come to this place at all? Because of her love for the little family, her relatives, Mary, Mark, and their mother. Could love make people do things? She wondered. Could it make them do slow, hard, drudging, everyday things? If it could, how long would that last?

The thoughts that came to her there were neither sad nor bitter. They were such dreamy thoughts as come after a long day of toil. They had worked, all of them; oh! how they had worked getting settled!

“I—I’d like to go back, back to the city to the wild romance of many people!” she cried to the empty air of night.

Then, of a sudden, she realized that she did not wish to go back, but rather to go on, on, on, on into the North. For, as she sat there she seemed to see again the little man, Mr. Il-ay-ok, and to hear him say, “Tom Kennedy, yes, I know him,” and Tom Kennedy was her long-lost grandfather.

“Yes,” she exclaimed, “and I shall go!” Springing to her feet, she spread her arms wide. Seeking out the north star, she faced the land over which it hung. “Yes, Tom Kennedy, my grandfather, I am coming.

“But not now—not now,” she murmured. “One thing at a time. I have given my word. I am to help these others win a home. Adventure, thrills, mystery, romance,” she repeated slowly, “can they be here?”

Then as if in answer to her query, there came a faint sound. It grew louder, came closer, the night call of wild geese.

“How—how perfect!” she breathed. “The lake, the damp night air, the silence, then a call from the sky.”

She waited. She listened. The speeding flock came closer. At last they were circling. They would land. She caught the rush of wings directly over her head, then heard the faintest of splashes.

“Happy landing!”

But not for long. She was creeping silently away. They were pioneers. Pioneers lived off the land. Here was promise of roast goose for tomorrow dinner. Too bad to spoil romance, but life must go on.

Slipping up to the cabin, she took Mark’s gun from its place beside the door. With her heart beating a tattoo against her ribs, she crept back.

Closer and closer she crept until at last she lay, quite still, among the tall grass that skirted the pond.

“Where are they?” she whispered to herself. No answer, save the distant flapping of wings. How was one to shoot a wild goose he could not see?

“Ah, well,” she thought. “I can wait. There will be a moon.”

Wait she did. Once again the strangely silent night, like some great, friendly ghost, seemed to enfold her in its arms. Far away loomed the mountains, close at hand spread the plains, and over all silence. Only now and again this silence was broken by the flapping of wings, a sudden challenging scream, the call that told her a rich dinner still awaited her.

At last the moon crept over the white crested mountains. It turned the lake into a sheet of silver. Dark spots moved across that sheet. They came closer and closer. Thirty yards they were from shore, now twenty yards, and now ten yards. The girl caught one long sighing breath. Then, bang! Bang! Both barrels spoke.

A moment later, waist deep, the girl waded for the shore. In each hand she carried a dead bird, two big, fat geese. Tomorrow there would be a feast. Romance? Adventure? Well, perhaps, a little. But much more was to come. She felt sure of that now. Her heart leaped as she hurried forward to meet Mark and Mary, who were racing toward her demanding what all the shooting was about.

“A feast!” Mary cried joyously. “A real pioneer feast. Thanksgiving in June! The Pilgrim Fathers have nothing on us.”

Such a feast as it was! Roast wild goose with dressing, great brown baked potatoes, slashed and filled with sweet home-made butter, all this topped with cottage pudding smothered in maple sauce.

“Who says pioneering is a hard life?” Mark drawled when the meal was over.

“It couldn’t be with such a glorious cook,” Florence smiled at her aunt.

When, at last, she crept up to her bed in the loft that night, she was conscious of an unusual stiffness in her joints. Little wonder this, for all day long she had wielded a grubbing hoe, tearing out the roots of stubborn young trees. They were preparing their land for the plow. They would raise a crop if no one else among the new settlers did. What crops? That had not been fully decided.

As Florence lay staring at the shadowy rafters she fell to musing about what life might be like if one remained in this valley year after year. “A farm of your own,” she thought, “cows, chickens, pigs, a husband, children.” Laughing softly, she turned on her side and fell asleep.

Five days later their first real visitor arrived. She was Mrs. Swenson, a short, plump farm mother and old-time settler of the valley. She had lived here for fifteen years.

Florence, who was churning while Mary and her mother were away in the town, gave her an enthusiastic welcome. The handle of the old-fashioned dasher churn went swish-swash.

“Just keep right on churnin’,” Mrs. Swenson insisted. “You don’t dare stop or the butter won’t come.

“It’s the strangest thing!” her eyes roved about the