their individual tastes. The beds were made by first clearing away the ground, then piling in hemlock boughs fully three feet deep. Over this was placed the sleeping bag, and no softer bed ever held a tired camper. The bed had also the merit of raising one from the ground, out of the water, provided there should be rain in the night.

The others of this party of young explorers were satisfied to dump their sleeping bags on the ground, though the Professor did make a bed for himself, which, while not so practical as Tad's, served his purpose almost equally well.

"You fellows had better get yourselves off the ground, for we are going to have a storm tonight," advised Butler. "Walter is sleeping in my tent, but the rest of you look out. Don't you think it's going to storm, Chops?"

"Yassir."

"I don't think it's going to storm, do you, Chops?" asked Stacy.

"Nassir."

"There you are," declared the fat boy. "You pay your money and you take your choice. It is going to storm, and it isn't going to storm. You'd make a fine thermometer, Chops. Why, you'd have everybody crazy with the heat and the cold all at the same time."

The camp had been pitched in the narrow Smoky Pass of the Blue Ridge through which flowed a tributary of the French Broad River. The stream was very shallow at this time of the year, there having been but few rains, and its course was marked mostly by white sand and smoothly worn rocks, with here and there along the borders of the water course little colonies of the white, pink-petaled trillium gently nodding their heads at the ends of their long, slender stems.

The pass was silent save for the soft murmur of the stream and the songs of birds farther up the rocky sides in the dense foliage. It was an ideal camping place in a dry spell, but not any too desirable in times of high water.

Billy Veal had declared that it offered a perfectly easy route through to the Black Mountain spur for which the party was heading. Billy knew the mountains very well. The boys were obliged to admit that, but the difficulty was to find out what he did know, for he was as likely to say one thing as another. They had decided that the best plan would be to tell him where they wanted to go, leaving him to do the rest. The more questions they asked the less they knew.

"Did you ever see a ghost, Chops?" asked Stacy after they had settled down for an evening's enjoyment.

"Nassir. Yassir," answered the colored man, his eyes growing large.

"I'll show you a ghost some time. Would you like to be introduced to a ghost?" persisted Stacy.

"Yassir. Nassir. Doan' want see no ghosts."

"Then why don't you say so?"

"Yassir."

"Say what you mean," ordered the fat boy sternly. "Don't beat around the bush. You'll be getting yourself into a pickle first thing you know, for—"

"Billy! We are waiting for you to get the supper," warned the Professor severely. "You should have had it well started before this."

"Yassir," answered Chops, grinning broadly.

"You forgot something, Chops," reminded Stacy.

"Yassir?"

"No, nassir," jeered the fat boy.

"Stacy, be good enough to go away from the guide. You are interfering with his duties," rebuked the Professor.

"Nassir. Yassir," mocked the fat boy with a grin almost as broad as Billy Veal's.

They sat down to supper soon after that and all hands agreed that it was an excellent meal. What appealed to their appetites most were the waffles, real old southern waffles, the kind that mother didn't make. A jug of molasses was produced as a surprise. Such a feast the boys had not had within memory. Cool, sparkling water was at hand. One had but to step to the stream and dip it up, but it was the waffles that put pretty much everything else out of mind.

"Why, Billy, I didn't know that you brought syrup," glowed the Professor, now in high good humor.

"Yassir."

"Well, well! This is indeed a surprise, my man."

"I am thankful that he is at last making an effort to earn his wages," muttered Tad Butler. "Thus far he hasn't done much in that direction."

"You must admit that he has guided us pretty well," defended Walter Perkins.

"You mean we have guided ourselves," differed Ned Rector. "Anybody could follow this hollow; in fact, one couldn't get out of it until he got to the end—that is, unless he had wings—unless he was a bird."

"That's Chops," declared Stacy.

"What do you mean?" demanded Ned, turning to the fat boy.

"I mean he is a bird. Must I explain everything to you? If you insist I will draw a picture of a bird and—"

"That will do, Stacy," rebuked Ned.

"Yassir," mimicked Stacy, whereat the boys burst out laughing. There was no resisting Stacy Brown's droll way of saying things. Stacy was a natural comedian, but whether or not he was aware of this, none but himself knew.

There were no waffles left when the boys finished their supper. The clouds had been gathering all the afternoon, and just as they sat back for a comfortable chat on full stomachs, little spatters of rain gave promise of a wet night.

"You see," reminded Tad, nodding to his companions and glancing up to the sky.

"We don't see much, but we feel. I guess you were right at that, Tad," agreed Ned Rector.

"Tad's always right when he isn't wrong," observed Stacy solemnly.

"And you are usually wrong when you are not right," retorted Butler quickly.

"Laying all levity aside, I wish to ask if you young men know where you are," interrupted the Professor.

"Yassir," answered Stacy promptly.

"I suppose we are in the Smoky Pass of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, sir," replied Tad.

"Exactly. But there are some features about the Blue Ridge which you young gentlemen possibly are not familiar with. For your benefit I will give you a brief talk on this somewhat unfamiliar range of mountains. Ahem! The Blue Ridge is the most easterly range of the Appalachian mountain system. I presume you are unaware that it actually has its beginning at West Point on the Hudson River, whence so many fine young officers went out to fight for their country in the great World War. Am I right in thus supposing?" The Professor glared about him fiercely.

"You win," muttered Stacy.

"It is the fact. The Blue Ridge forms an almost continuous chain from that point down to the north of Alabama. The range makes its way through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas. The Blue Ridge proper is that part of the range below Pennsylvania which separates the Great Valley from the Piedmont region. In south Virginia the range widens into a broad plateau which reaches its widest extent in the state where we now are."

"Yassir," murmured Stacy Brown.

The boys pretended not to have heard the interruption, but the Professor fixed a stern eye on Stacy, and then resumed his lecture.

"In this state, North Carolina," he said, "the range is intersected by numerous groups, such as the Black, the South and the like, some reaching several thousand feet in height. We shall soon be in a spur of the Black Mountains."

"I fear we shall have to find a new guide if we ever get anywhere, Professor," spoke up Tad.

"I am of the opinion that he has done very well. Did he not surprise us with waffles and syrup?" demanded Professor Zepplin.

"He did," agreed the boys.

"On the other hand," added Tad, "our grub is disappearing most mysteriously. I am sure Chunky couldn't eat so much more than the rest of us. Our flour is nearly all gone, though we haven't been out a week. It is almost unbelievable. All the biscuit we brought along have disappeared."

"And those cookies we got in Asheville," mourned Stacy. "I was figuring on having cookies all the way across the mountains. Now I'll have to eat hard-tack and biscuit."

"So long as you don't have to eat salt horse, you ought to consider yourself lucky," retorted Rector.

"As I was about to say when