One day Nathalie led the boys to a terrace, a few feet back of a brown-shingled cottage across the road from Peckett’s, and which stood on a lower spur of Garnet Mountain, facing the Franconia Range. Here, on this grassy ridge, gently sloping down to a green meadow below, skirted by a tree-fringed road edging the rocky pasture-land which gradually merged into the lower slopes of the range, she pointed out King Lafayette, and his lower mate, Lincoln, with his two slides. The Sleeping Infant, lying between the latter and Garfield’s sharply defined peak, was immediately heralded by the little maid, Sheila, as the long-lost infant, which some kind-hearted fairy some day, with her magic wand, would awaken. The Twins, and the huge Sleeping Giant, and some of the lower peaks, all came in for a share in the mystic doings of the little girl’s fanciful imagination.

The atmosphere was so translucent that each shaggy crest, pointed dome, and spire of the range, sharply defined against the sapphire-blue of the sky, stood forth with a strange lucidity, seemingly so near that one had the inclination to put forth a hand to touch them.

Lafayette’s craggy foretop, standing up from the deep green-verdured gorge that cleft one side of it, was startlingly like some huge elephant’s head, with a mouse-colored, wrinkly and baggy-skinned trunk. The boys accentuated the resemblance by locating two big rocks, which, they declared, were the beady eyes of the animal, while Sheila insisted she could see the eyes move.

As they rested on the ledge of a little circling wall of cobble-stones, evidently the unfinished foundation of a stone tower, Nathalie told how Lincoln’s rounded dome had been named in honor of a great American named Abraham Lincoln. “Some people used to call him ‘Old Abe,’ or ‘Father Abraham,’ not from any disrespect,” continued the girl, “but because he was so kindly in his nature, his heart so filled with love for mankind, that it was a title of honor, and showed the love of the people for him.”

“Ain’t he the gink that got to be President of the United States, and made the darkies free?” inquired Danny eagerly.

Nathalie nodded, and then led the boy on to tell how Lincoln, from a long-legged, ungainly pioneer youth, brought up in a log cabin in the wilds of Indiana, ended his career as the hero of the greatest republic in the world.

The little newsie told his story importantly, proud to think that he had remembered these odd bits of knowledge from the little schooling he had received. And what he didn’t remember Nathalie did, dwelling at length on the part this leader of men took in freeing the slaves, and what slavery meant to the negroes of the South.

As the little group listened with wide-eyed interest, the girl suddenly cried, “Oh, children! think what it would mean to you if you were not allowed to move about as you pleased, but were forced to do what you did not want to do, although you might be tired and hungry, and were driven about like cattle, and lashed if you disobeyed your master!”

She then explained that all men were born free and equal, and that God never intended that any man should be a bond-servant to his fellow-men. “Every one,” she emphasized, “has the right to enjoy the beautiful things of life without being subjected to cruel treatment, and forced to hard labor, as the slaves had been, just because their skin was black instead of white.

“But there is another kind of slavery.” said Nathalie earnestly, “which, although it may not mean the slavery of the body, like that of the negroes on a plantation, is the slavery of the will. That is, a man may not be lashed on his back, but his will is made subject to another man’s will, and he has to obey and direct his life the way this man says, whether he wants to or not. All over the world, for centuries, the people of different nations have been forced to obey the will of one man, that is, the ruler, or the king, of the nation to which they belonged. The peoples of the world have not been free; they have not had the right, or the liberty, to do as they thought or felt.”

She then tried to make the children understand that liberty was something as high and wide, and as vast, as the beautiful mountains which rose before them. “It is like the air,” she said, “or the atmosphere, which stretches about you on every side, and around the great earth like a gray blanket. It is so big it can’t be seen, like the mountains, or measured, and yet it can be felt. For if you were shut up in a box without any air, or atmosphere to breathe into your lungs, you would die. So liberty, God’s special gift, is so dear and sweet to man, that without it he can’t grow or expand, for he is like a man shut up in a box without air. He is like a little Tom Thumb, for he can only grow just so high.”

Nathalie now interested the children in the story of the Pilgrims, the pioneers of liberty in America, telling how, because they were not allowed to have liberty under the rule of the English king, they came to this new world and sought to worship God as they deemed right. In doing this, she explained, they not only founded a colony where they had the right to worship God as their conscience dictated, but they made religious freedom possible for the people who came after them. By the signing of the Compact in the cabin of the Mayflower, they gave this nation democratic liberty, by giving every man the right to express his thoughts and feelings, thus giving him a say as to how the people should be ruled, which meant a government for and by the people.

Nathalie now told of the patriots, and how, in the War of the Revolution, they fought the mother-country, England, in order to maintain the liberty given them by the founders of the nation. “By uniting the thirteen colonies into one, they not only added unity to justice and liberty, but gave us the United States of America.

“These lovers of liberty also organized a society, in New York, which became known as the Sons of Liberty, all the members determined to defend with their lives the liberty and principles given them by their forefathers. As liberty means the right to express our thoughts and feelings, it also means that these thoughts and feelings must be good and pure, the best within us,” added the girl with sudden gravity. “And these Sons of Liberty were so called not only because they fought for liberty, but because they gave of their best to mankind.”

Danny added another link to this story of liberty by telling about the Declaration of Independence, and how the Liberty Bell was rung from the old State House in Philadelphia, so that every one should know that a new nation had been born. The ride of Paul Revere was described with spirited impressiveness by the boy, as well as what had occurred on Lexington common, and the famous battle by the old North Bridge at Concord.

Whereupon Nathalie pointed out Mount Washington’s cone-tipped crest, majestically rising above a wreath of silver-gray clouds, and explained that, although the Indians had named it Agiochook, in later years the white people had named it Mount Washington, in honor of the great man Danny had been telling about.

After dwelling upon Washington’s magnificent character, and recalling little incidents from his life, Nathalie said that, like the great mountain that towered so far above its fellows, so George Washington, the first President of this great nation, was known to civilization as one of the greatest men in the world, because he had given of his best to help his fellow-men, and proved that he was a true Son of Liberty.

Jefferson Mountain, its crest rising in low humility near Washington’s greater height; Adams, whose stony front stood forth in rugged grandeur on the left; and Madison, Monroe, Franklin, Clay, and Webster, as well as other peaks, were pointed out to the children, each one named for some great American, who had proved his right to be known as a Son of Liberty.

To be sure, some of the peaks were shrouded in a veil of mystical haze, while others were but dimly discerned, as they peeped between the gaps made by their nearer mates, but each and every one served to illustrate in whose honor it had been named, and why he was a lover of what every one loved—liberty.

Nathalie now drew the children’s attention to Mount Lafayette, and said that this peak had also been named in honor of a great man, also a Son of Liberty, although he was not an American. The children had heard the name of Lafayette mentioned so often in connection with the present war, that they listened with greedy avidity as the girl told about this “Boy of Versailles,” as some one had called him, when, as the young Marquis de Lafayette,—a mere boy,—he used to lead the revels at that famous French palace in helping the girl queen, Marie Antoinette, make merry at her garden parties, when her boy husband was too busy in his workshop, taking some old clock apart, to entertain his guests at court.

She told how the little marquis loved to walk behind the brave soldiers of the day, the one ambition of his life being his longing to be a soldier. She told, too, of his life in the lonely castle among the southern mountains of France, where his only companions were governesses and masters, all intent upon drilling him to dance, to bow with courtly grace, to pick up a lady’s handkerchief, and other accomplishments of the court.

After leaving the College du Plessis, where his education as a courtier was completed, he returned to his estate, now the heir to great wealth, where he used to spend his time making friends with the peasants,—the people who lived on his lands,—thus becoming acquainted with their mode of life. In this way he learned the need of liberty, the liberty that gave people the right to think and feel, and to express their thoughts and feelings, and the great need that the people of the nations in the world should have a voice in their own government, and thus learn to govern themselves.

Nathalie then told how, when the patriots of America began to fight against King George in order to gain their rights, that the young nobleman, now tall and slender, with reddish hair and bright eyes, heard of it, and, although an officer in the French army, he determined to go to America and help these people of the colonies to win their liberty. He had a young and lovely wife,—they had been sweethearts when children,—and yet so inspired was he to help the Americans that he left her. With a friend, the Baron de Kalb, he eluded the spies and officers of his own country, and in various disguises finally reached Spain, whence he embarked for America, and gallantly fought with the American patriots during the War of the Revolution, winning fame not only for his bravery, but for his great friendship for Washington.

“Indeed,” said the girl, as she finished her recital, he was a real Son of Liberty, and it is a splendid thing to think that these two grand old mountains, facing each other in such magnificent grandeur, should now be the monuments to these two wonderful men, monuments, too, that can only perish when the mountains turn and flee away at the command of the Most High God.

“Lincoln, whose life-story you know,” Nathalie pointed to the green-wooded heights of Mount Lincoln, “also proved himself a Son of Liberty when he gave of the noblest and best that was in him to the people, in his great struggle to free the slaves. In fact,” the girl spoke a little sadly, “this great man was not only a Son of Liberty, but he was a martyr to Liberty.” And then she told how he had lost his life because of his heroic determination to do what he thought was right.

“Children,” cried the girl suddenly, facing the row of intent, eager faces regarding her, “can any of you tell me who to-day are proving themselves true Sons of Liberty?”

“The soldiers who are fighting in the trenches!” burst from Danny quickly.

Before Nathalie could assent, a thin, quavering voice burst out with the ringing cry, “Vive la Belgique! Vive la Belgique!”

“Good for you, Jean,” cried the girl, as she enthusiastically clapped her hands in approval. “It is long live Belgium. Yes, Jean, the soldiers of Belgium, of France, England, and America, too, now, are proving themselves Sons of Liberty, because they are all fighting to give liberty to the world. And brave Belgium,” patting the shoulder of the refugee, whose pale face was strangely illumined, “every man in that little country has proved that he is a Son of Liberty, when, rather than dishonor the great principles of liberty and justice, he took up arms and defended it against the Germans when they made their mad rush to Paris. They not only saved France, but every nation as well, saved it so that each man in it could fight and thus give liberty to the world. Now, children, let us cry with Jean, ‘Vive la Belgique.’”

When this cry ceased, Tony’s velvety black eyes, with a sly gleam of humor lurking in their shadows, became scarlet flames, suddenly remembering that his native land was also in the war, and, with dramatic fervor, he yelled, “Viva l’Italia!”

Danny, not to be outdone in this burst of patriotism, immediately started in with the lusty shout of, “Hurrah for the United States! Hurrah for the United States!”

Altogether it was a very patriotic little company that stood by the old stone ledge facing those blue-hazed mountains on that sunny afternoon and “yelled their heads off,” as Danny said, in honor of the Sons of Liberty, who were fighting in the trenches across the sea to give liberty to the world.

After the shouting and demonstration of the patriots had begun to wane, Nathalie put up her hand for silence, and then, in her simple way, the way that somehow always seemed to go right to the heart of every child, said very softly, “And now, children, let us show that we, too, each one of us, want to do what is right, to give of our best to make others happy. Let us show that, although we cannot go and fight in the trenches, we are still Sons of Liberty, by keeping a big, deep place in our hearts for the boys in the trenches, not only our American boys, but the boys of the Allies, every soldier of every nation who is fighting for the victory of peace and right.

“I know you all want to belong to the Sons of Liberty, that you would like to show that you are real soldiers, fighting for the right; and so, will you not bow your heads for a moment, and down in the big, deep place in your hearts, silently say a little prayer? Just ask God that He will bless the soldiers, these Sons of Liberty across the sea, who are fighting for you and me, and give them a great victory in this world’s battle for the rights of men, a victory that means happiness, love, and peace for every one in the world.”

There was a frightened look on the faces of the children for a moment or so, and then Sheila cried in a distressed tone, “But, Miss Natty, I don’t know how to pray that way.”

Danny immediately flung about and flashed an annihilating look upon the little girl, but Nathalie, drawing the child close, explained what a silent prayer meant. Then, as she solemnly bowed her head, every little head went down, and for the space of a moment or so, up there on that high mountain,—that Nathalie always felt must be very close to God,—there was a reverent silence, a sacred moment, as from each child-heart went up a prayer. Perhaps it was only a dumbly spoken word, or a reverent desire, but surely God heard.

As Nathalie raised her head, and the children followed her example,—evidently there had been some peeping eyes,—all but Jean, who still kept his head down, his pale lips slowly moving, there was a moment’s quiet, and then Nathalie exclaimed, “Oh, boys, what do you say to calling these rocks a fort?”

“Crackie! that will be dandy!” responded Danny quickly. “And, Miss Nathalie,” he added, his face lighting with sudden thought, “why can’t we call it Liberty Fort?”

And so the round ledge of cobble-stones was named Liberty Fort, and then, before Nathalie realized what the suggestion carried, Tony proposed that the path at the foot of the terrace on which the fort stood, on the summit of the lower slope leading down to the meadow, be a trench.

Other suggestions followed, which culminated in a lengthy discussion, leading the children the following afternoon to the woods, where they gathered dried leaves, and little pebbles and twigs, to fill some bags, which Janet and Nathalie had made out of some old potato-sacks, to represent sand-bags to pile on top of the trench. The two girls meanwhile sat in the fort and not only made epaulettes for the young soldiers’ shoulders, but also gas-masks, which these Sons of Liberty vociferously declared that they must have, or they would be gassed.

After the Stars and Stripes, with the various flags of the Allies, had been fastened to a pole and mounted on the fort, the battle of the Marne took place, represented by these small soldiers, with guns held high, leaping over the sand-bags and rushing madly down the slope to the meadow below, which had been named “No Man’s Land.” Here, with eyes aflame and hair all tousled, they fought frenziedly with the imaginary gray uniforms of the German soldiery, who were supposed to have rushed towards them from their entrenchments, the stone wall by the road just beyond the meadow.

It was great sport, notwithstanding that their helmets—old tin pails—would insist upon falling over their faces just when some very wonderful capture was about to be made. But they soon learned not to mind a little thing like that, as Danny observed with officer-like brusqueness—he was the general-in-chief of these liberty forces—that only slackers or mollycoddles would stop fighting for a hat. So they fought most furiously, imitating in every way possible the maneuvers and tactics of the soldiers in France.

They took possession of a rustic seat on the ridge near the woods for an outpost, and here Sheila, with a big paper soldier’s cap on her head, was posted to parade with military precision before it as a sentry. Danny, meanwhile would climb a tree, to watch a make-believe enemy’s aëroplane, or to play the rôle of a bird-man, getting ready to fly in a patrol over the enemy’s entrenchments.

The parts the little girl played were numerous, sometimes acting as a canteen girl, selling lemonade and make-believe “smokes,”—twigs trimmed to represent cigarettes,—or again, playing the part of a captured Boche, always insisting that she was a prince, or some high German official. She entered into the playing of holding up her hands in token of surrender, while calling “Kamerad” with dramatic fervor. Then, as if suddenly reminded that she was a scion of royalty, she would take to fighting and kicking furiously to be released, bringing her teeth into action, and inflicting sundry bites on her captor with such energy that Nathalie, or Janet, tricked out with a white head-gear, starred with a red cross, would hurry to the scene, and bind up with soft rags the wounds of the afflicted one.

Jean, who had begun to prove that his real self was only lying dormant beneath a shroud of sorrow, was triumphantly happy as the bugler, and one day suggested that they have a tank,—he had seen one on a battle-field. An old tin can was then procured from Sam, which had done duty in holding chicken-feed. It was now made to roll, in a horribly queer way, down the slope and over No Man’s Land, maneuvered by Jean, who was inside of it, and who proved that he was a keen trailer of the Boches, as the lad always called the Germans.

The boy frightened Nathalie, sometimes, by the intense hatred he displayed whenever the Germans were mentioned, as his face would grow tense and a sudden fire would flame up in his eyes, while his one hand would clench rigidly and his little form trembled with the force of the passion within his breast.

But the children did not always play at war in France, for sometimes they were Indians, and would wriggle over the grass snake-fashion. They were all sachems, or big chiefs, named after some red-skinned hero of some Indian tale Nathalie had told them, each one intent on scalping some white man. Sometimes Jean would teach the boys how to play some of the games played in Belgium, as jet, a game which seemed to be played with a stick on a stone, and which they all seemed to enjoy. Then again they would play hopscotch in Jean’s way, and which he called “Kalinker.” But always at the end of their play they would line up in the circling ledge of stones, and, as if inspired by Nathalie’s suggestion on the day of their first visit to the fort, stand very still as they again bowed their heads in a silent prayer for the boys who were fighting “over there.”

Then, one morning, a telephone message came from Mr. Banker that he would be up that afternoon and take the children to the Flume. Whereupon they all became so exuberantly happy that Nathalie had rather a hard time pinning them down to their usual duties.

After a delightful drive, in which Nathalie and Mr. Banker were kept busy answering the many queries propounded by the sightseers, as they gazed in awed wonder at the strange rock formations with their purple and green tints, the silvery waterfalls, and the many natural beauties of the Notch, they arrived at the Flume.

Here, opposite the Flume House, they climbed a zigzagging path up a hill backed by two massive mountains, and then went through a belt of woodland to inspect the Pool. This was a mountain freak, a great basin over a hundred feet wide and forty deep, hollowed out by the Pemigewasset River’s age-old tools, sand and water, as they flowed over its rocky bed.

The lustrous green of its waters rippling between lichen-covered cliffs, and canopied by overhanging trees—that looked as if they would fall from age—was so transparent that the children could see the shiny pebbles at the bottom of the Pool.

On returning to the road they started for the Flume, passing over a wooden bridge, and then up an incline, a sort of up-hill-and-down-dale road, as it followed the mountain brook flowing from the cascade that dashed over the rocks at the head of the gorge. The wild picturesque beauty of this “Gallery of the Gods,” as Mr. Banker called it, not only elicited many exclamations from the children, but brought forth more weird fancies from Sheila, which challenged the humorous gleam in that gentleman’s eyes many times.

The child’s mind was so rich in imagery, that every hooded mountain or queer-shaped cliff, every passing cloud or glint of sunlight as it filtered down through the leaves in the forest, and the soft patter of the raindrops as they danced on the window-pane in a storm, were sources of constant delight. In childish prattle she would tell Nathalie what the wind said as it swept through the trees, or came with a soft rustle around the corner of the veranda on a breezy day. The soft twirl of a leaf, the trill of a bird in the silent forest, were all pixie-whispers.

She would pick up a leaf from the road, beautiful to her in its satiny greenness, or some gay-petaled flower, and talk to it as if it were her dolly, or some tricksy creature from fairy-land, always giving it some fanciful name that was keenly suggestive of its nature. Animals she caressed and fondled with the fearless confidence and love of trusting childhood.

They finally reached the remarkable rock gallery in the very heart of the mountain, which Nathalie now introduced to them as Liberty Mountain. She explained that it was cut in two by the deep gorge, or fissure, known as The Flume, whose walls reached to a perpendicular height of fifty or seventy feet, while at its farther end a mountain-brook came dashing down with great splashes of white foam.

The children were hushed to profound wonder at the frowning gloom of the great wall that reached so high and dark above their heads, with its patches of green moss, and where, from its many crevices, young birches had fastened their roots, and ferns and vines clung to soften its harsh gray. Every now and then a tiny white mountain-flower could be seen peeping down at them, like a fairy, Sheila declared, from a mossy bed of green.

They climbed up and up, stepping from rock to rock, to clamber at last over the slippery smoothness of the granite ledges. Here the cascade had simmered to a lazy flow, to eddy with a silver tinkling into the many hollows that perforated the rocks, making tiny glistening pools, which gave the children unfeigned delight as they dipped their hands in its soft trickle.

But when they reached the narrow foot-bridge, sometimes only railed by a single birch pole, or a rope that clung tremblingly to one side of the steep wall, and looked down into the gorge below, they came to a sudden halt. With a haunting fascination they watched the brook as it now dashed with a mad plunge, splashed with patches of snowy foam, over the masses of green-embossed boulders, that looked as if they had been tossed, helter-skelter fashion, into the narrow slit of rock, in angry mood, by old Father Time.

With strange awe they glanced up the gorge, through the weird gloom of the scene, at the pearly glitter of the falling water, with its blur of green background, that appeared as if some miraculous hand had suddenly wrenched the earth apart to send forth its flashing spray. And then they grew curiously still as they spied the eerie shadows on the high black wall, where the sunlight, as it glinted down into the glen in wanton sport, played hide-and-seek with golden glimmer.

But the silence was broken as Mr. Banker pointed out a huge tree-trunk that had fallen across the stream, reaching from side to side of the gorge, making an aërial pathway high above their heads. When the gentleman said it was called “The Devil’s Bridge,” and that sometimes people had walked on it across the gorge, their tongues began to clatter.

Fired by curiosity, the boys regained their nerve and pushed manfully up the foot-bridge, barred with slats, like a horse’s plank, while Mr. Banker, holding little Sheila by the hand, followed close behind. Nathalie, with a strange timidity, hesitatingly followed, always being oppressed by an odd, queer feeling when ascending any great height, a feeling that she wanted to cling to something more tangible than space. But there was nothing to cling to but that shaky old railing, and little Jean was hanging to it fearsomely with his one hand, his little form shaking tremulously, and his eyes black with an odd fear.

Stirred to pity, Nathalie drew the child to the other side of her, near the high wall, away from that gaping rut in the earth beneath, and then caught him firmly by the shoulder. Then suddenly, perhaps it was a quick glance down into the depths below, she felt a strange, indefinable sensation pass through her. A deathly faintness seized her; she closed her eyes, and then she felt herself falling, falling——

But a pitiful cry from the boy, “Oh, Mademoiselle Natty! No, you not fall! Jean will hold you,” aroused her, and she opened her eyes to see the white face of the boy, as he stared up at her while clutching her frantically with his one hand.

“Oh, no, Jean; I’m all right now,” but even as she spoke that same old sensation again thrilled her. She felt sick and faint again, and then——

“Rather steep just here, isn’t it? But cling to that rail, and you’ll be all right; you can’t fall.”

The girl turned quickly, once more roused from the sudden fear that had assailed her, and found herself gazing into the sun-tanned face of a young man in khaki. He had slipped his arm back of her, against the railing, as if to prevent her from falling, while from under the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat two dark-blue eyes, heavily lashed, smiled down at her reassuringly.

Nathalie heaved a deep sigh. Oh, it was such a relief to see that strong, brown hand grasping the rail. And then, with a quick little smile, in sudden realization of her foolish fancy that she was slipping down into the gorge below, she cried, “Oh, I don’t suppose I could fall, but something—— O dear! I know I am very foolish, but I always feel so queer when I stand on any great height, especially when I look down.”

“That is a sensation that is shared by many people when they get up in the air, I guess,” was the kindly response. And then, as if to give the girl time to regain her poise, he turned to Jean. “Do you see that place between the walls?” directing the child’s gaze to a place midway between the top of the gorge and the brook below. “Well, ever since the Flume has been known to white men,” he continued, “a great rock, or boulder, was wedged, or suspended, between the two walls. It was like a nut in a cracker, a most curious sight.

“I remember it as a child, when up in the mountains,” he related, “and always had a strange fear that it would tumble down. But every one asserted that it was an impossibility, for it would take an earthquake, or some great convulsion of nature, to dislodge it. Nevertheless I always fought shy of it, and would scurry by as if a witch was after me. But, strange to say,” continued the young man, smiling, and showing his even white teeth, “the prophets were away off, for it fell just a few years ago, and without the aid of an earthquake.”

“Oh, did it fall on any one?” gasped the girl quickly.

“No, luckily for the wise-alls; for it fell in the middle of the night, and no one was hurt.”

Nathalie drew a relieved sigh. “What an escape! Oh, suppose it had fallen when some one was passing beneath it!”

“Well, they would have been pulverized,” laughed the young man. “I beg your pardon, Miss, but would you not like to have me help you to the top? For I see you have the little boy with you, and, as you are timid, I do not think I would risk it alone.”

“Oh, thank you; you are very kind,” replied the girl hastily, her face dimpling, for she had begun to feel like her old self. “But no; I don’t think I will venture any farther. I guess I am too timid. I will go back.” She glanced down at Jean, who was gazing up at the young soldier with worshipful awe in his eyes.

“Let me assist you down, then, to where you will not be affected by the height.” And Nathalie, glad to think that she did not have to turn back and go down that plank alone, allowed the young man to pilot her down, firmly grasping her by the arm, until she stood where she asserted she felt no fear. She would wait there on the rocks, until the rest of her party came down, she said, after thanking her rescuer.

The young man bowed silently, lifted his hat, and turned to ascend the foot-bridge again, while Nathalie sought a rock where she and Jean could sit down. But in a moment he was back at her side, crying, “I beg your pardon,” Nathalie noticed that he had a pleasant voice that somehow had a familiar ring to it, “but perhaps the little boy would like to go up to the top, as every one likes to see the cascade as it plunges over the rocks. I will take good care of him if he would like to go,” glancing at the little empty sleeve with a compassionate expression in his eyes.

Nathalie was on the verge of saying, “Oh, no; I think Jean would rather stay with me,” when she caught a sudden expression in the boy’s eyes that caused her to say, “Jean, would you like to go to the top with this gentleman? Mr. Banker and the boys are up there, you know.”

There was no doubt as to the child wanting to see and to do as the other children, or his evident trust in the young soldier, and a minute later the young man, with Jean’s hand held firmly in his, was guiding the child’s steps up the foot-bridge.

Some time later, as the car glided along the road on its homeward journey, a short distance from the Flume House, Mr. Banker showed the party a singular rock-formation, caused by the undulations of the topmost ridge of Liberty Mountain. The outlines were those of a huge recumbent figure, wrapped in a cloak or shroud, and bore such a close resemblance, especially the contour of the forehead and nose, to those of General Washington, as after his death he lay in state, on view to the public, that it had been called “Washington in State.” Many people, he asserted, claimed that the great American’s body should lie at rest on this mountain ridge, named for what the great man had striven so hard to maintain, liberty, and thus be his everlasting mausoleum.

A six-mile ride and they descended from the car, to walk to the shores of Profile Lake, a few feet from the road. But it was not to look at the sunlit sheen of silver water, embedded like a gem in a green and purple forest setting, but to gaze with awesome wonder at a huge stone face. It was the Old Man of the Mountain that gazed forth with a stony stare from a steep and craggy setting, twelve hundred feet high above the lake, on the battlemented spires of Profile, or Cannon Mountain.

It was another weird formation created by Father Time, that Mr. Banker claimed looked as if it had been stuck on the huge mountain-cliff, like the head of some criminal of medieval days, when spiked on the stone gateway of some kingly stronghold for some dastardly deed.

“But this face is not that of a felon, for note the calm majesty, the beautiful benignity of its expression. To me,” commented the gentleman, “it is an unchangeable token and an everlasting confirmation that there is a Creator, and bears witness to the account in Genesis where it says that God created man in His own image, ‘in the image of God created he him.’”

Mr. Banker explained that the face was composed of three masses of rock, one forming the forehead and helmet, another the nose and upper lip, and the third the chin, and that the whole length of the rock-face was eighty feet from the top to the bottom. When viewed at a close range it lost its contour, and seemed but a few huge rocks tumbled one upon another, with no regularity of form or feature.

After the boys had studied the gigantic “face in air,” as Sheila called it, and deciphered many oddities upon it, evoked by her imagination, Nathalie told them the story of “The Great Stone Face.”

They were all greatly interested in Hawthorne’s tale, and readily grasped its meaning, that, after all, it was goodness and greatness gained by studying the great and good in others, the giving of our best to our fellows as Sons of Liberty, Nathalie tried to explain, that helped one to become godlike.

Mr. Banker then told the legend called Christus Judex, which told of an artist, who had resolved to paint a picture of Christ sitting in judgment, and how he wandered up and down the world from one place to another, seeking in art galleries, palaces, or churches, a face that would serve him as a model for his great masterpiece. But alas, it was not to be found, not even among the paintings of the old masters, and finally, lured by some wayfarer’s tale, he crossed the sea, and in this great stone face found the countenance that embodied the features and the expression that satisfied his ideal.

After walking a short distance around the lake, to view its beauties, and picking out the stone cannon on the top of the mountain, they drove to the Basin, another rock-wonder, a miniature edition of the great Pool. Giant’s Heel, a rock-formation of a human leg and foot, seemed to possess a luring charm to the children, and after they had studied it, and then discussed it with curious wonder and awe, the little party started on their homeward drive.

On the way Mr. Banker pointed out various stone formations, among them the Elephant’s Head and the head of a dog, while Echo Lake, alight with the calm glow of a setting sun, revealed so many tempting bits of lake-wonders that the children begged that they might spend a day there, as it was not far from Franconia village.

Nathalie was unusually quiet on the homeward ride, not only feeling almost too tired to talk, but pondering with a puzzled air over the young soldier-boy. She had a vague feeling that she had seen his face before, but where? She finally determined to push the matter from her mind, when a sudden smile leaped to her eyes. Oh, what a ninny she was, for he was one of the soldier-boys she had met at Camp Mills, to whom she had proffered the cherries! And he had not only helped to gather them up from the dust of the road, but he was the boy who had waved his hat to them in a parting salute as the car whirled out of sight!

One afternoon, as Nathalie was preparing to take the children on a tramp to Butternut Lodge, an old farmhouse on the opposite side of Garnet Mountain, that had been fitted up for picnic parties by the proprietor of a near-by hotel, her mother called her.

“Nathalie,” she said, as the girl appeared in answer to her call, “I wish you would run over to the little red house and see Mrs. Carney. Sam tells me she is ill, and that his wife, who generally looks after her, is visiting some relatives. It would be only neighborly if you would take her some fruit custard; there is plenty in the ice-box, left over from dinner.”

“But mumsie,” pleaded the girl in an annoyed tone, “I can’t go this afternoon, for I have promised to take the children to Butternut Lodge. And then,” she added rebelliously, “I don’t want to go to see that horrid old woman. Why, I thought that you had decided not to have anything to do with her, after the disagreeable way she acted!”

“Yes, that is so, daughter,” replied Mrs. Page with a slight smile, “but, like a good Christian, I changed my mind, a privilege I reserve to myself when occasion warrants. When I heard from Sam that the poor creature was alone in the world, I made up my mind to play the part of the good Samaritan. We can well overlook the oddities of the aged, and it must be trying to lie there all alone, with no one to give you a helping hand or a comforting word.”

Nathalie was not conquered, as she had a stubborn will, and she had been rudely repulsed so many times that she felt her duty did not require her to accept any more humiliations. She was about to argue the case, when suddenly the motto that she had vowed to make her own that summer, flashed before her mental vision with a vivid distinctness.

Making no reply, she slowly walked out on the lawn, where the children stood waiting for her. After explaining her reasons for giving up the afternoon hike, she turned to hurry into the house, determined to get the disagreeable task over as soon as possible. Halfway up the steps she paused, her eyes lit up with an amused thought evidently, for, with a half-laugh, she turned and hurried back to the group standing with woe-begone faces, trying to think what they could do to ease their disappointment. A moment later they were crowding about her, listening eagerly as she talked, their faces keen and bright, as if with the inspiration of a novel appeal.

Some time later, Nathalie, with a queer little smile dimpling the corners of her mouth, knocked softly on the screen-door leading into the little red house. As she heard a faint “Come in!” in answer, she gently pushed the door open and entered. In her hands she carried a bowl, while behind her, all cautiously tiptoeing, as if afraid of making the slightest sound, came four small figures, each one carefully holding something for the invalid, whom they found lying on a couch in the front room.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Carney,” said Nathalie, and then, in a distressed tone, “Oh, I’m afraid we have disturbed you, but Sam said you were not feeling well, and mother sent me over with the boys, to see if we could not help you in some way. We have brought you something, too, that may possibly make you feel better.”

The girl was in the throes of despair, as no reply came from the recumbent figure, only the slow-moving of a big fan. O dear! she thought, perhaps her little ruse to relieve the awkwardness of a most curious situation was not going to succeed.

But at this instant, Sheila came forward. Her sympathies had been aroused on learning about the curious old lady, and on finding that there was nothing for her to carry to the sick one, she had gone out to the roadside and gathered a big bunch of wild flowers, to her a panacea for every ill.

These she now thrust towards the figure on the couch, crying, in her sweet childish treble, “I’m sorry, lady, you’re sick, but here’s some flowers; I picked ’em for you.” The child spoke in a half-frightened tone, somewhat at a loss to understand the silence beneath the handkerchief-covered face.

Suddenly the handkerchief was withdrawn, and the old lady sat bolt upright, with a startled exclamation, gazing in amazed wonder at the four small figures, with their pleading eyes and offerings of sympathy, standing in a row before her.

“Bless me!” she cried, a half smile dawning in her sharp eyes. “Where did these children come from?”

“Oh—why—they’re my Liberty boys,” answered Nathalie quickly, with a sudden flash of relief that at last the old lady’s silence was broken.

“Your Liberty boys?” she questioned with some bewilderment, as she peered keenly at the slim young figure. “But you’re too young to have these boys.”

“Oh, but they’re not mine! I’m not married.” exclaimed Nathalie, a merry note in her voice. “Why, I’ve just adopted them for the summer, so I call them my boys. I suppose they’re what you call Fresh-Air-Funders; that is, they live on the East Side in New York, and I’m afraid the poor things wouldn’t have had any outing if I hadn’t brought them up here to get a breath of this mountain air, and—”

But at this point, Jean, scrupulously faithful to Nathalie’s drilling, took a step forward, and, holding out his plate of fruit, in his fright forgetting the little English he knew, cried, “Voici du fruit!”

The woman peered at the boy, and then, with a slight cry as she saw the little empty sleeve, drew him to her, as she took the plate of fruit carefully from his hand. “Why, you poor lad!” she exclaimed in sudden tenderness. “So you have some fruit for me. Is he a refugee?” she queried softly, turning inquiringly towards Nathalie.

As the girl nodded dumbly, Tony pushed forward his offering, a covered dish of milk toast. Quickly removing the cover, he smacked his lips with gusto, while his velvety eyes glanced in a smile, as if to say, “Here’s something nice for you, too!”

By this time Nathalie saw that the atmosphere had cleared, and after she and Danny had proffered their gifts,—some chicken soup and custard,—with the help of the boys she drew a table to the side of the couch. Deftly unfolding a napkin for a covering, she spread out the toothsome dainties before her hostess, while Sheila, in childish prattle, entertained her new friend by telling about the fairies, whom she insisted lived in the flowers.

As the old lady partook of the edibles that had been prepared for her, the children, won by her seeming interest, with childish confidence told her about their lives in the city, how they liked the beautiful mountains, all about their many battles down at the old stone ledge, and how they were all learning to be Sons of Liberty. This drew Nathalie into the conversation, and she was soon animatedly telling how she happened to become a Liberty Girl, and how she was not only trying to carry out her plans in regard to liberty up there in the mountains, but was anxious to help the children know what it meant to become good Americans, and to understand why our nation had sent soldiers across the sea to fight the Hun.

Tony needed but one invitation, and the violin was brought forth from under his arm,—he always carried it,—and presently he was playing some little Italian airs, after which Jean sang Belgium’s national anthem, at Mrs. Carney’s request, and Danny recited a war-poem that Janet had taught him. Even Sheila contributed her quota to the impromptu entertainment and recited “Betsy’s Battle Flag,” as she, too, was a pupil of Janet’s, that young lady having become so interested in the children that she had not only helped her friend to teach them to sing, but had taught them to recite.

But now it was time to go, as Nathalie did not want to weary Mrs. Carney, although, to the girl’s surprise, that lady insisted that her sick headache had disappeared, cured, she laughingly confessed, by the young visitors, who had entertained her so charmingly.

With the promise to call again with her charges, Nathalie hurried them away, happily content that she had followed her mother’s suggestion and tried to be helpful and kind to her seemingly odd little neighbor. “It pays to be pleasant with people,” she remarked sagely, as she related the results of the visit. “For even if you don’t like them it gives you a pleasant feeling to think that you have done ‘your bit’ in keeping the chain of brotherly love well oiled.”

Mrs. Page sat knitting on the veranda the following morning when Nathalie came hurrying out of the house with an angry light in her eyes. “Oh, mother, what do you think?” she exclaimed irritably. “Cynthia has set the children all looking for that mystery thing. Did you ever hear of anything so absurd? And they have gone wild about it, and are running around the attic and the upper floors, pulling things about in a most disorderly fashion. Oh, I do think she is the limit!”

Mrs. Page looked at Nathalie in silence for a moment, and then said, with some amusement in her eyes, “It is absurd, but don’t get wrought up about it. Cynthia hasn’t stopped to think. She is so anxious to find it that it has become an obsession with her. But it won’t do to let the children get mixed up in anything of that kind.” Her face sobered, and for a space the only sound was the clicking of her knitting-needles, while Nathalie, with a frown on her face, pondered how she was going to undo the mischief that Cynthia had wrought, keenly realizing what would follow if the children were not stopped in looking for something that she knew they would never find.

“Go and tell the children to come here, Nathalie,” said her mother, “and we’ll have a little talk.” The girl, with a brighter face, complied, as she always felt greatly relieved, when anything went wrong with her boys, to have her mother straighten things out.

In a moment they were on the veranda, looking very much bedraggled and dust-begrimed, as, with faces eagerly alert, they told what they had been doing, after a little adroit questioning on the part of Mrs. Page. It did not take the good lady long to make it clear to the mystery-seekers that this valuable thing that they had been searching for was something that only concerned Nathalie and her cousins.

She now made it clear to them that the searching was undoubtedly a whim on the part of the former inmate of Seven Pillars, and that the finding of it simply meant a reward to the one of the three girls who had proved the most industrious in looking for it. She ended by saying that it would not likely be of any great value, adding, “And, children, it would not be yours even if you found it.”

“Oh, but we’re going to give it to Miss Natty!” came a chorus of determined little voices. “And Miss Cynthia said it was something awful rich,” added Sheila, “and I just guess that it must be a great big jewel, or a pot of gold.” “Sure, and we want Miss Natty to have it,” ended Danny, with big, disappointed eyes.

This was not the first time that Mrs. Page had had to do away with a seeming mystery connected with Mrs. Renwick’s peculiar instructions. For the mystery-room had proved a source of morbid curiosity to the children, as they questioned as to what was behind that great, dark red curtain. They would scurry by the door with bated breath and big, excited eyes, in whose depths lurked a latent fear of some unknown terror, until Mrs. Page had ordered the curtain down, declaring that the door simply closed, and barred, would end the mystery.

Fortunately the children’s attention was now turned to other matters, but Nathalie, somehow, could not put the incident from her mind. She had a vague, conscience-stricken feeling that she would never gain the reward for being industrious, for although she had not failed to make an entry in her diary, she had failed to search as diligently as she should have done. Whereupon, with a silent vow that she would put aside an hour every day for this disagreeable task, she hastened upstairs to put her plan in execution.

Nathalie was lying in the hammock in the moonlight a few evenings later, half-drowsing. She was more than usually tired, for they had spent the day at Butternut Lodge. It had been an all-day hike, setting forth in the forenoon with a climb up old Garnet, starting in at the log gate-posts opposite Peckett’s flower-garden.

Ascending a grassy incline studded with rocks, where mountain-sheep and a gray donkey meandered, nibbling the coarse grass, they entered the cool damp of the forest gloom, where hundreds of trees confronted them. Age-ringed and gnarled, their limbs twisted in eerie contortion to grotesque shapes, they stood in the dim cathedral light bristling with shadows, a battalion of ghoulish-looking sentinels, guarding the rock-crowned heights.

But on they climbed, up the pine-needled path, stepping from lichen-covered rocks to gnarled tree-roots, or clambering deftly over blackened, flame-licked tree-trunks, that barred their way like yawning chasms. Every now and then they would stop to gather some tiny wood posy peeping coquettishly from the crevice of a broken crag, or a crimson-dyed leaf on a mossy patch, or to brush aside the black loam to burrow among dead leaves for feathery ferns, or one of the tiny umbrellas, as Sheila called the many-colored toadstools that grew by the path. But when the little maid spied a fleur des fées, a daintily-colored anemone, her delight was beyond bounds.

Sometimes they would pause to listen to the mountain-wind as it swayed the tops of long rows of trees, that, with the daring recklessness of new life, stretched their bare-limbed trunks upward to catch the golden sunlight on their glossy leaves. But the sweetest melody, perhaps, was the wind that swept in solemn-toned harmony through the twisted boughs of the old mountain-guard.

But the wind was not the only musician that sunny morning up there in the stilled hush of the green wood, for sometimes it was the soft note of a belated bird’s warble, coming with a haunting sweetness from the dim recesses of the shadowed gloom, or the hammer of a woodpecker as he plied his tool of trade.

But feathered songsters and musical wind were forgotten when the children struck the Red Trail,—splashes of red paint smeared at intervals on the bark of the trees to keep travelers in the path. The boys, as they scurried ahead, soon discovered a Yellow Trail, and then a Blue Trail, sign-posts to the lone woodchopper, perhaps, as he comes down the woodland path in the deep snows of winter. The Yellow Trail, they discovered, led down the mountain, coming out on the road near Lovers’ Lane, the wooded path opposite Seven Pillars. Nathalie now showed them how to blaze a trail that belonged exclusively to the Girl Pioneers, and their interest became tense with excitement as she became their leader and deftly bent the twigs in the shapes that meant so many things to the Pioneers.

A little log cabin nestling beneath a clump of pine trees, on the edge of a slope, just below Agassiz’s Rock, tempted the children to wander from the beaten path. But they soon returned, and, in wide-eyed wonder, declared that they had seen a pair of shoes by the door. Sheila was quite insistent that some fairy godmother lived there, whereupon she was rudely told by the boys that fairies never wore shoes. The children, however, were loth to leave the spot, curiously wondering as to who lived in the log hut.

But as no one was to be seen, either within or without the cabin, they followed Nathalie, and were soon standing on a jagged rock on Garnet’s top, in a wonderland of views that made them feel that they were indeed birds of the air, skimming swiftly through a dim, mystical atmosphere. With hushed breath and wide-seeing eyes they gazed down upon low-lying valleys,—dabs of green between craggy rocks and lofty steeps, gemmed with silver water, yellow corn-fields, and brown pasture-land. And above all, in picturesque grandeur, towered a rim of battlemented crests and ridges, silhouetted against curtains of crystalline blue, where sweeps of white cloud drifted in gossamer veils.

On the wide green slopes surrounding the farmhouse the children reveled in a summer-land of daisies and buttercups, that jeweled the softly creeping grass. While Sheila wove a wreath of mountain posies Nathalie told how, some years before, a bag of gold had been found in a log of wood in the old farmhouse. This added a new glory to the scene, and there were many surmises in regard to this find, while the Girl Pioneer plied her craft and showed them how to make leaf-impressions in their little note-books, as each one had gathered a leaf from many trees on their way up the mountain.

After Danny had made a camp-fire and they had had a hike lunch of frankfurters, roasted potatoes, and many toothsome edibles found in their lunchboxes, they hurried back to the old farmhouse, and while the children peeped into the old-fashioned brick ovens in search of another pot of gold, Janet played on the yellow-keyed piano. Then came a stroll to a weather-beaten barn, where an old coach was stored, which had once been the mountain’s only method of conveyance, some decades ago, and on which was the name “Goodnow House.” Of course they all had to mount the rickety steps and crawl inside on the wide leather-cushioned seat, large enough to hold almost a dozen children. Danny and Tony, however, soon clambered out and mounted still higher, up to the two-step-driver’s seat, where they pretended they were driving a tally-ho, with Sheila and Jean sitting back, within the railed top, as outside passengers, while Nathalie and Janet, on the wide old seat within, acted the part of tourists traveling to the top of Mount Washington.

Wearying of these childish sports, Nathalie and Janet hied themselves back to the farmhouse, where, after resisting the inclination to drowse, induced by the lulling hum of the bees as they darted busily about in the sweet-scented, sunny air, they sat down on the little porch and took out their knitting.

Suddenly the deep silence that they had drifted into, lured to thought by their active fingers, was broken by loud squeals, mingled with boyish shouts of laughter. And then a thrill came, as Nathalie suddenly perceived the old stage-coach, drawn by Danny and Tony as horses, while Jean, as the driver, was exultantly happy, perched up in the driver’s high seat. Sheila, meanwhile, bewreathed and betwined with wild posies, sat within the coach, posing as a beautiful white princess who had been captured by bandits.

Nathalie’s heart swung in wild leaps as she saw the one-armed boy’s perilous position, as the ramshackle, clumsy coach rocked like a cradle, and realized what it would mean if anything happened to it, as it was a most valuable relic to the proprietor of the hotel.

With a sudden cry she jumped to her feet, and a moment later was excitedly explaining to the would-be bandits the wrong they had committed. In disappointed silence Jean was helped down from the top of the coach, and Sheila, in whimpering protest, was hauled out. Then, amid a profound and tragic stillness to the children, they managed, with the help of the two girls, to get the stage back in the barn. Whereupon, Nathalie closed the door and marched her charges off in another direction, while pondering how to amuse them, for she had learned that their active brains and nimble fingers must be kept busy or mischief would brew.

A low cry from Sheila roused her, to see a few feet away, on the outskirts of the wood, a baby deer, gazing at them with mild eyes of wonder. But the cries from the boys caused it to leap wildly into the woods.

Such had been the events of the day.

Nathalie stirred uneasily, as a ray of moonshine fell athwart her face. She rubbed her eyes, and then sat up in the hammock, staring about in a bewildered, sleepy fashion. “Why, I must have been dreaming,” she thought, vaguely conscious that she had been living over again the long day with its many adventures.

“But it must be late; the children should be in bed.” She could hear Danny and Tony down on the lawn, their voices in loud and excited argument. O dear! she hoped they were not going to fight again, and then she gave a hurried “Tru-al-lee!”

At the familiar call the boys came hurrying across the lawn, when, to her surprise, she saw that Sheila was not with them. As she questioned them sharply as to her whereabouts, they insisted that they supposed that she was with her. The girl, somewhat alarmed, for the little lady was inclined to wander off by herself, instituted a search. The barn, grounds, Lovers’ Lane opposite, and even the little red house were peeped into, but all to no purpose.

As Sam was in Littleton for the night, the boys were dispatched to Sugar Hill village to make inquiries, while she and Janet, who had just returned from a stroll in the moonlight with Mrs. Page, started to look on the road leading to “The Echoes.” Some time later the searchers returned to Seven Pillars to report that no clews as to the child’s whereabouts had been discovered. Suddenly distracted, conscience-stricken, Nathalie gave a low wail.

“Oh, I do believe she has gone to the top of Garnet Mountain!” The girl had suddenly remembered that for several days Sheila had been telling how one of the boarders at Peckett’s—a lady as white as snow—had told her that every moonlight night at twelve o’clock the fairies came out of the woods and danced on the top of Garnet. She had even suggested that if Sheila could see them, she might be rewarded by receiving some of the beautiful garnets that were hidden in the rocks, and which only the fairies knew where to find.

There was a grim silence at Nathalie’s cry, as each one stared at the other with a white, dismayed face, while Nathalie, with clasped hands, nervously swayed herself to and fro.

A sudden scuffle of small feet caused them all to swing about, to see Danny hurrying towards the door.

“Oh, where are you going, Dan?” cried Nathalie in a choked voice, staring at the lad with bewildered eyes.

“I’m going to find my sister—Sheila—” came in a strangled sob from the boy.

“But don’t go alone. I will go with you,” exclaimed Nathalie, quickly springing to his side, as he stood with his face buried in his elbow, while his slim body heaved convulsively.

It was soon decided that Janet and Dan would climb the mountain-trail that came out near Lovers’ Lane, Mrs. Page and Tony would hurry in the direction of Hildreth’s farm, while Nathalie and Jean would follow the Red Trail of the mountain, opposite Peckett’s hotel.

Twenty minutes later Nathalie and Jean, breathless from their hurried climb, paused for a moment by a big tree that stood ghoulishly somber by the path. As the girl, still panting, leaned against it, a ray of moonlight filtering through the canopy of leaves overhead showed that it was the Seat Tree, as they had named it on their climb that morning, on account of its singular formation.

By some freak of nature, from its main trunk, a short space from the ground, another trunk had sprung, giving it the appearance of two trees in one, and in this hollow some kindly-intentioned person had placed a seat. As the girl perceived the seat she sat down, and feeling Jean’s soft breath come puffing against her cheek, drew the tired boy down on her lap. Tige, the yellow terrier, crouched at their feet, his red tongue hanging out of his mouth like a signal-light in the weird darkness.

Fortunately the darkness of the ascent had been lightened at intervals by the moon, which was at its full, so that the girl had not been compelled to use her flashlight except in the deeply shadowed places. When they had begun to climb, Jean had whistled, his customary way of calling Sheila, while Nathalie had not only called the child by name, but had given her Pioneer call of “Tru-al-lee.”

But these calls had only re-echoed through the cathedral arches with such a dismal, dirge-like sound that they had desisted. Feeling sure that the child would keep near the path, Nathalie had kept her eyes busy peering on all sides of her, thinking that she could easily discern Sheila’s white dress if she was anywhere near.

All at once a low cry escaped the girl, as, with a convulsive clutch of Jean’s slight body, she bent forward, and peered through the eerie tree-shadows to a dim, flickering light that shone some distance beyond in the deep recesses of the forest. As the boy’s eyes followed her glance, in a tense whisper he cried, “Oh, Mademoiselle! see, there is a man digging in the ground!”