‘Well, I took up my dress and ploughed through the chaparral, until I came, in about three minutes of scratching and fighting, to an open circular place about as large as this tent. It was exactly round, which is the curious part of it; and in the centre was one stump, covered with moss and surrounded by great white toadstools. How any one happened to go in there and cut down a single tree I can’t understand, nor yet how they managed to bring out the tree through the tangled brush. It is so strange that it seems as if there must be a mystery about it.’ ‘Certainly,’ said Margery promptly. ‘A tragedy of the darkest kind! Some cruel wretch has cut down, in the pride and pomp of its beauty, one sycamore-tree; its innocent life-blood has stained the ground, and given birth to the white toadstools which mark the spot and testify to the purity of the victim.’ ‘Well,’ continued Bell, impressively, ‘I knew I could never find it again; and I wanted so much you should see it that I took the ball of twine we always carry, unrolled it, and dropped the thread all the way along to the brookside, like Phrygia, or Melpomene, or Anemone, or whatever her name was.’ ‘Or Artesia, or Polynesia, or Euthanasia,’ interrupted Polly. ‘I think the lady you mean is Ariadne.’ ‘Exactly. Now we’ll take papa to see it, and then we’ll fit it up as a retreat. Won’t it be charming? We’ll call it the Lone Stump.’ ‘Oh, I like that; it makes me shiver!’ cried Polly. ‘I’m going to write an ode to it at once. Ahem! It shall begin—let me see— ‘O lonely tree, What cruel “he” Did lay thee low? Tell us the facts; Did cruel axe Abuse thee so?’ ‘Sublime! Second verse,’ said Bell slowly, with pauses between the lines:— ‘Or did a gopher, The wicked loafer, Gnaw at thy base, And, doing so, Contrive to go, And leave no trace?’ ‘Oh dear!’ sighed Margery; ‘if you will do it, wait a minute. ‘O toadstools white, Pray give us light Upon the question. Did gopher gnaw, And live in awe Of indigestion?’ ‘Good!’ continued Bell:— ‘Or did a man Malicious plan The good tree’s ruin, And leave it so Convenient low, A seat for Bruin? For travelling grizzlies, you know. We may go there and see a hungry creature making a stump-speech, while an admiring audience of grasshoppers and tarantulas seat themselves in a circle on the toadstools.’ ‘Charming prospect!’ said Madge. ‘I don’t think I care to visit the Lone Stump or pass my mornings there.’ ‘Nonsense, dear child; it is just like every other part of the cañon, only a little more lonely. It is not half a mile from camp, and hardly a dozen steps from the place where the boys go so often to shoot quail.’ ‘Very well,’ said the girls. ‘We must go there to-morrow morning; and perhaps we’d better not tell the boys,—they are so peculiar. Jack will certainly interfere with us in some way, if he hears about it.’