They swung out on the running-board, now awash. With slight squeals they dropped into the cold stream. Dripping, laughing, his clothes clinging to him, he ducked down behind the car to get the jack under the back axle, and with the water gurgling about her and splashing its exhilarating coldness into her face, she stooped beside him to yank the stiff new chains over the rear wheels. They climbed back into the car, joyously raffish as a pair of gipsies. She wiped a dab of mud from her cheek, and remarked with an earnestness and a naturalness which that Jeff Saxton who knew her so well would never have recognized as hers: "Gee, I hope the old bird crawls out now." Milt let in the reverse, raced the engine, started backward with a burst of muddy water churned up by the whirling wheels. They struck the bank, sickeningly hung there for two seconds, began to crawl up, up, with a feeling that at any second they would drop back again. Then, instantly, they were out on the shore and it was absurd to think that they had ever been boating down there in the stream. They washed each other's muddy faces, and laughed a great deal, and rubbed their legs with their stockings, and resumed something of a dull and civilized aspect and, singing sentimental ballads, turned back, found another road, and started toward a peak. "I wonder what lies beyond the top of this climb?" said Claire. "More mountains, and more, and more, and we're going to keep on climbing them forever. At dawn, we'll still be going on. And that's our life." "Ye-es, providing we can still buy gas." "Lord, that's so." "Speaking of which, did you know that I have a tiny bit of money--it's about five thousand dollars--of my own?" "But---- That makes it impossible. Young tramp marrying lady of huge wealth----" "No, you don't! I've accepted you. Do you think I'm going to lose the one real playmate I've ever had? It was so lonely on the Boltwoods' brown stoop till Milt came along and whistled impertinently and made the solemn little girl in frills play marbles and---- Watch out for that turn! Heavens, how I have to look after you! Is there a class in cooking at your university? No--do--not--kiss--me--on--a--turn!" This is the beginning of the story of Milt and Claire Daggett. The prelude over and the curtain risen on the actual play, they face the anxieties and glories of a changing world. Not without quarrels and barren hours, not free from ignorance and the discomfort of finding that between the mountain peaks they must for long gray periods dwell in the dusty valleys, they yet start their drama with the distinction of being able to laugh together, with the advantage of having discovered that neither Schoenstrom nor Brooklyn Heights is quite all of life, with the cosmic importance to the tedious world of believing in the romance that makes youth unquenchable. THE END. B. M. BOWER'S NOVELS May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.