"Isabella is always in a hurry," said the guide--"always. She is brown in the middle, and black on the head and tail end, Isabella is, and she walks rapidly, as if she had a great deal to do before she could take time to be made over into a tiger-moth. She stops every once in a while to make sure she is on the right road; then she hurries along in a nervous, fidgety way, looking for a nice, comfortable stone under which to have a winter home, for Isabella is in such haste that she could never think of taking time to spin a cocoon." "But do all caterpillars turn into moths or butterflies?" asked Jack. "Yes, every one, my son, that lives long enough, just as surely as a boy will turn into a man. The butterfly lays the egg, and after the egg has been quiet for a while out comes a little worm; the worm spins the cocoon, and out of the cocoon comes a perfect moth, or butterfly. It is a wonderful cycle, a wonderful series of changes. Little boys and girls seem to be surrounded with more love and don't change their skins as moths do, but the mystery of life belongs quite as much to the helpless moth as it does to any one of us." "But is a caterpillar an insect, and is a butterfly an insect?" asked Betty. "Of course, you goose," said Jimmie; "you don't expect to hatch a duck from a hen's egg, do you?" But Ben Gile, who was older than Jimmie and decidedly more patient, explained, carefully: "If you look at a caterpillar and a moth you will see that their bodies aren't so unlike, after all. They are made up of rings, and both the moth and the caterpillar have six legs apiece. Most caterpillars have little prop legs, but these aren't real legs and shouldn't be counted. Caterpillars eat and eat and eat; they are such solid little chaps they must need a good many legs, real and false, to keep moving at all. Well, heigho! stretch your own legs, boys! We'll leave the caterpillar where it is, and move on to the top of the mountain, or we'll never be there in time to eat our own supper. One, two, three, march!" And off they went, talking and laughing and scrambling up the side of the mountain, which swung dark and steep above them. XII CAMP-IN-THE-CLOUDS The camp was reached. Once there, the children found the other two guides in the cabin. The cook-tent was already pitched; the sleeping-tents had been left so that the boys might choose their own locations and help in pitching them. It was a beautiful place--remote, wild, two-thirds up the side of the great mountain.