The two children, on the evening before, had failed to confide that they had visited the cabin up the mountain road. They were wild to tell Dan, but they wished to get him off by himself before they did so. They dragged him out into the kitchen after the Sunday morning work was done and asked him if he would go with them for a hike up along the brook to a natural bridge that they could see from their door-yard. The older lad hesitated. "I'll ask Jane if she would like to go," he began, but the immediate disappointment expressed by the two freckled faces made him turn back to add, "Or, rather, I'll ask Jane if she minds our going, just for a little while." This suggestion was far more pleasing to the children. They all entered the living-room where Jane sat reading. "My goodness, don't go far," she said petulantly. "Don't you remember that the terrible overseer from the Packard ranch is coming to take dinner with you today? I intend to shut myself in my room and stay there until he is gone." "Hm!" Dan snapped his fingers as he ejaculated. "Queer I'd forget that visit, since I have been looking forward to it so eagerly." Then he queried: "Why do you say that he is terrible, Jane? A foreman on a vast cattle ranch is not necessarily an uncouth specimen of humanity." The girl flung herself impatiently in the chair as she emphatically replied: "Of course he'll be terrible! A big, rawboned creature who will speak with a dreadful dialect, or whatever you call it; and he will be so embarrassed at meeting people from the city, that he will stutter more than likely." Dan laughed at the description. "Maybe you are right, sister of mine, but we'll be home to prepare the meal for our guest, long before the hour he is to arrive. Goodbye! Fire off the gun if you are frightened at anything." The girl merely shrugged her shoulders, and when they were gone she decided, since it really was very lovely out-of-doors, to take her book to the porch, and so she dragged thither the comfortable chair with the leather pillows. She was soon reading the story, which interested her so greatly that she did not notice the passing of time until she heard a step near by. Jane supposed that her family was returning, and did not glance up until she heard a pleasant, well-modulated voice saying: "Pardon me if I intrude, but is this the cabin occupied by the Abbott family?"