"I'll run back and tell your mother, Polly, as it will be at least half an hour before they can reach the house," said Anne, happy also that Barbara was to be silently contradicted. "Don't dally around here, girls, when your company joins you," advised Anne, turning around, after she had started down the cliff-side. "I reckon we'd better go back with you--mother can be the first to say how-dy to them," ventured Polly, looking like a stage-struck amateur at her first appearance before the public. "See here, Polly Brewster! Don't you go back on _me_! I wouldn't have Bob watching us meet those boys and then laughing at us afterwards, for anything in the world! We'll stay right _here_ and get acquainted before we go to the house to be teased and made to feel uncomfortable," declared Eleanor, who knew her sister only too well. "I guess Eleanor's right, Polly; it struck me that that nice young boy was rather shy with strangers, so you will be doing him a great favor if you get acquainted here and then bring him to the house to meet the rest of us," admitted Anne, then she ran down the steep sides of the rocks. Now and then the waiting girls had glimpses of the two riders as they rode along the winding trail past the Cliffs. And Jim Latimer also caught a glimpse of the girls as he happened to pause, to point out the Rainbow rocks to his friend. Instantly he pulled off his wide sombrero and waved it gayly at his young hostesses. Then both boys spurred their horses eagerly onward. Eleanor and Jim felt perfectly at ease as they met and shook hands, but it was evident that Polly and Kenneth Evans were not accustomed to social ways or behavior, for both acted rather awkward at this meeting. However, Eleanor generally fitted into any breach, and now she unconsciously steered the would-be friendly craft of the four past the reefs of self-consciousness into the haven of youthful reciprocity. "We thought you were _never_ coming--it's past one o'clock you know, and we looked for you at eleven," said she, catching Jim by the sleeve and leading the way to the road where the two horses were waiting. "We expected to be here at half-past ten, or eleven at the latest, but it is a long story to tell, and we ought to explain to your mother at the same time," replied Jim, throwing the bridle over his arm and starting to walk beside Eleanor. Naturally, Kenneth and Polly followed, but Eleanor turned around every other moment to include them in her vivacious conversation about the land-slide and the fears that Choko's Find was lost. "Oh, but say! What a ripping chance we missed, Ken, by not being one of the party on the Slide, eh?" cried Jim, enviously. "I'd like to be one of the party up there now. Just fancy the opportunities one would have for seeing how much he knows about engineering," replied Kenneth.