To this romantic region Dick Falkner went to spend his vacation, during the latter part of October, the loveliest season of the year in that section of the country. Mr. Cushman, who was a successful farmer living in the White Oak district, and an old friend of Uncle Bobbie's, gladly welcomed the young man, of whom his old partner, Wicks, had written so highly. When Dick left the train at Armourdale, a little village in the lead and zinc field, he was greeted at once by his host, a bluff, pleasant-faced, elderly gentleman, whom he liked at first sight, and who was completely captivated by his guest before they had been together half an hour. Oak Springs Farm, which was to be Dick's home for the next month, took in the whole of a beautiful little glen, and many acres of timber-land on either side. Crane Creek had its source, or rather one of its sources, within a hundred feet of the house, where a big spring bubbled from beneath the roots of a giant oak, and the water went chattering and laughing away to the south and east. Three-quarters of a mile from Oak Springs, just over the ridge in another hollow, another stream gushed bright and clear, from beneath another ancient oak and went rushing away to join its fellow brook a mile distant, where the little glens broadened into a large valley, through which the creek hurried onward to the great river, miles away in the heart of the wilderness. It was all very beautiful and restful to the young man, wearied and worn by the rush and whirl of the city, and stifled with the dust and smoke from factory and furnace. The low hills, clothed with foliage, richly stained by October's brush; the little valley lying warm in the sunlight, was a welcome change to the dead monotony of the prairie, where the sky shut down close to the dull brown earth, with no support of leafy pillars. And the mother quail, with her full-grown family scurrying to cover in the corner of the fence; the squirrel scolding to his mate in the tree-tops, or leaping over the rustling leaves, and all the rest of the forest life, was full of interest when compared to the life of busy men or chattering sparrows in the bustling mining town. Though Mr. Cushman and his wife had raised a large family of boys and girls, only one, a daughter, remained with them on the farm. The others had, one by one, taken their flight from the home nest, to build home nests of their own in different parts of the great world wilderness. Kate was a hearty, robust, rosy-cheeked country lass of eighteen, the youngest of the flock; her father's chum, with all his frank, open ways; and her mother's companion, with all her loving thoughtfulness. And, best of all, she possessed the charming freshness, innocence and purity of one who had never come in touch with those who, taught by the world she had never known, were content to sham her virtues as they tried to imitate the color of her cheek.