Several names had already been booked at hap-hazard on the day in question; and others of the storm-stayed, aware of the prospect of a "clearing-up," were by that time flocking around the book to secure their places. To the collection already made were very soon added the signatures of Townsend and Rowan, who intended, as neither would have a lady in charge, to make a great part if not all the trip together, while the two friends of Rowan, who were also to be of the ascending party, would "pair off" in the same manner. This done, and supper-time approaching, Rowan, who had been lounging about in a sort of wet-weather box-coat undress which would have driven an ultra-fashionable to desperation, ran off to his room to make himself somewhat more presentable; while Horace Townsend, after patronizing the barber-shop for five minutes and providing himself with that inevitable cigar, stepped out once more upon the piazza to glance at the weather and satisfy himself how kind Mother Nature really intended to be on the morrow. He had but just emerged from the door when a close light carriage with two pairs of foaming horses--horses and carriage well covered with mud,--whirled around the corner of the Crawford and drew up at the door. The driver sprung from his seat and the carriage door was opened. Out of it stepped first Frank Vanderlyn, then Mrs. Vanderlyn and her daughter, who, as it afterwards appeared, had left the Profile after dinner and driven through post in that manner, under the impression that the next morning might after all be a fine one, and anxious (two of the three, at least) to join any party which would be likely to make the ascent. "Whew!" said the lawyer to himself, between two puffs of his cigar, as he recognized the new-comers without their seeming to be aware of his presence. "Here is more of the Rowan romance and there may be more ten-pins necessary. I wonder whether that haughty woman and her son have any idea of the presence here of their friend from Chicago, and whether they have driven at that slapping pace through the mud, especially to be in his way! I wonder, too, whether Rowan's room is on the front, so that he has seen their arrival. I have half a notion to go up and apprize him of it; and then I have a whole notion to let him find it out for himself, and finish my cigar before supper comes in to spoil it." Whatever might have been the amount of knowledge of the movements of Rowan possessed by the Vanderlyns, and whether in making a new entry on the books the old names were or were not always looked over,--certain it is that half an hour afterwards the lawyer found two more names booked for the ascent--those of "Mr. Francis Vanderlyn" and "Miss Clara Vanderlyn," the mother evidently not intending to expose herself to a fatigue which had lost its novelty, but to await their going and return at the Crawford.