"No," he said emphatically. "I haven't been going to Mr. Leland's home for a long time. After what I have learned to-night I suppose that I'll never go there again. I am going to send Dart with you." "What have you learned?" she asked quickly. "You mean what I have told you?" "No. It is something which I am afraid I can't talk about just yet, Miss Strawn. Now, if you will excuse me a minute?" He went down to the stable, saw that both Helga's horse and Old Bots had a feeding of barley, and fed his own saddle animal. "I'll have to fight my way out on webs tomorrow," he mused. "I can lead you until we get across the ridge where the snow will be lighter." Then he went to Dart in the bunk house. "Dart," he called abruptly, "you'd better come up to the house and get something to eat. Then you've got to get ready to ride." "Ride?" demanded Dart, a little anxiously. "You mean me and Old Bots and the chariot?" "You can't make it," Shandon told him positively. "I don't know how you managed to get back from the Echo Creek with the cart. You'll have to go on horseback now, whether you like it or not." "Where am I going, Chief?" "To the Leland's. Miss Hazleton is going back and I want you to go with her. You'd have to go in the morning anyway and it will be easier if you go right away. And I want you to do something for me." "Love's little messenger again?" grinned Dart. "Gee, Red, I'm turning into a regular carrier pigeon." "I am going to write a short note to Miss Leland," Shandon went on quietly. "I want you to give it to her to-night. And I don't want anybody to see you do it. Will you do that for me?" "Did I ever turn a pal down?" reproachfully. "But, say, Red; I'm just healed up good from my ride in here last summer. Can't I walk?" Shandon laughed and the two men hurried together back to the house. Helga, who was still eating, looked up at them with frank curiosity as they came in. Her eyes rested longest upon Dart; her contempt for him had passed or else she had resolved to hide it and appear friendly. Through the brief meal he strove constantly to be entertaining, and his little sallies which had formerly elicited nothing beyond her silent contempt now provoked her ready laughter. "It ain't a little jolt of brandy that made the difference, either," Dart informed himself thoughtfully in the midst of an enthusiastic recital of the gallant way in which his pal, Red, had saved him from a horrible death in some wonderful land whose geographical location he failed to make perfectly clear. "She's wise I'm the gent with a noodle full of things she's dying to know. Red ain't told her what I told him. We're sure going to have an awful chummy time on our jingle bell party back to old Mart's." And he went on with his tale until Wayne returning from the kitchen stopped him.