"That's just the difficulty," said Mr. Hunter. "It is a hard school, and these girls aren't used to schools out here. The girl I am thinking of is Mary Williams, but she's young--only eighteen. I shouldn't even consider her if she hadn't said the other day that she'd like to try teaching in that little school-house up the canyon. Of course 'twould be only for a week. They're going back East in a little more than two." "Her age ain't nothin' against her," reassured Mr. Wilson. "Remember Eben Judd's girl who kept the school last spring? She was only seventeen, and she could thrash the biggest boy there! Supposin' you let me talk with this girl if she's around. Seems to me twenty dollars a week is mighty easy money for just keepin' school and givin' out things you've got in your head a'ready!" Mr. Hunter, half-sorry that he had even considered the matter, went in search of Mary, while Mr. Samuel Wilson stretched his legs even farther across the floor, re-lit his old corn-cob pipe, and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. He did not rise when Mary, forewarned but very eager, came into the room a few minutes later, but he did remove his pipe. Then he stated his errand, while Mary, feeling very professional, listened with the deference due Mr. Wilson's position as chief trustee of the Bear Canyon District. "What we want," concluded the chief trustee, with a wave of his hand, after he had explained all the difficulties and expatiated on all the joys of the Bear Canyon school, "what we want is a teacher who can start things right. A heap depends on the startin' things have in this world, I've noticed. Now you look like a spunky young lady. Ain't afraid o' big boys, are you?" Mary, with the memory of Eben Judd's daughter and the biggest boy fresh in her mind, hesitated. Bear Canyon might offer problems too big for her inexperienced hands. Then she summoned an extra amount of dignity. "It surely isn't necessary to thrash them, Mr. Wilson, if you can get along with them some other way. No, I'm not at all afraid of them. Are there many big ones?" Mr. Wilson considered for a moment. No, there were not many. Ben Jarvis' big boy Allan was the worst, and even he wasn't bad if he had enough to do. The trouble was he led all the others, and if he once got "contrary," trouble arose. Mary inwardly resolved that he should not get "contrary." "Now up here in Bear Canyon," Mr. Wilson further remarked, "we're strong on figurin'. How are you on arithmetic?" Mary's heart fell. Dismal visions of cube root and compound proportion came to torment her. Her ship, sailing smoothly but a moment since, had apparently struck a reef. Then a never-failing imagination came to her rescue. She saw Priscilla solving her problems in the evening at the table. "Arithmetic isn't exactly my specialty, Mr. Wilson," she said brightly. "That is, I don't love it as I do other studies; but I assure you I shall be quite able to teach it."