hand. She stood reading it in the hall.

Mrs. Bogardus presently followed and remained beside her. "Could I speak
to your father a moment?" she asked.

"Certainly, I will call him," said Moya.

"Wait: I hear him now." The study door opened and Colonel Middleton joined
them. Mrs. Bogardus leading the way into the sitting-room, the colonel
followed her, and Moya, not having been invited, lingered in the hall.

"Well, have the hunters started yet?" the colonel inquired in his breezy
voice, which made you want to open the doors and windows to give it room."
Be seated! Be seated! I hope you have got a long letter to read me."

Mrs. Bogardus stood reflecting. "The day this letter was mailed they got
off--only two days ago," she said. "Could I reach them, Colonel, with a
telegram?"

"Two days ago," the colonel considered. "They must have made Yankee Fork
by yesterday. Today they are deep in the woods. No; I should say a man on
horseback would be your surest telegram. Is it anything important?"

"Colonel, I wish we could call them back! They have gone off, it seems to
me, in a most crazy way--against the judgment of every one who knows. The
guide, this man whom they waited for, refused, it appears, to go out again
with another party so late in the fall. But the Bowens were determined.
They insisted on making arrangements with another man. Then, when 'Packer
John,' they call him, heard of this, he went to Paul and urged him, if he
could not prevent the others from going, to give up the trip himself. The