"All right for you!" declared Jack. "Go on, and joy go with you! But don't you send me any picture postcards of yourself lost in a perilous mountain fastness,—'cause I won't come and rescue you. So there!"
"What is a mountain fastness?" demanded Patty. "It sounds frisky."
"It isn't," replied Jack; "it's a deep gorge, with ice-covered walls and no way out; and as the darkness falls, dreadful growls are heard on all sides, and wild animals prowl—and prowl—and prow-ow-owl!"
Jack's voice grew deep and terrible, as he suggested the awful situation, but Patty laughed gaily as she said:
"Well, as long as they keep on prowling, they certainly can't harm me. It all sounds rather interesting. At any rate, the ice-covered walls sound cool. You must admit Spring Beach is a hot place."
"All places are hot in hot weather," observed Beatrice, sapiently; "when there's an ocean breeze, it's lovely and cool here."
"Yes," agreed Lora, "when there IS. But there 'most generally ISN'T.
To-day, I'm sure the thermometer must be about two hundred."
"That's your heated imagination," said Jack. "It's really about eighty-four in the shade."
"Let's move around into the shade, then," said Patty. "This side of the veranda is getting sunny."
So the young people went round the corner of the house to a cooler spot, and Nan expressed her intention of going down to the train to meet Mr. Fairfield.