“Whew! The weather is getting hotter and hotter up here!” exclaimed Stacy, fanning himself with his sombrero as they trotted along. “Does it always get this way up here?”
“Sometimes,” answered the guide, with a grim smile.
The others of the party who saw the smile understood.
“Hamilton, you don’t mean it is the heat coming from the forest that we feel, do you?” questioned Miss Dean.
The guide nodded and urged his pony ahead at a more rapid pace. The others were keeping up a continual chatter, laughing and joking, and Ham White wondered if they fully realized the peril that was stalking them. Mr. White did not yet know the young people he was guiding. Nor did they know him, which fact Elfreda Briggs voiced when she spoke to Grace on the subject as they were jogging along.
“There is something about Mr. White that I can’t interpret,” she said.
“And that is?” demanded Grace, regarding her companion with twinkling eyes.
“That is just it; I don’t know. I do know that Emma has an awful crush on him, though I am positive that Mr. White doesn’t know it.”
“It is nothing new with Emma, is it?” answered Grace laughingly. “Let me see, how many men has the dear girl been in love with since we went to France for war work with our college unit?”
“Oh, I lost the count a long time ago. What is that?”