"Oh, papa, I knew you'd come!" cried Amy, joyously. "But now you must put me down, and carry Flet, 'cause I was naughty, and he's hurt, and all from 'sisting me."
Then the situation was explained. Two young gentlemen from the hotel tenderly raised the helpless boy and carried him between them, and thus, the happy father still retaining his little girl, they started down the hill again, guided by the strange lights safely to the town.
Fletcher soon recognized in his bearers two members of the party from the mountain-top that had been so enthusiastic at dinner, and they furthermore told him that it was at their suggestion that Mr. Hanway had first directed his steps to the hill-side, "for," said one, "we noticed how eagerly your little sister listened to my cousin's description of the wild flowers."
"And did you have those funny lights lit so's you could see us?" asked the boy.
"Not exactly," was the laughing response. "That is the illumination in honor of St. Jacques, whose several-hundred-and-something-or-other birthday it is to-day, I believe."
"But how do they make the lights, and who is St. Jacques?" pursued Fletcher.
"They have different colored 'fires,' as the preparations are called, which are touched off at the same instant at various points about the lake; and as for St. Jacques, that is the same as St. James in English."
"That's what papa's queer speech meant, then, when he found us."
"And I say 'Amen' to it," returned the young man, huskily, "for I believe we'd have gone right on past you both if it had not been for that scarlet glow from the fête of St. Jacques."