Some such thought as this was struggling in the twins' brains the day
that Rance Belmont came over from the Stopping-House, and in his
graceful way asked Mrs. Brydon to go driving with him, an invitation
which Fred urged her to accept. When the drive was over and Rance came
in to the twins' apartments, and on their invitation had a game with
them and lost, they were suddenly smitten with an idea. They began to
see how it might be possible to start another fire!



CHAPTER VII.

_LADIES' DAY AT THE STOPPING-HOUSE._

The glory of the summer paled and faded; the crimson and gold of the
harvest days had fled before the cold winds of autumn, and now the
trees along the bank of the creek stood leafless and bare, trembling
and swaying as if in dread of the long winter that would soon be upon
them. The harvest had been cut and gathered in, and now, when the
weather was fine, the industrious hum of the threshing-machine came on
the wind for many miles, and the column of blue smoke which proclaimed
the presence of a "mill" shot up in all directions.

At the Black Creek Stopping-House the real business of the year had
begun, for every day heavily-loaded wheat wagons wound slowly over the
long trail on their way to Brandon, and the Stopping-House became the
foregathering place of all the farmers in the settlement. At noon the
stable yard presented a lively appearance as the "boys" unhitched their
steaming teams and led them to the long, straggling straw-roofed
stables. The hay that John Corbett had cut on the meadows of Black