old timbers hunting for you."

Only the whippoorwill answered, calling now from a clump of elderberry
bushes close by the water's edge, and while she stood listening, there was
the dull splash in the pond where some big bullfrog had taken alarm at her
coming.

Billie gathered a goodly supply of apples, and stole after her in the
shadows.

"Well, I'm not going to stay out here all night waiting for you," Kit
said, decisively, addressing the wide dark entrance to the mill, when all
at once there came his voice, directly behind her shoulder.

"Why didn't you try to catch me? I was resting back under the apple tree.
Let's sit down over the falls and eat some. If Piney's waiting for me to
kneel in front of her, she'll wait all night. I'd like to see myself
kneeling in front of a girl!"

The words had hardly left his lips, before Kit played an old-time
schoolgirl trick on him. Catching him by his collar, she twirled him about
with an odd twist until he knelt in front of her. Although they were just
about of an age, she was taller and stronger, and Billie shook himself
ruefully when he rose.

"You always catch a fellow off guard," he said.

"Do you good," she retorted serenely. "Ever since you went away to school,
you've had a high and mighty opinion of yourself. I don't know what will
become of you after I've gone away, and there's no one who really knows