He leaped down and held up his arms. "Come, grandma!" he
invited, his face full of mischief and enthusiasm and
happiness.

"I think I'll play girl, after all," she refused gaily and,
accepting one hand only, swung herself lightly down to his
side.

"And it's `bracers' the fellows think they need to put the
heart back into them!" jeered Red Pepper Burns to himself.
"Let them try the open country and a comrade like this - if
there is another anywhere on earth! But they can't have her!"




CHAPTER VII

IN WHICH HE CONTINUES TO SAW WOOD

Here you are at last, Red, you sinner, and I'm the loser.
Ches and I've had a bet on since we saw the Green Imp tear off
just as the first guests were coming. I vowed it was a fake
call and you'd never get back till the musicians were
green-flannelling their instruments."

"I knew he wouldn't do us a cut-away trick like that,"
declared Arthur Chester with an affectionate, white-gloved
hand on Burns's black-clad arm. "Not that I'd have blamed you
on a night like this. What people want to give dances for in