that discordant voice of the bridge spoke ominously of her peril.

Pepsy had been trusted and had proven worthy of the trust. She had
never known any mother or father, nor any home save the institution
from which Aunt Jamsiah had rescued her, and she had grown to love her
kindly guardians and the old farm where she had much work but also much
freedom. "Chores will keep her out of mischief," Aunt Jamsiah had said.

Wiggle's ancestry and social standing were quite as much a mystery
as Pepsy's; he was not an aristocrat, that is certain, and having no
particular chores to do was free to devote his undivided time to
mischief; he concentrated on it, as the saying is, and thereby
accomplished wonders. He was Pepsy's steady comrade and the partner
of all her adventurous escapades.

Pepsy was not romantic and imaginative, her freckled face and tightly
braided red hair and thin legs with wrinkled cotton stockings, protested
against that. She had a simple mind with a touch of superstition. It was
a kind of morbid dread of the institution she had left which had conjured
that ramshackle old bridge up on the highway into an ominous voice of
warning, She hated the bridge and dreaded it as a thing haunted.

Pee-Wee soon became close friends with these two, and from a rather
cautious and defensive beginning Pepsy soon fell victim to the spell of
the little scout, as indeed everyone else did. Pepsy did not surrender
without a struggle. She showed Pee-Wee the woodchuck hole and Pee-Wee,
after a minute's skillful search, showed her the other hole, or back
entrance, under a stone wall.

"There are always two," he told her, "and one of them is usually