The Claim Jumpers

The girl arose and shook her skirt free of the pine needles that clung

to it.

"Ever since then," she went on, eyeing Bennington saucily sideways,

"the mountain has been invisible except to a very few. The legend says

that when a maid and a warrior see it together they will be----"

"What?" asked Bennington as she paused.

"Dead within the year!" she cried gaily, and ran lightly to her pony.

"Did you like my legend?" she asked, as the ponies, foot-bunched,

minced down the steepest of the trail.

"Very much; all but the moral."

"Don't you want to die?"

"Not a bit."

"Then I'll have to."

"That would be the same thing."

And Bennington dared talk in this way, for the next day began the

Pioneer's Picnic, and lately she had been very kind.