WINTER in Molly's valley usually opened with a great snow-feast at Thanksgiving and continued with weekly festivals of falling flakes, until the fences meekly slipped from sight and the little sugarcabins in the undrifted Adirondack woods slept the long sleep, up to their eaves in snow.

Barring the few inches that had ended the potato-picking so definitely (as was told in the March ST. NICHOLAS), Molly and the major had nothing to hinder them from taking the long walks in which they both delighted, and from the last of which they were now returning. The frost sparkle and the bite of winter air had intoxicated them to the silly point, and, as they shuffled down the last long slope of the Giant-of-the-Valley, they made graceless rhymes in order to work off some of the silliness. The major would say a couple of lines, and then leave Molly to finish out the stanza while he counted fifteen; and if she could do it, then, it was her turn to start.

The major made a ridiculous antic and shouted: "Your turn again, Molly! try this: Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how long will you be so?"

And Molly, leaping over a log, replied, "As long as I warm my toes on ice and toast my cheeks with snow."

And because she did it before the major got to thirteen, she began:

"Simple Simon, met a pieman,

Who remarked, "They say that I'm

an—' ”

"Incoherent sort of person;

But I've noticed you 're a worse 'un," replied the major immediately.

"Which was n't very polite of him," said Molly, who had lost again.

They had been running on in this way (very like the pieman) for quite a while, partly because it was so glorious out of doors, partly because they did n't want to think of the fact that it was their last walk together. But finally, when they came

out on Molly's cliff and saw the beautiful valley spread before them, their mirth stopped. At last the major said, "What 's on for the winter, Molly-O?"

The girl sighed, for the question recalled all the other winters.

"The war 's over," she answered, "and of course I'm glad or that; but it means that the great things are over, the excitement and the ambitie to do things. We 'll begin hibernating an. Yet what can you do? What would you do, if you we in my shoes?"

were

"I'd prevent it!" he said energetically. "Your valley has had a big start over the other communities around here, and it is really up to you, Molly, not let it slip back into hibernating again. Keep your alarm-clock set at OPPORTUNITY, and don't forget to get up when it goes off. The war 's over, but the chance for teamwork has just begun."

ers.

"In summer we have berries and boardBut in winter what is there besides snow and woods and a lot of cold air?" "Well, they 're valuable; and you 've left out the very thing we 're having." "What 's that?"

"Lots of fun. Why, people ought to know about your valley in winter. They 'd come, I believe-as many as in summer. I can send some up to refresh themselves on scenery and snow-shoes and this glorious brand of winter. If I were the daddy of some ailing boy, I'd send him up here mighty quick to mosey around these hills."

The major slapped his thigh and snapped all his fingers at once. "Why, I am a daddy, Molly, as sure as I stand in my shoes! I'm a godfather to the softest, citiest-bred, helplessest mama's-darling that ever cried at having his face washed. I say, Molly-O! If I sent him up here, would you do something for me?"

"Yours to command," she replied, saluting.

"I'd have his father-the real oneengage you to take him out, teach him

about skis and snow-shoes and how not to freeze his nose, with maybe a little arithmetic and spelling in the evenings."

Molly's face brightened as he went on, "There 's just one thing you'll have to promise me."

"Which is?"

The major stooped, grabbed a little snow, and said, "Not to mollycoddle him," and threw it at her. She dodged, all her gaiety back, and began their verse game again with:

"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe

Who scolded her offspring with, 'Now, that will do!'"

And the major came back with:

"Oh, yes!' they replied; 'but don't be

So severe.

Who likes to be led to his bed by the ear?" "

December twilight came quickly in the valley, and they soon dropped down through the darkening forest to the fire that they knew would be burning on the hearth for them.

The next morning Molly drove the major down the long valley behind Old Bell in the sleigh. They kept up their spirits till the last by talking of his spring furlough in sugar-making time and about the possibility of his godson's coming to the valley. They lunched at the little inn, where he took the stage, and Molly's long ride home was shortened for her by thoughts of all the good things that might happen to her in the future-if she kept the alarm set at OPPORTUNITY.

Christmas came, and with it a gift and a letter from the major. The letter said:

The same mail should bring you a little gift from me-a gift that I could not think of sending any other girl; nor to you if I did not have the utmost confidence in the steadiness of your head. Some day, when roaming over your mountains, you may need it.

I am glad to be able to tell you that Nicholas's father agrees with me that it would be a good thing for the boy to have a winter setting-up in the valley. He needs

a lot of looking after, though he is fourteen; and I told Mr. Bryant that you ought to have at least $35 a week for it. Was that O. K.?" [Molly looked up at her mother and smiled-she, who was quite ready to do anything for her major at nothing a week, was being asked whether thirtyfive dollars was "O. K."] "He'll meet you at the inn where we took lunch, at noon of December 31, so that you two can start the new year straight. I wish you luck and that I were young Nick.

Molly was sufficiently elated at the news; but when she opened the box and saw shining in it a beautiful revolver, she gave a little cry of delight. And all that day her thoughts kept swinging around a circle of pleasure-the center of which was the fact that her major trusted her with a real weapon, with the care of his godson, with the future of the valley.

WINTER Seemed indefinitely postponed. Day after day a late and apologetic sun rose over Giant-of-the-Valley in a pale sky, balanced a few feet above noon-mark at midday, and hastened to set behind Sawteeth at the end of his eight hours, just as if he too had joined the union. Day after day the wind blew from the north, freezing the earth to the marrow, and yet bringing no snow. But at last the change came, and a few inches of snow.

The morning of the 31st dawned gray. The ranges cut with their steel edges against a sky of wool, and Molly put many rugs into the sleigh, prepared some sandwiches, and called to her mother to have a hot supper for them at six o'clock. She had not been gone an hour upon her road, before the steel edges of the mountains softened, faded, disappeared. The snow had already begun upon the heights, and in a few minutes one swift flake, slanting against a dark balsam, told her that a storm was on. A cloud of flakes followed, and her heart beat in tune with the play of the white particles upon her cheek. Old Bell, used to a thousand storms, plodded between the great rocks of the pass, across the flats, and then on down the forest

's asleep, Miss Molly; and a queer one, waking or sleeping. He 's that nervous, asking me every minute when we 're going to git here, and it snowing faster than I ever see it before, and me driving these thirty year. You'll have some drive in the upper valley, or I miss my guess. Shall I waken him for ye?"

"No, I'll do it," she said; and leaning over the boy, she put her warm hand on his white forehead. He sat up with a start, finally getting awake and smiling a rather unsettled smile. Molly felt sorry for him. She was so used to husky lads that this nervous, thin-faced youth seemed like some fragile pet to be protected. And a premonition of the difficulties of the trip that lay ahead of them swept over her.

make the pass before dark, and Old Bell is used to it; and besides, we want to start the new year straight-at home."

"Well, at least take this shovel. There 'll be some drifts in the pass.

He put the shovel under their feet, tucked them snugly in, and in a minute the inn was invisible-as Nick said with a laugh. His laughing cheered Molly, whose decision weighed a little heavily upon her. They talked gaily as they rode between the gray lines of forest, in the top of which the wind was busy talking to itself and sending down cataracts of snow-dust.

"Do you like it?" asked Molly.

"I think so," he said, looking a bit wistfully into her laughing eyes.

"You must," she said, "and we will be great friends."

For an hour Old Bell plodded on, and the snow fell ever faster. A strange dusklike shadow seemed to hover above them; and when they emerged from the protection of the forest to cross the flats, the wind was driving great waves of choking snow across their road. She looked at the child beside her. He was almost as tall as she, but had never seen a gun, never used an ax, never slept outdoors, and never, she was sure, faced such an afternoon. She was beginning to think that she had never faced one like it, either, and suddenly a gray chill came over her feelings. She was risking the safety of her first trust, the godson of her best friend. The situation rose before her eyes as she realized that, if the snow grew much deeper, the wind much fiercer, Old Bell could never keep plodding on. It was too late to turn. The great pass, which was always drifted worse than anywhere else, was still ahead. She had been reckless in her decision, though she could never have guessed the fury of the storm on this higher level.

"How soon 'll we get there?" Nick asked, when there was a moment's lull.

"That depends on you and me and Old Bell. If he keeps his feet and we keep our heads, we 'll be there for supper."

"He's keeping his feet, and we 'll keep

our heads; but what 's to become of the bodies?" he asked, with an uncanny sort of laugh; "mine 's getting cold."

Molly looked at him and thought of what the stage-driver had said, "a queer one, waking or sleeping"; but she was soon busy with a deep drift. Luckily it was not so very cold; luckily they were nearly across the flats; luckily, for the father and the godfather of Nicholas Bryant, their boy was in the care of a clearheaded young woman, who was full of resource and imagination. Otherwise his journey, and this tale, would have had a very different ending.

The road now mounted into the pass. Where it was protected by trees, the snow came knee-high on Old Bell, but without drifts. Where there was a gap, the white fields had heaped into long billows, and several times Molly had to get out and use the shovel. But they always went on, until they reached the level of the upper valley. Here Molly had Nick cover up entirely, for the storm had reached a pitch of fury almost unfaceable. A cold fear within her seemed to envelop her heart, but her head was clear. The strange dusk deepened.

Then the catastrophe-Old Bell stopped! Molly rubbed her eyes. There seemed a curtain of solid white ahead. It was a wall of snow! From an exposed mountain shoulder was flying all the snow that fell upon it, flying across the road, filling in constantly, packing a ridge six feet, eight feet,, high-a complete barrier. Not even a mountain goat could have pulled their sleigh over it. It was death to remain in the sleigh, death to attempt travel in the homeless woods, impossible to turn. A word of prayer came to Molly's lips. A picture of the major-that photograph on her bureau, so fearless, so able-swam before her eyes. Then she was herself.

"Are we there?" called Nick.

"No, we 're here-take a look, and then keep covered till I tell you to look again."

He looked; and when his eyes became accustomed to the pelting fog of flakes, he exclaimed, "What is it, anyway?"

"This, Nick, is called an adventure