"Is my bicycle ready?" Peter asked. "Jenny Harman left it. It had a puncture."

"Aye," the man said, gesturing into the gloomy depths behind him.

Peter wandered in and found her bicycle mixed up with several others in course of repair.

"Thank you," she said. "How much is that?"

"Nine," said the man tersely, and after Peter had paid that was all there was to it.

Jenny came out of the post office. "Come on, Peter," she hissed dramatically; "I've run away again. Let's go exploring, and then you can tell me the secret you promised."

"But you can't keep on running away from home like this," Peter protested.

"Oh, I always run away," Jenny explained. "I always have and I always shall. You see, she's not my real mother. I haven't got a real one... This one is a step, and now Daddy's in the army and I hate it. But I never take much notice of her when she's beastly like she is now... and most particularly I want to be your friend, Peter..."

"All right then, Jenny. Let's be friends. Will you come to tea now at Seven Gates?"

The other girl hesitated.

"It's nice of you, Peter, but... but I don't think I will... not today, but perhaps some other time when... when I feel more like it..." she finished rather lamely,

Peter felt rather hurt.

"All right, then. Where shall we go? Are you going to fetch your bike?"

"No. But you bring yours and leave it by the first white gate and I'll take you up Black Dingle."

So the two girls trudged back up the hill again and, just as they had done the night before, turned up the second lane. Jenny had lived all her life in Barton Beach and was thrilled with all that Peter could tell her of school life and of her life at Hatchholt and of her friends the Mortons.

"And we've asked them to come to Seven Gates for a few days, Jenny. When we explore the mountain you'd better come and be our guide. I suppose you'd have to run away from home every day, but you don't seem to mind that!"

"I'd love that, Peter! I've never had friends like you have and we could have lots of fun."

Then, as they followed the lane still uphill, Jenny began to tell Peter all sorts of odd and inconsequent stories about the Stiperstones. She told how the Romans had mined all this strange, wild country for lead and the hills around had, until only a few years ago, been worked and quarried.

"But I've had an adventure, Peter. An awful adventure, and that's why I've brought you up this way. I'll tell you about it when we get to the place. Look! This is Black Dingle."