d to stop, because down in the depths of the mountain
were veins of gold and silver which he could not cross. For many days
he raged back and forth, but in vain. At last he got tired and went
away.

"Then _Mon-e-dowa_ and _Muj-e-ah-je-wan_, who had been living quite
peacefully on the game with which the mountain swarmed, came out of the
canon and turned toward home. But as soon as they had set foot on the
level prairie again, the mountain vanished like a cloud, and then they
knew they had been aided by _Man-a-boo-sho_, the good Manitou."

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.

CHAPTER XIV

THE PIONEER'S PICNIC

The Lawtons were not going to the picnic. Bennington was to take Mary
down to Rapid, where the girl was to stay with a certain Dr. McPherson
of the School of Mines.

An early start was accomplished. They rode down the gulch through the
dwarf oaks, past the farthermost point, and so out into the hard level
dirt road of Battle Creek canon. Beyond were the pines, and a rugged
road, flint-edged, full of dips and rises, turns and twists, hovering
on edges, or bosoming itself in deep rock-strewn cuts. Mary's little
pony cantered recklessly through it all, scampering along like a
playful dog after a stone, leading Bennington's larger animal by
several feet. He had full leisure to notice the regular flop of the Tam
o'Shanter over the lighter dance of the hair, the increasing rosiness
of the cheeks dimpled into almost continual laughter, to catch stray
snatches of gay little remarks thrown out at random as they tore along.
After a time they drew out from the shadow of the pines into the
clearing at Rockerville, where the hydraulic "giants" had eaten away
the hill-sides, and left in them ugly unh