gorge
of pines that ended in a transversal white mountain wall.

[Illustration: The river was swirling around willows and poplars.]

"Bully placer ground!" I exclaimed.

The Artist leaned over the bridge, looked down, and sighed just one word,
"Salmon!"

We sought the Hotel Beau-Site in silence.

Monuments of men's making create a diversity of atmospheres and call
forth a diversity of reminiscences. They cause imagination to run riot
in history. But nature is the same the world over, and there would be
reactions and yearnings if one knew nothing of the past from books.
There is no conflict. Nature transcends. We dreamed that night not of
crusaders, but of Idaho and the Bitter Root Range.

CHAPTER V

VENCE

The most picturesque bit of mountain railway on the Riviera is the
fourteen miles from Grasse to Vence. Yielding to a sudden impulse, we
took it one afternoon. The train passed from Grasse through olive
groves and fig orchards and over two viaducts. A third viaduct of
eleven arches took us across the Loup. We were just at the season when
the melting snows made a roaring torrent of what was most of the year a
little stream lost in a wide gravel bed. The view up the gorge gave us
the feeling of being in the heart of the mountains. And yet from the
opposite windows of the train we could see the Mediterranean. Then we
circled the little town of Tourettes at the foot of the Puy de
Tourettes, with high cliffs in the background, and a wild luxurious
growth of aloes below. We almost circled the village, crossing the
ravines on either side on viaducts. A sixth long viaduct brought us to
Vence. We had a rendezvous that evening at Cannes. There was no time
to stop. We kept on to Nice to make the only connection that would get
us back to Cannes.

Afterwards the Artist and I spoke often of Vence. Twice we planned to
go to Vence, but found the fascination of Villeneuve-Loubet and
Saint-Paul-du-Var justifiable deterrents.

On the terrace of our favorite cafe in the Allees de la Liberte at
Cannes on Easter evening we announced the intention of making a special
trip to Vence the next day.

"Tomorrow is Easter Monday, and the children have no school," said the
Artist's hostess. "We shall make a family party of it, train to Cagnes
where I may have a chance to see your Mademoiselle Simone, a trout
luncheon at Villeneuve-Loubet with the rest of that bottle of which you
boys spoke, and Vence in the a