ge and she had heard that from old Baldy one looked
down upon the Lodge and the river and the opening valley. She had been
told that from old Baldy the Martin chalet resembled a cuckoo clock.
. . .

No cuckoo clocks in those vague sweeps below.

"Can we not go down a little bit?" said Maria Angelina gently. "Farther
down again we might find the right path. . . . Up here--I think we are
on the wrong mountain."

Turning, Johnny looked about. Ahead of him were overhanging slabs of
rock.

Irresolution vanished. "That's the top now," he declared. "We are just
coming up the wrong side, that's all. I'll say it's wrong--but here we
are. I'll bet the others are up there now--lapping up that food. Come
on, Ri-Ri, we haven't far now to go."

In a gust of optimism he held out his hand and Maria Angelina clutched
it with a weariness courage could not conceal.

It seemed to her that her breath was gone utterly, that her feet were
leaden weights and her muscles limply effortless. But after him she
plunged, panting and scrambling up the rocks, and then, very suddenly,
they found themselves to be on only a plateau and the real mountain head
reared high and aloof above.

Under his breath--and not particularly under it, either--Johnny Byrd
uttered a distinct blasphemy.

And in her heart Maria Angelina awfully seconded it.

Then with decidedly assumed nonchalance, "Gosh! All that way to supper!"
said the young man. "Well, come on, then--we got to make a dent in
this."

"Oh, are you sure--are you _sure_ that this is the right mountain?"
Maria Angelina begged of him.

"Don't I know Baldy?" he retorted. "We're just on another side of it
from the others, I told you. Come on, Ri-Ri--we'll soon smell the coffee
boiling."

She wished he had not mentioned coffee. It put a name to that gnawing,
indefinite feeling she had been too intent to own.

Coffee . . . Fragrant and steaming, with bread and butter . . .
sandwiches filled with minced ham, with cream cheese, with olive
paste--sandwiches filled with anything at all! Cold chicken . . . salad
. . . fruit. Food in any form! _Food!!_

She felt empty. Utterly empty and disconsolate.

And she was tired. She had never known such tiredness--her feet ached,
her legs ached, her back ached, her arms ached. She could have dropped
with the achingness of her. Each effort was a punishment.

Yet she went on with a feverish haste. She was driven by a compulsion to
which fatigue was nothing.