.

"I could not sleep in there," she explained, rather breathlessly, "so I
came out to see the last of the moon. Of course I must go in again at
once."

"Must you? Why, I wonder? I couldn't sleep either. Let's stay where we
are!"

She asked, blushing: "But would that be quite proper?"

This first hint of conventionality in the girl surprised and rather
touched him. He saw that she was quite painfully aware of the prim
little wrapper, the unbound hair, the bare feet thrust into her shoes.

"Why, you little gray nun! Outdoors is quite as 'proper' as
indoors--rather more so, in fact. It's the onlooker that makes things
proper or improper, and here there are no onlookers.--This is all too
wonderful to waste in sleeping!"

It was wonderful. The girl drew a breath of keen, cold ozone into her
lungs.

"Isn't it queer," she said with a chuckle, "that mountains smell so
sweet and mountaineers--don't? Ugh! fancy living in that stuffy cabin!
All very well to sleep there once or twice for a lark, but to live
there--!" She rubbed her bare ankles together unhappily. "Mr. Channing,
do you suppose they were mosquitoes--?"

"Ssh!" he said. "I hold with the ancient belief that 'nothing exists
until it is named.' There'll be several more nights of those bunks, you
know.--If you find log-cabins open to suspicion, you ought to try the
picturesque thatched-roof cots of Mother England! These mountaineers
cling to the old traditions."

They laughed together, her slight barrier of shyness gone down in the
intimacy of sharing a common peril.

"But were you ever so close to the moon, before?" she asked dreamily.
"It is right face to face with us now. I believe we could step off into
it."

"As if it were a great golden door, opening into--who knows
where?--Suppose we try, Jacqueline? If we follow this ravine at our
feet, it will lead us to the edge of the mountain, and so to the
threshold of the moon, without a doubt. Only we must hurry if we are to
get there before the door closes."

She shook her head. "Too late! Long before we reached the end of the
ravine the moon would be gone, and then it would be dark as a pocket."

"Pooh! Who's afraid of the dark?" scoffed the city dweller in his
ignorance.

"It wouldn't be safe," she said seriously. "We'd never be able to find
our way back in the dark. Of course, if we had a lantern--" She dimpled
up at him suddenly. "Do you know, there is a lantern hanging just inside
the cabin door.