which made a dim twilight of midday.

Two miles of this pleasant shade, fragrant with the spicy balsam of
the forest, and the road began to turn to the left, across the spine
of the ridge and into the deep ravine. Presently he heard the bawling
of the stream somewhere through the undergrowth below him, its gurgle
and clatter making merry music with the swish of the stirring
pine-tops. And suddenly, as he made a sharp turn, he drew in his horse
with a little exclamation of surprise.

Here the road plunged abruptly downward and across the rocky bed of
Indian Creek. Just above the crossing, so near that a passing vehicle
must be sprinkled with the spray of its headlong leaping waters, was a
waterfall flashing in white and crystal down a cliff of black rock ten
feet high. On either side the stately pine-trees, their lowest limbs
forty feet above the ground, marched in patriarchal dignity to the
edge of the stream. And above the waterfall, farther back between the
jaws of the ravine, Conniston could see the red-tiled roofing and
snow-white towers of such a house as he had never dreamed of finding
lost in the Western wilderness.

He rode on down into the stream and across. Upon the other side the
road again ran on into the canon, climbing twenty feet up a gradual
slope. And here upon the top of the bank Conniston again drew in his
reins with a jerk, again surprised at what he saw before him.

Here was a long, wide bench of land which had been carefully leveled.
Through the middle of it ran the creek. Feeding the waterfall was a
dam, its banks steep, its floor, seen through the clear water, white
sand. And it was more than a dam; it was a tiny mountain lake. A
drifting armada of spotlessly white ducks turned their round, yellow
eyes upon the trespasser. Over yonder a wide flight of stone steps
led to the water's edge. And the flat table-land, bordered with a
dense wall of pines and firs, was a great lawn, brilliantly green,
thick strewn with roses and geraniums and a riot of bright-hued
flowers Conniston did not know.

He turned his eyes to the house itself. It was a great, two-storied,
wide-verandaed building, with spacious doors, deep-curtained windows,
a tower rising above the red tiles of the roof at each corner,
everywhere the gleam of white columns. Each tower had its balconies,
and each balcony was guessed more than seen through the green and red
and white of clambering roses.

Midway between the broad front ste