riding would
carry them home should they mistake the road. There was really no
danger.

It was a gorgeous day. The sun was shining with unabated splendour; as
yet it wanted an hour to noon. The brilliant daylight was somehow
different here to what it was on the prairie. The fierce sunlight
poured down upon an unbroken carpet of dull green, which seemed to
have in it a tinge of the blackness of the heavy tree-trunks which it
concealed beneath. The result was curiously striking. The brightness
of the day was dulled, and the earth seemed bathed in a peculiar light
such as a vault of grey rain-clouds above it bestows. The girls,
gazing into the valley which yawned at their feet, were looking into a
shadowed hollow of sombre melancholy--unchanging, unrelieved.

Beyond stretched a vista of hills, growing steadily greater as the
hazy distance was reached. Behind where they stood was the Owl Hoot
valley and woodlands, equally sombre, until the prairie was reached.

The moments passed, and they made no effort to move. They were both
lost in thought, and looked out across the wild woodlands with eyes
which beheld only that which was most profoundly beautiful. Prudence
was enjoying the scene, the redolent air which rose from the woods
below, the solitary grandeur of the world about her, with all the
appreciation of a prairie-bred girl. Alice merely saw and marvelled at
the picture before her. She was less enthusiastic, less used to such
surroundings than her companion. They affected her differently. She
marvelled, she wondered, but a peculiar nervousness was inspired by
what she beheld. At length Prudence took the initiative. She lifted
her reins and her horse moved forward.

"Come along, Alice," she said. And the two disappeared down the slope
into the giant forest below.

Once on their way Alice recovered her good spirits again. Within the
forest the world did not seem so vast, so confusing to the eye. On
either hand, ahead, were to be seen only bare tree-trunks beneath the
ponderous green canopy which shut out the sunlight from above. The
scrunch of the pine-cones crushing under the hoofs of the horses
carried a welcome sense of companionship to the riders. Alice found
the reality much less fearful than the contemplation from the heights
above. In a few moments both girls were chattering gaily, all thoughts
of losing themselves, or of other dangers which these virgin forests
might conceal, having passed from their minds.