d, had not been
conjured up in her by his words. But he still had hopes that the feeling
of the far-up shrine would weave enchantment of its own; and he told her
of the second sight that the fay of his mother's land could give if one
sang a song of the one right pitch in the glen of the "very stone."

So they rode through the sage to the trailing cedar robe and followed
upward till the upper edge of the fragrant woods was reached. There they
tied the horses and climbed on foot to the upland. The grass among the
rocks was yellow now, and high gentians seized on the rare moment to
flaunt their wondrous blue against that perfect background. A flock of
autumn birds rose up and flew on, as the climbers, reaching the Spirit
Rock, paused and turned to look out over the golden plains to the east,
over the blue hills to the north, and into the purple glow that the
waning sunlight left on all the west.

Belle rejoiced in it for its material beauty and its wealth of colour;
and Jim, shyly watching her, said:

"Sometimes as I stand by this rock pinnacle and look over the plain, I
feel as if I were an ocean rover, high up in the lookout, peering over
the rough and tumbling sea. It possesses me with more than the power of
a dream." Then, after a pause: "See, here is where the Indian boy was
sitting as he kept his fast and vigil. I wonder what he saw. Some day,
Belle, I want to take that vigil. Do you remember that the prophets of
old always did so when they sought light? I am learning that the Indian
had some light, and to-day I have done as he would do, I have brought my
sacred medicine with me." He produced a little cedar box that his father
had made. He opened it and deeply inhaled its fragrance. "That is cedar,
Belle; it carries me back to other days when, under the cedar shingles,
my mother put her arm about me and prayed that I might find the Eternal
Guide."

He took out his mother's Bible, her photograph and the daguerreotype of
his father. These were his sacred relics, and with them was a bundle of
cedar twigs to keep the fragrance ever there--to keep continually with
them the power, through smell, to conjure up those days and thoughts of
her love. Belle took them reverently and gazed at the prim old pictures;
then she looked him squarely in the eyes, intensely for a moment, like
one who looks through a veil for the first time and sees a hidden
chamber unguessed before.

"Belle," he said, and his voice was a little husky