darkness into which the horses were plunging was mysterious
and appalling. Objects stood out enormously magnified, or distorted
grotesquely, in the uncertain light. It was like penetrating into the real
Inferno, like stumbling across the inspiration of Dante in all its
sinister splendor. It was the Inferno of his dream rather than the Inferno
of his poem; it had the ghastly reality of the unreal.

"It wouldn't surprise me if we had a smash-up in Clear Creek," said Mrs.
Yellett, just by way of adding her quota of cheerful speculation. She
ducked her head and whispered in Mary's ear:

"It's all along of me hirin' _him_! I wouldn't be surprised if paw died.
I'm thinkin' of shakin' him out after his teeth. 'Take not up with the
enemy of the Lord, lest he make of you also an enemy.'"

But there was no accent of apprehension in Mrs. Yellett's dismal
prognostications of the evil that might befall her for employing Leander.
She spoke more with the air of one who produces incidents to prove an
argument than of one who anticipates a calamity.

Leander, toothless and wretched, sitting on the side of the wagon, began
to show symptoms of joy comparable to that of the vanguard of the
Israelites, catching their first glimpse of the Promised Land. Touching
Mary Carmichael on the shoulder, he pointed to a white tent and the
remains of a camp-fire. Already Mrs. Yellett had begun to "Hallo, Ben!"
But Ben was at work at the vat, which was still a quarter of a mile
further up the mountain; so Mrs. Yellett, throwing the reins to Leander
and bidding him turn out the horses, lost no time in building a fire,
putting on coffee, and making her little party comfortable. So various was
her efficiency that she seemed no less at home in these simple domestic
tasks than when guiding her horses, goddess-like, through the cloud-burst.
And Mary Carmichael, succumbing gradually to the revivifying influence of
the fire and the hot coffee, acknowledged honestly to herself a warmth of
affection for her hostess and for the atmosphere Mrs. Yellett created
about her that made even Virginia and her aunts seem less the only pivot
of rational existence. She felt that she had come West with but one eye,
as it were, and countless prejudices, whereas her powers of vision were
fast becoming increased a hundredfold. How very tame life must be, she
reflected, as she sat smiling to herself, to those who did not know Mrs.
Yellett, how over-serious to those who did not