,
cold father. So will you meet the world all the better; and, little one,
you have a rough world to meet."

For a moment I was quite at a loss to account for my father's manner;
but now, in looking back, it is so easy to see into things. At the time
I must have been surprised, and full of puzzled eagerness.

Not half so well can I recall the weakness, anguish, and exhaustion of
body and spirit afterward. It may have been three days of wandering, or
it may have been a week, or even more than that, for all that I can say
for certain. Whether the time were long or short, it seemed as if it
would never end. My father believed that he knew the way to the house
of an old settler, at the western foot of the mountains, who had treated
him kindly some years before, and with whom he meant to leave me until
he had made arrangements elsewhere. If we had only gone straightway
thither, night-fall would have found us safe beneath that hospitable
roof.

My father was vexed, as I well remember, at coming, as he thought, in
sight of some great landmark, and finding not a trace of it. Although
his will was so very strong, his temper was good about little things,
and he never began to abuse all the world because he had made a mistake
himself.

"Erema," he said, "at this corner where we stand there ought to be a
very large pine-tree in sight, or rather a great redwood-tree, at least
twice as high as any tree that grows in Europe, or Africa even. From the
plains it can be seen for a hundred miles or more. It stands higher up
the mountainside than any other tree of even half its size, and that
makes it so conspicuous. My eyes must be failing me, from all this
glare; but it must be in sight. Can you see it now?"

"I see no tree of any kind whatever, but scrubby bushes and yellow
tufts; and oh, father, I am so thirsty!"

"Naturally. But now look again. It stands on a ridge, the last ridge
that bars the view of all the lowland. It is a very straight tree, and
regular, like a mighty column, except that on the northern side the wind
from the mountains has torn a gap in it. Are you sure that you can not
see it--a long way off, but conspicuous?"

"Father, I am sure that I can not see any tree half as large as a
broomstick. Far or near, I see no tree."

"Then my eyes are better than my memory. We must cast back for a mile or
two; but it can not make much difference."

"Through the dust and the sand?" I began to say; but a glance from him