ight it
is a pleasure to see the lights, and sometimes, when the wind is right,
there is music of bands."

"Poor Oscar!" laughed Armitage.

His mood had not often in his life been so high.

On his flight northward from Washington and southward down the Atlantic
capes, the thought that Shirley Claiborne and her family must now believe
him an ignoble scoundrel had wrought misgivings and pain in his heart;
but at least he would soon be near her--even now she might be somewhere
below in the lovely valley, and he drew off his hat and stared down upon
what was glorified and enchanted ground.

"Let us go," he said presently.

Oscar saluted, standing bridle in hand.

"You will find it easier to walk," he said, and, leading their horses,
they retraced their steps for several hundred yards along the ridge, then
mounted and proceeded slowly down again until they came to a mountain
road. Presently a high wire fence followed at their right, where the
descent was sharply arrested, and they came to a barred wooden gate, and
beside it a small cabin, evidently designed for a lodge.

"This is the place, sir," and Oscar dismounted and threw open the gate.

The road within followed the rough contour of the hillside, that still
turned downward until it broadened into a wooded plateau. The flutter of
wings in the underbrush, the scamper of squirrels, the mad lope of a
fox, kept the eye busy. A deer broke out of a hazel thicket, stared at
the horsemen in wide-eyed amazement, then plunged into the wood and
disappeared.

"There are deer, and of foxes a great plenty," remarked Oscar.

He turned toward Armitage and added with lowered voice:

"It is different from our old hills and forests--yes? but sometimes I
have been homesick."

"But this is not so bad, Oscar; and some day you shall go back!"

"Here," said the soldier, as they swung out of the wood and into the
open, "is what they call the Port of Missing Men."

There was a broad park-like area that tended downward almost
imperceptibly to a deep defile. They dismounted and walked to the edge
and looked down the steep sides. A little creek flowed out of the wood
and emptied itself with a silvery rush into the vale, caught its breath
below, and became a creek again. A slight suspension bridge flung across
the defile had once afforded a short cut to Storm Springs, but it was now
in disrepair, and at either end was posted "No Thoroughfare." Armitage
stepped upon the loose planking