ked. "This is out
West. Shiver and wait on yourself!"

Never before had she undressed so swiftly nor felt grateful for thick
woollen blankets on a hard bed. Gradually she grew warm. The blackness,
too, seemed rather comforting.

"I'm only twenty miles from Glenn," she whispered. "How strange! I
wonder will he be glad." She felt a sweet, glowing assurance of that.
Sleep did not come readily. Excitement had laid hold of her nerves, and
for a long time she lay awake. After a while the chug of motor cars, the
click of pool balls, the murmur of low voices all ceased. Then she heard
a sound of wind outside, an intermittent, low moaning, new to her ears,
and somehow pleasant. Another sound greeted her--the musical clanging
of a clock that struck the quarters of the hour. Some time late sleep
claimed her.

Upon awakening she found she had overslept, necessitating haste upon her
part. As to that, the temperature of the room did not admit of leisurely
dressing. She had no adequate name for the feeling of the water. And
her fingers grew so numb that she made what she considered a disgraceful
matter of her attire.

Downstairs in the lobby another cheerful red fire burned in the grate.
How perfectly satisfying was an open fireplace! She thrust her numb
hands almost into the blaze, and simply shook with the tingling pain
that slowly warmed out of them. The lobby was deserted. A sign directed
her to a dining room in the basement, where of the ham and eggs and
strong coffee she managed to partake a little. Then she went upstairs
into the lobby and out into the street.

A cold, piercing air seemed to blow right through her. Walking to the
near corner, she paused to look around. Down the main street flowed a
leisurely stream of pedestrians, horses, cars, extending between two
blocks of low buildings. Across from where she stood lay a vacant lot,
beyond which began a line of neat, oddly constructed houses, evidently
residences of the town. And then lifting her gaze, instinctively drawn
by something obstructing the sky line, she was suddenly struck with
surprise and delight.

"Oh! how perfectly splendid!" she burst out.

Two magnificent mountains loomed right over her, sloping up with
majestic sweep of green and black timber, to a ragged tree-fringed snow
area that swept up cleaner and whiter, at last to lift pure glistening
peaks, noble and sharp, and sunrise-flushed against the blue.

Carley had climbed Mont Blanc and she had s