he storm on Long's Peak height;
Yet wild winds shrieked as heads were bow'd
To gaze with awe at the snowy shroud
In which she slept on her boulder bed.
"She lay to rest,--she's gone," they said.

"Oh, dear, isn't it sad?" said Hazel and Miss Asquith in a breath.

"She died alone?" queried Cal.

"Yes, sir," spoke up a guide, "both of us would have perished, but she
was true grit to the last. I thought she might hold out, but the storm
grew worse as it grew darker."

"Do you have such awful storms as early as September?" asked Hazel.

[Illustration: "SHE LAY TO REST," ON HER BOULDER BED.]

"Sometimes the first winter blizzards are pretty rough up here;
generally get a starter any time after the middle of September,"
answered another guide.

"We had better be moving," said Jack.

"One moment, please. Would you mind giving me a copy of those verses
when we get to the ranch? I would like to show them to visitors," said
the guide.

"Certainly, certainly; why, just take the prayer book. We will all put
our names in here right now and you can keep it to remember us by,"
replied Jack.

The dragging of swollen feet, weary bodies and aching limbs back over
that two miles of desolation was full of torture for all. The expected
relief when the horses were reached proved but an additional
multiplicity of aches, especially in the joints of the knees, where it
seemed as though iron pins were crunching the very cavities of those
valuable adjuncts to man's usefulness.

Hazel cried, Chiquita even complained, and poor Miss Asquith,--well, Cal
had his hands full. He showed his frontier gallantry by picking her up
and carrying her down one steep grade as though she were but an infant,
and the episode did more to reinvigorate the dejected spirits of the
entire party than anything that could have happened.

Nevertheless the Half Way house welcomed a hungry, cross, disgruntled
aggregation of mountain climbers.

Said Jack as the guide bid him good-bye, "Don't you ever get tired of
seeing these peak scalers come near the place? They are all alike on the
home stretch, if they are able to stand up at all."

"I must say I do. I wouldn't care if no one ever again wanted to make
that fool climb. Why, that senseless trip has often put folks to the bad
for months. They can ride up Pike's Peak, but they don't know what
climbing is until they tackle that old fellow. Well, adios; I'll say
this much, you've been the jolliest party