t of tops, miles of it, wrinkling
and billowing gently as here and there the conformation of the country
changed. At some distance it dropped over an edge. Beyond that, very
dimly, he realized the brown shimmer rising from the plain. Far to the
right was a tenuous smoke, a suggestion of thinning in the forest, a
flash of blue water. This, Bob knew, must be the mill and the lake.

The trail shortly made its way over the shoulder of the ridge and
emerged on the wide, gentle rounding of the crest. Here the trees were
small, stunted and wind-blown. Huge curving sheets of unbroken granite
lay like armour across the shoulder of the mountain. Decomposing granite
shale crunched under the horses' hoofs. Here and there on it grew
isolated tiny tufts of the hardy upland flowers. Above, the sky was
deeply, intensely blue; bluer than Bob had ever seen a sky before. The
air held in it a tang of wildness, as though it had breathed from great
spaces.

"I suppose this is the top of our ridge, isn't it?" Bob asked Jack
Pollock.

The boy nodded.

Suddenly the trail dipped sharp to the left into a narrow and shallow
little ravine. The bed of this was carpeted by a narrow stringer of
fresh grass and flowers, through which a tiny stream felt its hesitating
way. This ravine widened and narrowed, turned and doubled. Here and
there groups of cedars on a dry flat offered ideal shelter for a camp.
Abruptly the stringer burst through a screen of azaleas to a round green
meadow surrounded by the taller trees of the eastern slope of the
mountain.

In other circumstances Bob would have liked to stop for a better sight
of this little gem of a meadow. It was ankle deep with new grasses,
starred with flowers, bordered with pink and white azaleas. The air,
prisoned in a pocket, warmed by the sun, perfumed heavily by the
flowers, lay in the cup of the trees like a tepid bath. A hundred birds
sang in June-tide ecstasy.

But Jack Pollock, without pause, skirted this meadow, crossed the tiny
silver creek that bubbled from it down the slope, and stolidly mounted a
little knoll beyond. The trained pack horses swung along behind him,
swaying gently from side to side that they might carry their packs
comfortably and level. Bob turned involuntarily to glance at Amy. Their
eyes met. She understood; and smiled at him brightly.

Jack led the way to the top of the knoll and stopped.

Here the edge of the mountain broke into a tiny outcropping spur that
sho