aking the trail to lift up the
heart--and on a June morning in the north! Troubles, heart-aches and
anxieties were left behind with the houses. Even Mary Moosa beamed in
her inscrutable way.

Stonor experienced a fresh access of confidence, and proceeded to
deceive himself all over again. "I'm cured!" he thought. "There's
nothing to mope about. She's my friend. Anything else is out of the
question, and I will not think of it again. We'll just be good pals like
two fellows. You can be a pal with the right kind of girl, and she is
that.--But better than any fellow, she's so damn good to look at!"

It was a lovely park-like country with graceful, white-stemmed poplars
standing about on the sward, and dark spruces in the hollows. The grass
was starred with flowers. When Nature sets out to make a park her style
has a charming abandon that no landscape-gardener can ever hope to
capture. After they mounted the low bench the country rolled shallowly,
flat in the prospect, with a single, long, low eminence, blue athwart
the horizon ahead.

"That's the divide between the Spirit and the Swan," said Stonor. "We'll
cross it to-morrow. From here it looks like quite a mountain, but the
ascent is so gradual we won't know we're over it until we see the water
flowing the other way."

Clare rode Miles Aroon, Stonor's sorrel gelding, and Stonor rode the
other police horse, a fine dark bay. These two animals fretted a good
deal at the necessity of accommodating their pace to the humble pack
animals. These latter had a stolid inscrutable look like their native
masters. One in particular looked so respectable and matter-of-fact that
Clare promptly christened her Lizzie.

Lizzie proved to be a horse of a strong, bourgeois character. If her
pack was not adjusted exactly to her liking, she calmly sat on her
haunches in the trail until it was fixed. Furthermore, she insisted on
bringing up the rear of the cavalcade. If she was put in the middle, she
simply fell out until the others had passed. In her chosen place she
proceeded to fall asleep, with her head hanging ever lower and feet
dragging, while the others went on. Stonor, who knew the horse, let her
have her way. There was no danger of losing her. When she awoke and
found herself alone, she would come tearing down the trail, screaming
for her beloved companions.

Stonor rode at the head of his little company with a leg athwart his
saddle, so he could hold converse with Clare behind.