, and wiping his forehead, he entered camp and
threw himself on one of the rocks.

"Why, you ain't tired, are you Johnny?"

"Oh, oh, oh,--no, I--I--I ain't tired a bit!" and he wiped his brow, and
puffed and blowed, in spite of all his efforts to restrain himself.

"Why you like to climb the mountains, Johnny. Don't you know you said
you liked to climb the mountains better than to eat?"

"Oh, yes, yes--I--I like to climb a mountain. That is, I like to climb
one mountain at a time. But when there are two or three mountains all
piled up on top of one another, Oh, oh, oh!"

"Oh, Johnny! You to go to bragging about climbing mountains! You can't
climb mountains!" And again the girl, with shoes that would hardly hold
together, a dress in ribbons, and a face not unfamiliar with the dirt of
the earth, danced back and forth before him and sung snatches of a
mountain song. "Oh, I'm so happy up here, Johnny. I always sing like a
bird up here." Then, looking in his face, she saw that he was very
thoughtful; and stepping back, and then forward, she said: "Why, what
makes you so serious? They won't never come up here, will they, Johnny?
Not even if somebody at the Reservation wanted me awful bad, and
somebody gave somebody lots of money to take me back, they couldn't
never come up here, could they, Johnny?" And the girl looked eagerly
about.

"Oh, no, Carrie, you are safe here. Why, you are as safe here as in a
fort."

"This mountain is God's fort, John Logan says, Johnny. It is for the
eagles to live in and the free people to fly to; for my people to climb
up out of danger and talk to the Great Spirit that inhabits it." The
girl clasped her hands and looked up reverently as she said this. "But
come, now, Johnny, don't be serious, and I will sing you the nicest song
I know till Forty-nine comes up the mountain; and I will dance for you,
Johnny, and I will do all that a little girl can do to make you glad and
happy as I am, Johnny."

Here John Logan came up the hill, and the girl stopped and said, very
seriously,

"And you are right sure, John Logan, nobody will get after us
again?--nobody follow us away up here, jam up, nearly against Heaven?"

Here the two men looked out.

"No, Carrie, nobody will ever climb this high for you,--nobody, except
_somebody_ that loves you very much, and loves you very truly."

"Injins might, but white men won't, I guess; too stiff in the jints!"

And again the girl whirled and danced abo