it was not long until
Madeline and the feminine side of the party were comfortable, except for
the weariness and aches that only rest and sleep could alleviate.

Neither fatigue nor pains, however, nor the strangeness of being packed
sardine-like under canvas, nor the howls of coyotes, kept Madeline's
guests from stretching out with long, grateful sighs, and one by one
dropping into deep slumber. Madeline whispered a little to Florence,
and laughed with her once or twice, and then the light flickering on the
canvas faded and her eyelids closed. Darkness and roar of camp life,
low voices of men, thump of horses' hoofs, coyote serenade, the sense of
warmth and sweet rest--all drifted away.

*****

When she awakened shadows of swaying branches moved on the sunlit canvas
above her. She heard the ringing strokes of an ax, but no other sound
from outside. Slow, regular breathing attested to the deep slumbers of
her tent comrades. She observed presently that Florence was missing from
the number. Madeline rose and peeped out between the flaps.

An exquisitely beautiful scene surprised and enthralled her gaze. She
saw a level space, green with long grass, bright with flowers, dotted
with groves of graceful firs and pines and spruces, reaching to superb
crags, rosy and golden in the sunlight. Eager to get out where she could
enjoy an unrestricted view, she searched for her pack, found it in a
corner, and then hurriedly and quietly dressed.

Her favorite stag-hounds, Russ and Tartar, were asleep before the
door, where they had been chained. She awakened them and loosened them,
thinking the while that it must have been Stewart who had chained
them near her. Close at hand also was a cowboy's bed rolled up in a
tarpaulin.

The cool air, fragrant with pine and spruce and some subtle nameless
tang, sweet and tonic, made Madeline stand erect and breathe slowly
and deeply. It was like drinking of a magic draught. She felt it in
her blood, that it quickened its flow. Turning to look in the other
direction, beyond the tent, she saw the remnants of last night's
temporary camp, and farther on a grove of beautiful pines from which
came the sharp ring of the ax. Wider gaze took in a wonderful park, not
only surrounded by lofty crags, but full of crags of lesser height, many
lifting their heads from dark-green groves of trees. The morning sun,
not yet above the eastern elevations, sent its rosy and golden shafts in
between the