kboard" which was to take Nick and Angela had come to the hotel
door. But these two, at all times small eaters, were exhilarated by the
wine of life, and a little milk and bread sufficed them. They did not keep
the party waiting, and so they were regarded with favour--the handsome
young man and the lovely girl about whose relations to each other people
were quite good-naturedly speculating. Angela saw that she was regarded
with interest, and that eyes turned from her to Nick. But she was "only
Mrs. May, whom nobody knows." After the drive on the buckboard she and
Nick would be separating from the rest. That night, at Glacier Point, she
would find Kate, already arrived from El Portal; and then she would never
see any of these pleasant questioning-eyed young people again. The most
reckless part of the adventure would be over with this day--and she was
rather sorry. After all, she did not much regret the wave of fate which
had swept her and her maid-chaperon temporarily apart. There was a certain
piquancy in travelling alone with this knight-errant.

Mirror Lake--well-named--was asleep still, and dreaming of the mountains
which imprisoned it as dragons used to imprison princesses in glass
retorts. There was the dream, lying deep down and visible under the clear
surface; and when every one else had gone off to the trail ponies, Nick
and Angela stayed to watch the water's waking. It was a darting fish
which, with a splash and a ripple, shattered the picture; but the ripple
died, and the lake slept again, taking up its dream where it had been
broken off, as Angela had tried to do. She had failed, for her picture had
changed for the worse when she found it again; but the second dream of
Mirror Lake was fairer than the first. Into it there stole a joyous
luminance which made saints' haloes for the reflected heads of mountains.
The sun rose, and stepped slowly into the water's dream. It flung the lake
a golden loving cup, thrilling it to the heart with that bright gift.

A little farther on, by the Happy Isles--small, lovely islands of rock in
the river's whirl--Nick and Angela found their trail ponies waiting in
charge of a boy. But Nick knew the trail well, and was to be the sole
guide, as they had always planned. He put Angela up on an intelligent
brown bronco, which had to be ridden Mexican fashion; and they set off
together, the boy looking after them as if he, too, would have liked to
follow the trail.

Far ahead they cou