f feet there were
Angela refused to be told, for the distance seemed illimitable, and cold
facts might dwarf imagination. They saw the Yosemite Falls, a quivering
white vein on a dark wall a million miles away. Mirror Lake was a splinter
of glass on a pavement of green tiles. Nevada and Vernal Falls were pale
yet bright as streaks of stardrift, in the blue haze of distance.

If it had not been for the episode of Mrs. Hilliard and Mr. May, Nick
might have felt tempted to try his fate, and dare the dash across the
"dead line," that evening of moonlight on the mountain-top. But it might,
he thought, seem like presuming on what had happened; and having come,
more or less safely, round an awkward turning, he was thankful to find
himself on a narrow ledge of security. The moonshine, that turned
mountains to marble and sky to pearl, was cold as it was pure; and in its
bleaching radiance Angela seemed less woman than spirit. He dared not let
that angel know how hot was his heart.

"I'll wait till we're among the Big Trees," he said to himself. "They're
great, as great as the mountains in their way, but they're friendly and
kind, as if they might help. That's where I'll risk it all: in the
Mariposa Forest, the place I like better than any other in the world. So
whatever happens, we shall have seen the best there is together, and all
that will be mine to remember, if I lose everything else."

The next day was a day of forest and flowers.

They were not travelling this time in an ordinary stage, for Nick had
secured a buckboard for themselves alone, with a driver who knew the
country, with its beauties and legends, as well as he knew his big
muscular gray horses.

Those never-ending, cathedral-forests of America's. National Park were
wilder than any that Angela had imagined. She hardly believed that the
great redwoods which she was to see to-morrow could be grander than these
immense fluted columns of cedar and pine. In the arms of the biggest and
most virile trees, many slender sapling shapes, storm-broken, or tired of
facing life alone, lay helplessly. But the driver's heart was proof
against a romantic view of this situation, as sketched by Angela. "It
oughtn't to be allowed," he said, sternly. "Think of the danger in fire.
That's what is called by the foresters, 'extra hazard,' as I guess Mr.
Hilliard knows."

Oh, yes, Nick knew. But, seeing with Angela's eyes, he envied the
lover-trees their peril. He, a lonely tree, ha