vacated seat next the window,
the peaks stood apart, and far, far below the untouched forest at the
summer resort stood out darkly, with the gay eaves and gables of the hotel
etched on it like a toy Swiss chalet on a green plateau.

"Oh," she cried softly, "it never seemed as charming before; but, of
course, it is coming, as we have, straight from the hot desert. There's
the coolest, fragrant wood road down there, Mr. Tisdale, from the hotel to
Surprise Falls. It follows the stream past deep green pools and cascades
breaking among the rocks. Listen. We should hear the river now."

Tisdale smiled. There was nothing to be heard but the echo of the running
trucks and the scream of the whistle repeated from cliff and spur. They
were switchbacking down the fire-scarred front of a mountain. He bent a
little to look beyond her. It was as though they were coasting down a
tilted shelf in an oblique wall, and over the blackened skeletons of firs
he followed the course of the river out through crowding blue buttes.
Returning, his glance traced the track, cross-cutting up from the gorge.

"I know Surprise Falls," he said; "and the old Skykomish from start to
finish. There's a point below the Springs where the current boils through
great flumes of granite into a rocky basin. Long before the hotel was
thought of, I fished that pool."

"I know! I know!" she responded, glowing. "We--Miss Morganstein and her
brother and I--found it this summer. We had to work down-stream across
those fissures to reach it, but it was worth the trouble. There never was
another such pool. It was like a mighty bowl full of dissolving emeralds;
and the trout loved it. We caught twenty, and we built a fire on the rocks
and cooked them. It was delightfully cool and shady. It was one of those
golden days one never forgets; I was sorry when it was gone." She paused,
the high wave of her excitement passed. "I never could live in that
treeless country," she went on. "Water, running as God made it, plenty of
it, is a necessity to me. But please take your seat, Mr. Tisdale." She
settled back in her place and began to date her telegram. "I am just
sending the briefest message to let Mrs. Feversham know where I am."

"The porter is coming back for it now," he answered "And thank you, but I
am going in the smoking-car."

As he approached the vestibule, he caught her reflection in the mirror at
the end of the sleeper. She was looking after him, and she leaned forwar