s all right. He'll be back
when he's got over being miffed. Why, he expected you to come tumblin'
down the ladder head over heels to see him--a handsome fellow like that!
Shucks! Haven't you ever dealt with the vanity of a young male before?
It's as jumpy as a rabbit. Get to work."

And, as though to justify Miss Blake's prophecy, just ten days later,
Hilliard did come again. It was a Sunday and Sheila had packed her
lunch and gone off on "Nigger Baby" for the day. The ostensible object
of her ride was a visit to the source of Hidden Creek. Really she was
climbing away from a hurt. She felt Hilliard's wordless departure and
prolonged absence keenly. She had not--to put it euphemistically--many
friends. Her remedy was successful. Impossible, on such a ride, to
cherish minor or major pangs. She rode into the smoky dimness of
pine-woods where the sunlight burned in flecks and out again across the
little open mountain meadows, jeweled with white and gold, blue and
coral-colored flowers, a stained-glass window scattered across the
ground. From these glades she could see the forest, an army of tall
pilgrims, very grave, going up, with long staves in their hands, to
worship at a high shrine. The rocks above were very grave, too, and
grim and still against the even blue sky. Across their purplish gray a
waterfall streaked down struck crystal by the sun. An eagle turned in
great, swinging circles. Sheila had an exquisite lifting of heart, a
sense of entire fusion, body blessed by spirit, spirit blessed by body.
She felt a distinct pleasure in the flapping of her short, sun-filled
hair against her neck, at the pony's motion between her unhampered
legs, at the moist warmth of his neck under her hand--and this physical
pleasure seemed akin to the ecstasy of prayer.

She came at last to a difficult, narrow, canon trail, where the pony
hopped skillfully over fallen trees, until, for very weariness of his
choppy, determined efforts, she dismounted, tied him securely, and made
the rest of her climb on foot. Hidden Creek tumbled near her and its
voice swelled. All at once, round the corner of a great wall of rock, she
came upon the head. It gushed out of the mountain-side in a tumult of
life, not in a single stream, but in many frothy, writhing earth-snakes
of foam. She sat for an hour and watched this mysterious birth from the
mountain-side, watched till the pretty confusion of the water, with its
half-interpreted voices, had dizzied