wering, trembling form on the bed.
"There, there, dear, it's all right."

The woman of the disfigured face caught Sibyl's hand, impulsively.
"I--I--was dreaming again," she whispered, "and--and this time--O
Sibyl--this time, I dreamed that it was _you_."

Chapter XXI

The Last Climb

That first visit of Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange to the old home of
Sibyl Andres was the beginning of a delightful comradeship.

Often, in the evening, the two men, with Czar, went to spend an hour in
friendly intercourse with their neighbors up the canyon. Always, they were
welcomed by Myra Willard with a quiet dignity; while Sibyl was frankly
delighted to have them come. Always, they were invited with genuine
hospitality to "come again." Frequently, Brian Oakley and perhaps Mrs.
Oakley would be there when they arrived; or the Ranger would come riding
into the yard before they left. At times, the canyon's mountain wall
echoed the laughter of the little company as Sibyl and the novelist played
their fantastical game of words; or again, the older people would listen
to the blending voices of the artist and the girl as, in the quiet hush of
the evening, they sang together to Myra Willard's accompaniment on the
violin; or, perhaps, Sibyl, with her face upturned to the mountain tops,
would make for her chosen friends the music of the hills.

Not infrequently, too, the girl would call at the camp in the sycamore
grove--sometimes riding with the Ranger, sometimes alone; or they would
hear her merry hail from the gate the other side of the orchard as she
passed by. And sometimes, in the morning, she would appear--equipped with
rod or gun or basket--to frankly challenge Aaron King to some long ramble
in the hills.

So the days for the young man at the beginning of his life work, and for
the young woman at the beginning of her womanhood, passed. Up and down the
canyon, along the boulder-strewn bed of the roaring Clear Creek, from the
Ranger Station to the falls; in the quiet glades under the alders hung
with virgin's-bower and wild grape; beneath the live-oaks on the
mountains' flanks or shoulders; in dimly lighted, cedar-sheltered gulches,
among tall brakes and lilies; or high up on the canyon walls under the
dark and fragrant pines--over all the paths and trails familiar to her
girlhood she led him--showing him every nook and glade and glen--teaching
him to know, as he had asked, the mountains that she herself so loved.

The t