I had expressed my
sentiments, he said, "I can't insure you against accidents,--any more
than you did me. If I had brought you here in spring, you might growl.
The rocks are loose then, and it is dangerous. A man was killed once
just below here, and his body never found till the year after." This
trivial occurrence seemed to turn his thoughts away from the important
topic, and I could not get him back to it.

It was a warm day for the season: once in a while it will be hotter in
these sylvan solitudes than it is in New York. While we were in the
brook we did not mind that, for we could drop every five minutes and
drink. I suppose I consumed some nine gallons of _aqua pura_ during the
morning: you can do this with impunity, because there is no ice in it,
and the bacteria are of the most wholesome kind. But by and by we
finished with the gorge: then we had to go across a sort of common, up
hill. There was no water now, and it was hot. After more trees, and a
steeper ascent, Jim said, "You'll get a view now." We came out on an
open place, with steep rocks beneath. Before us lay a wilderness, with
clearings here and there, and a background of mountains. The forests
were in their early November bloom; the country looked one great flower.
In the Alps or the Rockies they can give this odds, and beat it easily,
but it was pretty well for eastern America--and an occasion to be
improved. "Jim, if the crags don't appeal to you, this might. If you
don't feel up to moral grandeur, why not go in for peace? Let your
perturbed spirit catch the note of harmony from this landscape, and
drink in purity from this air."

"That is all very fine, and you would make a pretty fair exhorter--with
practice. But natural theology is not in my line. These hills look
nicely now, but it will be different within a month. If I am to learn
peace from a fine day, what from a stormy one? Nature changes for the
worse like us, and with less shame: she has no regrets for the past, no
care to keep up appearances or make a show of consistency."

"I fear you have been learning of Nature on her wrong side then. Half
confidences are in bad taste, Jim. What is it you keep hinting at? It
ought to be murder, from the airs you put on about it."

"Leave that for to-night, when we have nothing better to attend to.
There is another brook here we ought to try."

XXVIII.

DIPLOMACY.

We got back reasonably early, much less tired than the day before. Now,
I