," I said, "miles away still. It will take
us another day to reach it."

"It will take you forever to reach it," was the half-growled retort.
"I ain't chasin' sunsets. Here's Happy Walley--my Happy Walley, right
below us, and the smoke you see curlin' up th'oo the trees is from the
John Shadrack clearin'."

A great wall, hardly a mile away, as the crow flies, the third mountain
rose, bare and forbidding. Below us, a narrow strip of evergreen wound
away to the south as far as our eyes could reach, and at wide intervals
thin columns of smoke sifting through the trees marked the abodes of
the dwellers of Tip's Elysium. Peace must be there, if peace dwells in
a land where all that breaks the stillness seems the drifting of the
smoke through the pine boughs. The mountain's shadow was over it and
deepening fast, warning us to hurry before the road was lost in
blackness. But away off there in the west, where a half score of peaks
lifted their summits above the nearer ranges, all purple and gold and
red, a heap of cloud coals glowed warm and beautiful over the sunset
land. My heart yearned for that land, but I had to turn from the
contemplation of its distant joys to the cold, gloomy reality below me.

The whip fell sharply across the gray colt's back, and he jumped ahead.
Down the steep slope, over rocks and ruts we clattered, the buggy
swinging to and fro, and Tip holding fast with both hands, muttering
warnings. The gray colt broke into a run. All my strength failed to
check him. Faster and faster we went, and now Tip was swearing. I
prayed for a level stretch or a bit of a hill, for the wagon had run
away too, and where the wagon and the horse join in a mad flight there
must come a sudden ending to their career. The mountain-road offered
me no hope. Steeper and steeper it was as we dashed on. Tip became
very quiet. Once I glanced from the fleeing horse to him, and I saw
that his face was white and set.

"Get out, Tip," I cried. "Jump back, over the seat."

"Not me," said he, grimly. "We come to Happy Walley together, me and
you, and together we'll finish the trip."

He lent a hand on the reins, but it was useless, for the wagon and the
horse were running away together, and there was nothing to do but to
try to guide them.

"Pull closer to the bank at the bend ahead," Tip cried.

Almost before the warning passed his lips we had shot around the
projecting rock, where the road had been cut from the mo