XIII.

A GOLDEN VISTA.

Tramp, tramp, tramp,--the heavy boots had sounded on the road,--tramp,
tramp, tramp! since Sunday morning, and now it was Tuesday noon. Often
for hours together there had been no witness to the steady march, save
the lordly pine-trees, standing straight and grand in the mountain
"parks," or scaling boldly the precipitate sides of the encroaching
cliffs; the cliffs themselves, frowning sternly above the path; and
always somewhere on the horizon, towering above the nearer hills or
closing in the end of the valley, a snowy peak gleaming like a
transcendent promise against the sky. Waldo Kean, as he strode steadily
down from his father's mountain ranch toward a wonderful new future
whose door was about to be flung wide to him, felt the inspiration of
those rugged mountain influences, the like of which had been his
familiars all the seventeen years of his life. The chattering brooks
had nothing to say to him as they came dashing down from the hills to
join the rollicking stream whose course his path followed; the
sunflowers, gilding the edge of the road, were but frills and furbelows
to his thinking. But in the pine-trees there was a perfectly clear
significance,--in those hardy growths, finding a foothold among the
rocks, drawing sustenance from Heaven knew where, yet ever growing
skyward, straight and tall and strong. As he passed among them, standing
at gracious intervals in the broad "parks," they seemed to flush with
understanding and sympathy. His way led from north to south and as often
as he turned and looked back among the trees, the stems glowed ruddily
and his heart warmed to them. He knew that it was merely the southern
exposure that had tinged their bark and caused that friendly glow, but
he liked it all the same.

Now and then the solitude was relieved by the appearance of a horseman
riding with flapping arms and jingling spurs up the pass; or again the
silence was broken by the inconsequent bleating of a flock of sheep
wandering in search of their scant pasturage or huddling together, an
agitated mass of grimy wool, its outskirts painfully exposed to the
sharp but well-intentioned admonitions of a somewhat irascible collie.
Neither man nor beast took special note of the overgrown boy striding so
confidently on his way, nor was one observer more likely than the other
to guess what inspiring thoughts were animating the roughly clad,
uncouth form. The boy's clothes were shabby and tr