the spot the girl had
never before visited it. That she did so now, without knowledge of
anybody at home, gave her a sense of daring, almost of danger, as new as
it was fascinating. True, she had not been forbidden, simply because
nobody had thought of her wandering so far afield; yet the habit of her
life had been such as to make anything out of the common seem strange,
even wrong.

"However, since I'm here, I'll see what there is to see and tell them
all about it afterward--that is, if they will care to hear," she ended
her remark to the burro with a sigh, and for a bit forgot her
surroundings. Then she rallied, and with the spirit of an explorer,
peered curiously into all the delightful nooks and corners which
presented; not observing that the road grew steadily more steep and
rough, nor that Pepita's feet slipped and stumbled, warningly, among the
loose stones, which were so hidden by fallen leaves that Amy could not
see them. Along the sides, seasoning at convenient intervals, were rows
of felled timber, gay with a summer's growth of woodbine and clematis,
now ripened to scarlet and silvery white.

Amy was an artist's daughter. At every turn her trained eye saw
wonderful "bits" of pictures, and she exclaimed to Pepita:--

"If father were only here! See that great rock with its gray-green
lichens and its trailing crimson tendrils! Just that on a tiny canvas,
say six by eight or, even, eight by twelve, how it would brighten
mother's room!"

The "Californian" kicked the leaves impatiently. She had no eye for
"bits" of anything less material than sugar, and she had long since
finished her one lump; she was tired of travelling in the wrong
direction, with her head much lower than her heels, and she suddenly
stopped.

It was quite time. Another step forward would have sent them tobogganing
into a brawling stream. With a shiver of fear Amy realized this.

"O-oh! Oh! You knew best, after all! You wouldn't come till I made you;
and now--how shall we get out! Hark! What's that?"

The burro had already pricked up her ears. There was a shout from
somewhere.

Amy managed to slide off and fling herself flat against the slope. When
she tried to climb back to a less dangerous spot the twigs she clutched
broke in her hands and the rocks cut her flesh. The adventure which had
been fascinating was fast becoming frightful.

"Hil-loa! Hil-l-loa!"

Clinging desperately to the undergrowth, she managed to move her head
and