little young-old lady opposite with a
hectic flush, and very protuberant hard mouth and beady little brown
eyes. Eleanor noticed the brown eyes were accompanied by red hair, and
she recognized the presiding genius of the English Colony.

"A beautiful morning for a ride down the Valley," remarked Eleanor
absently.

"What? I beg your pardon? Did you speak to me?"

It wasn't the words. It was the hard tone of surprise.

"We're in luck to have such a morning to ride down," amplified Eleanor.

"Yes," said the lady with the hectic flush; and Eleanor felt the gold
teeth simpering beneath the undertaker's plumes.

What was it? Eleanor took a second look at the two women, and
recognized both, the Sheriff's wife and the English lady. They were
arrayed gorgeously, her neighbor across in lavender silk, her elbow
traveller in black with a profusion of cheap lace round the ash colored
V of exposed skin: Eleanor wished the woman had powdered all the way
down. She, herself, had come garbed for the dust of stage travel, a
broad brimmed English sailor and a kakhi duster motoring coat. Was it
because she was not garbed as the others that they rebuffed her
friendly overtures, she wondered. At the next stop, she passed out to
go up and ride on the driver's seat, manifestly an impossible feat for
ladies in lavender and undertaker's plumes. A fat hand reached forward
to shove the door open. It was Bat Brydges'. She nodded her thanks,
and the handy man bowed with a sweep of his hat naming her aloud for
the whole stage to hear. If a look could have blasted Mr. Bat Brydges,
he would have been dissolved in gaseous matter from the expression that
passed over the face under the sailor hat. She heard the hilarity
break bounds inside as she mounted the driver's seat; and felt very
much as you have felt when you have come out of the clatter of the
orchestra pit where you have chanced to sit next to a musk-scented
neighbor.

But she forgot the lavender grandee and the gold teeth and the
undertaker's plumes, as she sat on the upper seat with the one-armed
driver behind the double tandem grays. The sun was coming up over the
Rim Rocks in a half fan of fire; and the light was on the Ridge; and
all the silver cataracts tossing down the sheer wall shone wind-blown
spray against the evergreens. The Valley widened as it dropped to the
leap and fume and swirl of the foaming river; and the double tandem
grays kept step with a proud ch