redecorated and enlarged to meet the increasing
requirements of fashion. I knew the forest of enormous redwoods where
one might lose one's self in a five minutes' walk from the veranda. I
knew the rocky trail that climbed the mountain to the springs, twisting
between giant boulders. I knew the arid garden, deep in the wayside
dust, with its hurriedly planted tropical plants, already withering in
the dry autumn sunshine, and washed into fictitious freshness, night
and morning by the hydraulic irrigating-hose. I knew, too, the cool,
reposeful night winds that swept down from invisible snow-crests beyond,
with the hanging out of monstrous stars, that too often failed to bring
repose to the feverish guests. For the overstrained neurotic workers
who fled hither from the baking plains of Sacramento, or from the chill
sea-fogs of San Francisco, never lost the fierce unrest that had driven
them here. Unaccustomed to leisure, their enforced idleness impelled
them to seek excitement in the wildest gayeties; the bracing mountain
air only reinvigorated them to pursue pleasure as they had pursued the
occupations they had left behind. Their sole recreations were furious
drives over break-neck roads; mad, scampering cavalcades through the
sedate woods; gambling parties in private rooms, where large sums were
lost by capitalists on leave; champagne suppers; and impromptu balls
that lasted through the calm, reposeful night to the first rays of light
on the distant snowline. Unimaginative men, in their temporary sojourn
they more often outraged or dispossessed nature in her own fastnesses
than courted her for sympathy or solitude. There were playing-cards left
lying behind boulders, and empty champagne bottles forgotten in forest
depths.

I remembered all this when, refreshed by a bath, I leaned from the
balcony of my room and watched the pulling up of a brake, drawn by six
dusty, foam-bespattered horses, driven by a noted capitalist. As
its hot, perspiring, closely veiled yet burning-faced fair occupants
descended, in all the dazzling glory of summer toilets, and I saw the
gentlemen consult their watches with satisfaction, and congratulate
their triumphant driver, I knew the characteristic excitement they had
enjoyed from a "record run," probably for a bet, over a mountain road in
a burning sun.

"Not bad, eh? Forty-four minutes from the summit!"

The voice seemed at my elbow. I turned quickly, to recognize an
acquaintance, a young