as scant soil;
here the winds raged and the snow heaped itself high in the late fall
and remained, icy-crusted, into late summer; and here, now, the
springtime had just come. Never had Gloria seen more beautiful flowers,
flowers half so delicate-looking. And yet how hardy they must be, to
live here at all!

"You are like these flowers," King said quite gravely and with
sincerity. Gloria told him, also gravely and sincerely, that that was
the finest compliment she had ever received--she hoped that he meant it.
At least she understood and she would like to be like them.

His camp was in a little nearly level spot, sheltered by crags and so
hidden by them that one must come fairly upon it before guessing its
proximity. Back of it rose cliffs so sheer that Gloria craned her neck
to look up at them. Below were the headwaters of the creek; across it
the steep slope of the other canon wall. On all hands bleak, naked rock
with tiny blossoms here and there between in the shallow soil and the
carpeting of pygmy pine and flattened cedar. Only infrequently did a
tree, with roots gripping like claws, lift its ragged top above the big
boulders. A wild place, savagely silent save for the hissing of the wind
around the cliffs above.

King brought water from the creek. He showed her where he had hidden his
few camp utensils; the one small pot, one frying-pan, one cup, one
spoon. To these he added his big-bladed pocket-knife. He made a fire
where already there was a little heap of charred coals against a
blackened rock, and they made coffee and cooked bacon. Gloria used a
stick which he had pointed for her to turn the bacon. They took turns
with the one cup.

"What was it like up on the cliff tops?" King did not know; he had not
yet been up there. And would it take long to climb them? Not over an
hour, he estimated; if she wasn't tired? It was decided that King would
have his postprandial smoke up there; where they could sit and look out
"across the top of the world."

As they climbed they came into a current of rushing air. Higher up the
wind strengthened. They stood poised on boulders, their shoulders thrown
back, heads up, lungs filling. Gloria's hair was whipped out from under
her turban; it blew across her face; a strand of it fluttered across
King's eyes, brushed his lips. He gave her his hand up a steep place
down which they sent a cascade of disintegrating stone. They stood side
by side, shoulders brushing, resting, breathi