t least I'd have said so until he mentioned the
third cave. I've been there dozens of times, too, but I've got to see
more than two caves there yet."

Together they had read the crabbed lines in the Bible; they had been
silent thereafter as to each came imagined pictures like ghosts from the
past; ghosts of greed and envy and despair. Now Gloria mused aloud:

"I wonder--do you suppose we'll find it as he says?"

"At least we'll see about it. And whether there be heaps and piles of
red, red gold, as the tale telleth, be sure our trip is going to be
worth the two days' ride. I'll show you such chasms and gorges and crags
as you've never turned those two lovely eyes of yours upon, Mrs. Gloria
King." (He couldn't abstain absolutely from all love-making.) "And a
little grove of sequoias which belongs to me. Or, at least, I believe I
am the only man who knows where they are. Friends of mine, those big
fellows are, five old noble-souled monarchs."

She looked interested and treated him to a fleeting smile, but asked
curiously:

"How can a man speak of a tree that way? As though it were alive--" She
broke off, laughing, and amended: "But they _are_ alive, aren't they? I
mean--human."

"Why, you poor little city-bred angel," he cried heartily. "You will
answer your own question inside of two days. No doubt I'm going to grow
jealous of old Vulcan and Thor and Majesty. Sure, I've named them," he
chuckled. "And you'll come with me into their dim cathedral to-morrow at
dusk and listen with me to their old sermon. A man ought to go to church
to them at least once a year, to keep his soul cleaned out and growing
properly."

Gloria appeared thoughtful; that she was interested just now less in
that of which he spoke than in the man himself he did not suspect. She
was noting how he spoke of trees as friends; how he was different from
other men whom she knew in that he stood so much closer to the ancient
mother, the wilderness now embracing them. Instinctively she knew that
it behoved her to penetrate as deeply as she might into the inner nature
of this man who, hardly more than a pleasant, attractive stranger
yesterday, was to-day her husband.

"What is the oldest thing in the world?" he asked her abruptly.

She wrinkled her brows prettily at him.

"Church to-morrow evening and school now?" she countered lightly.

"Answer," insisted King. "Just at a rough guess what would you say was
the oldest thing in the world?"

Gloria