now where the original Garden of Eden was!" Gloria, turning to
look back at him as he came on through a delightful flowery upland
meadow, sat her horse gracefully upon a slight hillock, herself and her
restless mount bathed in sunshine, her cheeks warm with the flush upon
them, her lips red with coursing life, her eyes dancing. "It's perfectly
lovely. It's pure heavenly!"

King nodded and smiled. He was not given to many words, grown taciturn
as are mountaineers inevitably, trained in long habit to approve in
silence of that which pleased him most. So, while Gloria's eager tongue
tripped along as busily as the brooks they forded, he was for the most
part silent. An extended arm to point out a big snow-plant, blood-red
against a little heap of snow, was as eloquent as the spoken word. Thus
he indicated much that might have passed unnoticed by Gloria, keenly
enjoying her lively admiration.

To-day he chose always the easier trails, since with the good horses
under them they had ample time to come to Loony Honeycutt's place well
before midday. Also they stopped frequently, King making an excuse of
showing her points of interest; the tiny valley where one could be sure
of a glimpse of a brown bear, the grazing-lands of mountain deer, the
pass into the cliff-bound hiding-place of the picturesque highwaymen of
an earlier day whence they drove stolen horses into Nevada, where they
secreted other horses stolen in Nevada and to be disposed of down in the
Sacramento Valley. There lasted until this very day the ruins of their
rock house, snuggled into the mountains under their lookout-point.

"It would be fun," said Gloria, the spell of the wilderness mysteries
upon her, her eyes half wistful and altogether serious, "to be lost out
here. Just to get far, far away from people and ever so close to the big
old mountains. Wouldn't it?" And a few minutes later she drew in her
horse and cried out softly: "Listen!" She herself was listening
breathlessly. "It sounds like the ocean ever so far off. Or--or like
shouting voices a million miles away. Or like the mountains themselves
whispering. It is hard to believe, isn't it? that it is just the wind in
the pines."

Another time, while, under the pretext of letting their horses blow,
King had suggested a short halt to give the girl a chance to rest, she
said with abruptness:

"What do you think of Mr. Gratton?"

Already she knew Mark King well enough to realize that he would either
r