almost
overwhelming tranquillity. One rather shrinks from that kind of thing
when one is not used to it, and longs to do something to disturb it.
It's a natural impulse. When you see a smooth sheet of ice you
generally look for a big stone with which to smash it."

She swung around and favored her companion with a glance of critical
scrutiny; and there was no reason why Ida Stirling should shrink from
it. She sat leaning forward, looking out at the mountains with steady
eyes that had a half-smile in them. Her attitude was reposeful and her
face quiet; but there was something in both that faintly suggested a
decided character.

"I don't think I'm readily disturbed," she said.

"No," answered her companion reflectively, "but the disturbance will
no doubt come. You're in harmony with the key-tone of this valley; but
too much serenity isn't good for me; and it's probable that nobody
ever retains it very long. There's always the disturbing element in a
world that's full of men. It was, as I remarked, man who brought
trouble into Paradise."

Miss Kinnaird was addicted to talking a good deal of nonsense, and she
frequently wearied her listeners; but there was a certain shrewdness
in her, and at times she got near the truth. Indeed, her companion
afterward decided that she had done so in this case. Ida Stirling had
met many rising young men, and some who had made their mark, but none
of them had aroused in her the faintest thrill of unrest or passion.
So far, the depths of her nature had remained wholly unstirred. One
could almost have told it from her laugh as she answered her
companion's last observation.

"I thought it was woman's curiosity," she said; and then remembered
suddenly that on the previous evening she had certainly been a trifle
curious about the strange packer from the railroad gang.

Miss Kinnaird made no reply to this; but in a moment she stretched out
a pointing hand.

"Now," she said, "the disturbing element is obtruding itself."

Farther down the river there was a flash of something white amidst the
pale green shimmer of the flood. Ida rose, but her companion beckoned
her to sit down again.

"Oh," she said, a trifle impatiently, "don't be prudish. He's ever so
far off, and I've never had an opportunity to study anybody swimming."

It was, of course, Weston, who supposed himself far enough from camp
not to be troubled by spectators, swimming with a powerful side-stroke
upstream. Ida sat down aga