nger meet with nobler applause, for the cheers
from below in the canyon were joined with those from above on the
plateau, and were echoed and re-echoed among the rocks, the last
reverberations dying away and mingling with the roar of the distant
cascades.

As the camping party seemed in no haste to continue their journey,
Miss Gladden with the gentlemen then came forward to the edge of the
plateau, and all joined in singing a few familiar songs, some of them
accompanied by the guitar and the violin, after which, the party in
the canyon, with much waving of hats and handkerchiefs, and many
cheers in token of their appreciation, passed on their way.

After this little episode, a gypsy fire was kindled, and in a short
time the rock table was spread with a dainty feast; chicken
sandwiches, mountain trout, which Lyle had caught in the morning,
delicately broiled, and the sweet, wild strawberries served in various
ways, all equally tempting and delicious. After the feast, Houston
proved himself an adept upon the violin, and he and Rutherford gave a
number of college songs, and old plantation songs and dances,
accompanied by the violin and banjo.

At last, as the long, gray twilight was slowly deepening, and the
stars silently marshaling their forces in the evening sky, the two
boats drifted across the lake, only guided, not propelled, by the
oars, and the air, for a while, was filled with song. As they slowly
approached the shore, however, the singing gradually ceased. For a
while Rutherford talked of the coming of his brother; then he and Lyle
were silent, but from the other boat, at a little distance, came low,
murmuring tones. They had just entered upon the first pages of that
beautiful story, old as eternity itself, and as enduring; the only one
of earth's stories upon whose closing page, as we gaze with eyes dim
with the approaching shadows of death, we find no "finis" written, for
it is to be continued in the shadowless life beyond.

Rutherford was thinking of some one far away, under European skies,
and wishing that she were present with him there, to make his
happiness complete.

And Lyle, with that face of wondrous beauty, yet calm and inscrutable
as that of the sphinx, had any power as yet passed over the hidden
depths of her woman's nature, and troubled the waters? Were those
eyes, with their far-away look, gazing into the past with its strange
darkness and mystery, or striving to pierce the dim, impenetrable