nd muddy slopes. The forest was
dripping, green, and silent now, a mysterious menacing jungle. All the
warmth and magic of the golden forest below was lost as though it
belonged to another and sunnier world. Nothing could be seen of the high,
snow-flecked peaks which had allured them from the valley. All about them
drifted the clouds, and yet through the mist the flushed face of the girl
glowed like a dew-wet rose, and the imperturbable Supervisor jogged his
remorseless, unhesitating way toward the dense, ascending night.

"I'm glad I'm not riding this pass alone," Wayland said, as they paused
again for breath.

"So am I," she answered; but her thought was not his. She was happy at
the prospect of teaching him how to camp.

At last they reached the ragged edge of timber-line, and there, rolling
away under the mist, lay the bare, grassy, upward-climbing, naked neck of
the great peak. The wind had grown keener moment by moment, and when they
left the storm-twisted pines below, its breath had a wintry nip. The rain
had ceased to fall, but the clouds still hung densely to the loftiest
summits. It was a sinister yet beautiful world--a world as silent as a
dream, and through the short, thick grass the slender trail ran like a
timid serpent. The hour seemed to have neither daytime nor season. All
was obscure, mysterious, engulfing, and hostile. Had he been alone the
youth would have been appalled by the prospect.

"Now we're on the divide," called Berea; and as she spoke they seemed to
enter upon a boundless Alpine plain of velvet-russet grass. "This is the
Bear Tooth plateau." Low monuments of loose rock stood on small ledges,
as though to mark the course, and in the hollows dark ponds of icy water
lay, half surrounded by masses of compact snow.

"This is a stormy place in winter," McFarlane explained. "These piles of
stone are mighty valuable in a blizzard. I've crossed this divide in
August in snow so thick I could not see a rod."

Half an hour later they began to descend. Wind-twisted, storm-bleached
dwarf pines were first to show, then the firs, then the blue-green
spruces, and then the sheltering deeps of the undespoiled forest opened,
and the roar of a splendid stream was heard; but still the Supervisor
kept his resolute way, making no promises as to dinner, though his
daughter called: "We'd better go into camp at Beaver Lake. I hope you're
not starved," she called to Wayland.

"But I am," he replied, so frankly