distance. It was not so very far--but she could not get any word of
cheer across the quivering air lanes. She turned and looked wishfully
down at the Kid, a tinier speck now than before--for she had climbed
quite a distance She waved her hand to him, and her warm brown eyes held
a maternal tenderness. He waved his hat--just like a man; he must be
brave! she thought. She turned reluctantly and went hurrying down the
other side, her blood racing with the joy of having found him, and of
knowing that he was safe.

It seemed to take a long time to climb down that peak; much longer
than she thought it would take. She looked at her watch nervously--two
o'clock, almost! She must hurry, or they would be in the dark getting
home. That did not worry her very much, However, for there would be
searching parties--she would be sure to strike one somewhere in the
hills before dark.

She came finally down to the level--except that it was not level at all,
but a trough-shaped gulch that looked unfamiliar. Still, it was the same
one she had used as a starting point when she began to climb--of course
it was the same one. How in the world could a person get turned around
going straight up the side of a hill and straight down again in the very
same place. This was the gorge where her horse was tied, only it might
be that she was a little below the exact spot; that could happen, of
course. So Miss Allen went up the gorge until it petered out against the
face of the mountain--one might as well call it a mountain and be done
with it, for it certainly was more than a mere hill.

It was some time before Miss Allen would admit to herself that she had
missed the gorge where she had left her horse, and that she did not know
where the gorge was, and that she did not know where she was herself.
She had gone down the mouth of the gulch before she made any admissions,
and she had seen not one solitary thing that she could remember having
ever seen before.

Not even the peak she had climbed looked familiar from where she was.
She was not perfectly sure that it was the same peak when she looked at
it.

Were you ever lost? It is a very peculiar sensation--the feeling that
you are adrift in a world that is strange. Miss Allen had never been
lost before in her life. If she had been, she would have been more
careful, and would have made sure that she was descending that peak by
the exact route she had followed up it, instead of just taking it for
grant