ers and its tens of thousands of
square miles of forests; and beyond those things, still farther, were
the foothills, and beyond the foothills the mountains. And in those
mountains the river down there had its beginning.

She looked up swiftly, her eyes brimming with the golden flash of the
sun. "It is wonderful! And just over there is the town!"

"Yes, and beyond the town are the cities."

"And off there--"

"God's country," said Keith devoutly.

Mary Josephine drew a deep breath. "And people still live in towns and
cities!" she exclaimed in wondering credulity. "I've dreamed of 'over
here,' Derry, but I never dreamed that. And you've had it for years and
years, while I--oh, Derry!"

And again those two words filled his heart with gladness, words of
loving reproach, atremble with the mysterious whisper of a great
desire. For she was looking into the west. And her eyes and her heart
and her soul were in the west, and suddenly Keith saw his way as though
lighted by a flaming torch. He came near to forgetting that he was
Conniston. He spoke of his dream, his desire, and told her that last
night--before she came--he had made up his mind to go. She had come to
him just in time. A little later and he would have been gone, buried
utterly away from the world in the wonderland of the mountains. And now
they would go together. They would go as he had planned to go, quietly,
unobtrusively; they would slip away and disappear. There was a reason
why no one should know, not even McDowell. It must be their secret.
Some day he would tell her why. Her heart thumped excitedly as he went
on like a boy planning a wonderful day. He could see the swifter beat
of it in the flush that rose into her face and the joy glowing
tremulously in her eyes as she looked at him. They would get ready
quietly. They might go tomorrow, the next day, any time. It would be a
glorious adventure, just they two, with all the vastness of that
mountain paradise ahead of them.

"We'll be pals," he said. "Just you and me, Mary Josephine. We're all
that's left."

It was his first experiment, his first reference to the information he
had gained in the letters, and swift as a flash Mary Josephine's eyes
turned up to him. He nodded, smiling. He understood their quick
questioning, and he held her hand closer and began to walk with her
down the slope.

"A lot of it came back last night and this morning, a lot of it," he
explained. "It's queer what miracles sma