"You aren't going into that torrent now, in the dark!"
"Please let me. It's perfectly safe, and I never wanted to do anything so much in my life."
"You funny child!" he said, and walked off, according to orders.
Bob slid out of her clothes and plunged boldly into the icy torrent. She jumped up and down and squealed, she tried to swim, she laughed up at the moon, and was back into her clothes in a jiffy. At her call Paul plunged out of the trees to the rescue.
"No, I've been in. It's wonderful. Now, I want a drink of brandy, and my bark bed."
He laughed, came to the rescue with a flask, and led her to the place where Bill had spread her blankets.
"Good-night, Undine Goldfish," said Paul, and left her.
Presently, wrapped in her steamer rugs, she slid into sleep, like a mermaid into the sea. About three o'clock Paul turned over to throw a log on the fire, when a small figure, dragging blankets, came into view.
"Oh, the night is so big and there's so much sky, it scares me."
"Yes. I want to lie near the fire and you."
"Poor kid, she wants the lights o' home. Lie here where it's warm."
[Illustration: "He tended the fire that was between them"]
So until morning she lay on one side, and Paul on the other, while he tended the fire that was between them.
All days are alike in the mountains, all days are marvellously different. It seems sometimes as if a giant hand must push the great hills into new positions and relationships. Then the sky artist makes such daring experiments in shape and colour, as no Cubist ever dreamed of. People say they tire of the mountains and prefer the sea, because it is ever changing, but no man with the seeing eye ever makes that mistake. The sea soothes or irritates, but the mountains rouse the spiritual sources of your being--they are vision makers; they stretch you to your fullest measure, if you go to them with yearning.
The second day of their first expedition they jogged back to the ranch after an early supper on the heights. Barbara went on to the main house to see if hot water could be gotten for a bath, and came back chuckling.
"The bath-tubs are in the laundry house. You get a ticket. I'm thirteen. I hope this isn't a popular hour."
When she set forth laden with towels and soap Paul laughed.