"She paused, swaying in the hot gale."
"To Rainier?"
"Yes, if I were only a man I shouldn't wait a day; I'd push right on to-morrow."
Forrest smiled, shaking his head. "The only two men who ever made that summit," and he looked off again to the brilliant slopes, "nearly perished. But Philip is talking of a trip to the mountain. He has promised your sister that he will bring her out to the Nisqually to see you before they go to Freeport, and he thinks he can go on, then, to Rainier."
"Then he must take me." She lost her hold against the wind, and for a moment it beat her back, struggling, laughing, from the bluff. "There are Indian trails," she went on. "Though they are afraid of the mountain, they go as far as the warm springs and hunt on the lower slopes." She battled another interval and ended by staying herself with her hand on Forrest's arm. The touch, her nearness, shook him more than the gale. "But," she finished, "Phil Kingsley will find a way. He loves an adventure; it's the one point where we ever agree; and if he goes to Rainier, I know he will take me."
Forrest laughed, again shaking his head. He turned and looked back along the face of the ridge. There was that landmark, the leaning tower, holding the curve in the sister height, but the canyon had lost those familiar lines he expected to see. From this view-point the second sweep of the gorge, doubling the hill, seemed to terminate abruptly. It was baffling, mysterious, altogether strange; yet, somewhere, in that rough corner of the landscape, unrolled like a map at his feet, he should be able to locate his lost prospect.
But it was impossible to linger on the hilltop. The heat was growing intolerable, and not a fissure or depression in the rocky surface held water; the flask, filled at the last stream, had long been empty. They returned to the horses, and trailed down the southern slope, into a cool glade which was carpeted with short, thick grass. It became a natural park; trees of mighty girth, almost free of undergrowth, rose in straight columns, one hundred and fifty feet to the lowest limbs. They were ringed by centuries, yet were sound to the core.
Finally a moist breeze drew between the boles and brought the noise of running water. Colonel pricked his ears sensitively. He swung, looking towards a line of thicket that marked the watercourse, then he broke into a trot. The sound became the thunder of a cataract. Alice leaned low in her saddle; her wide eyes tried to penetrate the jungle ahead. The black pushed on between boughs, snorting gently, tossing his mane. There was a flash of foam through the foliage, then, clear, cold, fresh from near snowfields, plunged the upper falls of the Des Chutes. Her foot was out of the stirrup; she slipped to the ground, and reaching the brink, threw herself full length, and stretching her palms down to the torrent, and bringing them up, cuplike, drank. She laved her face, and putting her hands together, dipped and drank from their hollow, again and again.
There were two falls, and the ledge upon which she had thrown herself projected over the second plunge. It was narrow and thin, and trembled with the shock of the torrent and with her weight. When she lifted her eyes the spray of the upper cataract was in her face; looking down, she saw a great square room cut from solid basalt, which received the second fall and poured it, seething, through a fissure, set doorlike in the lower wall.