"You mean the picture of the girl kissing the man in his sleep—Yes, that will do all right for me. You can send that one—"
And the Missionary's boy came over the edge of the Ridge trail in a hand spring.
CHAPTER III
THE CHALLENGE TO A LOSING FIGHT
"Hullo, Dick! Who is talking of pictures and things?" The high falsetto announced the Missionary's boy of twelve, who promptly turned a hand spring over the slab bench, never pausing in a running fire of exuberant comment. "Get on y'r bib and tucker, Dickie! You're goin' t' have a s'prise party—right away! Senator Moses and Battle Brydges, handy-andy-dandy, comin' up with Dad and MacDonald! Oh, hullo, Miss Eleanor, how d' y' get here ahead? Did y' climb? We met His Royal High Mightiness and His Nibs goin' to the cow-camp. Say, Miss Eleanor, I don't care what they say, I'm goin' to take sheep all by my lonesome this time, sure; goin' t' ride Pinto 'cause he's got a big tummy t' keep him from sinking when he swims. You needn't laugh, it's so! You ask Dad if a tum-jack don't keep a horse from sinkin'! Say—" sticking forward his face in a whisper—"Senator oughtn't to sink—eh?"
"You don't swim sheep unless you're a pilgrim," admonished Wayland; but at that moment, the Senator himself came over the edge of the Ridge, bloused and white-vested and out of breath, a bunch of mountain flowers in one hand, his felt hat in the other; and three men bobbed up behind, Indian file, over the crest of the trail, the Missionary, Williams, stepping lightly, MacDonald swarthy and close-lipped, taking the climb with the ease of a mountaineer, Bat Brydges, the Senator's newspaper man, hat on the back of his head, coat and vest and collar in hand, blowing with the zest of a puffing locomotive.
"Whew!" The Senator dilated expansively and sank again. "Here we are at last! You here, Miss Eleanor? Evening—Wayland! Night to you, Calamity! How is the world using you since you stopped tramping over the hills?" Calamity shrank back to the cabin. "I thought this trail hard as a climb to Paradise. Now, I know it was," and the gentleman wheezed a bow to Eleanor that sent his neck creasing to his flowing collar and set his vest chortling.
"What! No flowers—either of you? You leave an old fellow like me to gather flowers and quote 'What so rare as a day in June' and all that? What's that lazy rascal of a Forest fellow doing? I would have spouted yards of good poetry when I was his age a night like this. Hasn't Wayland told you the flowers are the best part of the mountains in June? Pshaw! Like all the rest of them from the East—stuffed full of college chuck—can't tell a daisy from an aster! Takes an old stager who never had your dude Service suits on his back to know the secrets of these hills, Miss Eleanor. Has he told you about the echo? No, I'll bet you, not; nor the gorge in behind this old Holy Cross; nor the cave? Pshaw! See here,"—showing his bunch of wild flowers—"if you want to know what a sly old sphinx Dame Nature is and how she's up to tricks and wiles and ways, snow or shine, you get these little flower people to whisper their secrets! Whenever I find a new kind on the hills, I mark the place and have roots brought down in the fall. Now this little mountain anemone is still blooming on upper slopes. Little fool of a thing thinks it's April 'stead of June, paints her cheeks, see?—like an old girl trying to look young—"
"But she has a royal white heart," interposed Eleanor.
The Senator looked up to the face of the rancher's daughter and laughed, a big soft noiseless laugh that shook down inside the white vest.