The billowy crest of this fleecy, semi-transparent mass of vapor reflected a mellow chastity, while the irregular points of the rugged mountain tops were sharply defined against the soft emerald, golden-pink light that streaked and massed the sky in the advance of a promising Autumn morn.
The huge, glistening white peaks of Hood and Adams and St. Helens, towered in lofty majesty, clear and individually distinct above the high altitudes of the range that encompassed them, and even as he looked, a soft, rose-red tinge tipped the apex of Mount Hood, which appeared unusually close, and crept softly down the glacis of its snow-covered, precipitous sides.
And nearer, at his feet, in a basin—the city spread out far and wide.
The silvery green waters of the Willamette River, cutting through the city’s center, silently glided along its sinuous course to the Columbia; while patches of thin mist flitted timidly about on its placid surface, to vanish like tardy spirits of a departing night.
The grand panorama gave his usually buoyant spirits pause.
Gradually the light of his eyes changed from absorbing admiration to a reflective mood, in which the strange behavior of Virginia Thorpe was the predominating subject.
That money, possibly blackmail, was the object of the stranger—scoundrel. Sam could think of him in no other light after the night’s experience. There was no doubt, for he had plainly heard her say in a loud, surprised tone, “Twenty thousand dollars.”
Suddenly the hoarse whistle of a far-off industrial establishment vibrated the air and aroused him from his deep reverie. The morning was well advanced.
As the light in his eyes quickened from a pensive stare at the ground a few paces from his feet, he perceived a shred of red peeping between the blades of short grass. He picked it up. It was a narrow piece of soiled and worn ribbon, but attached to it was an old oxidized bronze medal, about the size of a silver quarter-dollar. The inscription upon its rim was in Latin, but Sam clearly made out one word, “Garibaldi,” from which he concluded its late owner must be an Italian.
From the smooth condition of the medal, and unweathered appearance of the ribbon, he judged it must have been recently lost.