At this consideration Rosalie did brighten, and when the last stage came around, Miss Hickey was present to speed the parting heaver whose apprehensive glance about her saw no familiar figure.
“Oh, they are staying, Miss Hickey!” she exclaimed, in hushed tones.
The sophisticated Miss Hickey did not respond, but nodded affably to the driver.
Rosalie breathed a relieved farewell as she left the big-boned bulwark of her friend and obeyed the agent’s signal to enter the back seat of the stage. The vehicle was empty but for a stout man with a field glass strapped across his shoulders who mounted to the seat beside the driver, and they started.
The whole stage to herself! Rosalie could scarcely believe it.
She listened to the strange noises in the air and watched the steam which, mounting high, would make one believe that the locality was alive with factories. The girl’s curious gaze roamed about, and she thought wistfully of such travelers as might visit at their leisure the wonders about her.
There were great beauties, however, even for a heaver to enjoy. The morning’s ride had been a keen pleasure in the intervals of her embarrassment. The profusion of wild flowers; monk’s-hood, hare-bells, and Indian paintbrush, had fed her eyes with their splashes of color; and the behavior of the wild animals made one think of the millennium. Sure of protection from being hunted and slain, the chipmunks sat up on their hind legs close to the road, to watch the stage go by, clasping their tiny hands beneath their chins, like children in ecstasy at seeing a pretty show. Frequently one would be seen sitting up and nibbling the seeds from a long stem of grass, which he held in such a manner that he appeared to be playing a flute. A big marmot here and there lay along a bough or rock, turning his head lazily to view the tourists through his Eden. Boiling springs and boiling rivers, hill, vale, mountain, and waterfall—all these had Rosalie enjoyed, even with the fear that the Bruces would turn around; and now! Think of making one stage of the picturesque journey with no companion but her own thoughts! It seemed too good to be true; and she soon found that indeed it was so.
The driver drew his horses to a walk, and Rosalie perceived that many of the other stages were in sight, some of them stopping, and that tourists were entering them from the roadside.
Soon it became the turn of the last stage, and Rosalie’s heart bounded to recognize all the companions of the morning.
She saw Mrs. Bruce gaze sharply at the stout man in her seat by the driver.