"Yes; but you'll get your eyes full of cinders."
"I don't care. Let's go, anyway."
They did it and, for a wonder, found the rear platform of the second observation-car unoccupied. Gertrude wanted to sit on the step, but Brockway objected, on the score of danger from the jutting rocks; so they stood together, bracing themselves and clinging to the hand-rails.
"Show me the 'Old Man of the Mountain' when we come to it," she said; "of course, there is an 'Old Man of the Mountain'?"
"There is, indeed, but we passed him long ago—at least, the one that is always pointed out to the 'Cookies' as you call them. But if you will watch the outlines of the cliffs you can find one of your own in any half-mile of the canyon."
"I don't want one if they are as cheap as that. I suppose you have made them at a pinch, haven't you? when you had forgotten to point out the real one?"
"I'm afraid I have; just as I have been obliged to invent statistics. But that is the fault of the man with a note-book; he will have them, you know."
"Why don't you tell him the truth?"
"Because he is too numerous in my calling; and again, because I don't often know enough of the truth to satisfy him."
"But it is wrong to invent things," she protested, dropping her irresponsible rôle to fight for the love of truth which was her Puritan birthright.