For two hours they crawled slowly upward, with a roaring stream on one side and the pine-covered slopes on the other. Jays and camp-birds called from the trees. Water-robins fluttered from rock to rock in the foaming flood. Squirrels and minute chipmunks raced across the fallen tree-trunks or clattered from great boulders, and in the peace and order and beauty of the forest they all recovered a serener outlook on the noisome tumult they were leaving behind them. Invisible as well as inaudible, the serpent of slander lost its terror.
Once, as they paused to rest the horses, Wayland said: “It is hard to realize that down in that ethereal valley people like old Jake and Mrs. Belden have their dwelling-place.”
This moved Mrs. McFarlane to admit that it might all turn out a blessing in disguise. “Mr. McFarlane may resign and move to Denver, as I’ve long wanted him to do.”
“I wish he would,” exclaimed Berrie, fervently. “It’s time you had a rest. Daddy will hate to quit under fire, but he’d better do it.”
Peak by peak the Bear Tooth Range rose behind them, while before them the smooth, grassy slopes of the pass told that they were nearing timber-line. The air was chill, the sun was hidden by old Solidor, and the stream had diminished to a silent rill winding among sear grass and yellowed willows. The valley behind them was vague with mist. The southern boundary of the forest was in sight.
At last the topmost looming crags of the Continental Divide cut the sky-line, and then in the smooth hollow between two rounded grassy summits Berrie halted, and they all silently contemplated the two worlds. To the west and north lay an endless spread of mountains, wave on wave, snow-lined, savage, sullen in the dying light; while to the east and southeast the foot-hills faded into the plain, whose dim cities, insubstantial as flecks in a veil of violet mist, were hardly distinguishable without the aid of glasses.
To the girl there was something splendid, something heroical in that majestic, menacing landscape to the west. In one of its folds she had begun her life. In another she had grown to womanhood and self-confident power. The rough men, the coarse, ungainly women of that land seemed less hateful now that she was leaving them, perhaps forever, and a confused memory of the many splendid dawns and purple sunsets she had loved filled her thought.
Wayland, divining some part of what was moving in her mind, cheerily remarked, “Yes, it’s a splendid place for a summer vacation, but a stern place in winter-time, and for a lifelong residence it is not inspiring.”
Mrs. McFarlane agreed with him in this estimate. “It is terribly lonesome in there at times. I’ve had enough of it. I’m ready for the comforts of civilization.”
Berrie turned in her seat, and was about to take up the reins when Wayland asserted himself. “Wait a moment. Here’s where my dominion begins. Here’s where you change seats with me. I am the driver now.”