CHAPTER IX
Coming in from the right as they took the open trail again, the Cody Road beckoned them eastward, as a side road always beckons to the true wanderer.
"What does it run to?" asked the Groom.
"Wyoming," responded Aconite. "It's nothing but scenery and curiosities."
"Let's follow it a little way," suggested the Bride, "and see how we like it"
Three miles or so on the way, the surrey halted at a beautiful little lake, which lay like a fragment broken off Yellowstone Lake, the shore of which lay only a stone's throw to the right. They walked over to the big lake to bid it farewell. A score of miles to the south lay Frank Island, and still farther away, shut off by the fringe of rain from a thunder shower, the South Arm seemed to run in behind Chicken Ridge and take to the woods. To the southwest stood Mount Sheridan, and peeping over his shoulder the towering Tetons solemnly refused even to glimmer a good-by.
"For all that," said the Bride, "au revoir! We'll come back one of these days, won't we, Billy?"
"Sure!" said Billy. "I'm coming up to put in a power plant in the Grand Cañon, one of these days. This scenery lacks the refining touch of the spillway and the penstock!"
Fifteen minutes' driving brought them to the second halt, a big basin of water, from which steam issued in a myriad of vents. Aconite suggested that they stroll down to the beach and take a look at the water. They found it in a slow turmoil, the mud rising from the bottom in little fountains of turbidity, the whole effect being that which might be expected if some mud-eating giant were watching his evening porridge, expecting it momentarily to boil.
"I don't care much for this," said the Bride.