While this fatal dissension took place Geoffrey was crossing the plains upon the further side of the green mountains, only a short distance ahead. He had made excellent progress, concealing himself cleverly from bands of marauding Indians, guiding his feet by the constellations at night, and searching by day for the tree-moss which delicately furred the north side only of the hemlock boles; but there still remained over two hundred miles of wild country between him and the town of Boston. He tramped on, unheeding sore feet, feeling the spirit of brave Madeleine at his side, averting the perils of night, guiding his feet accurately southward. As time went on, and he reflected how great was the distance he had already traversed, the joy of life became so strong that he could have flung away his sword and dared the world with bare hands.
Two weeks had passed since that parting from his comrades; and on the evening of the fourteenth day he broke from the bush and for some moments stood bewildered at the scene before him, blinking his eyes, and longing to step back into the greenwood shade.
White masses of mountain glowed ahead, peaks and crags all glittering in the sun like a huge cascade streaming down from the clouds; ranges of pure crystal, polished like glass, and edged with rose-pink by the colours of the western sky; snow-white gorges of milky quartz, and silver cataracts flung in foam from the whiteness above to the green below.
"These," he said softly, with a thrill of old-world superstition, "these must surely be the great crystal mountains where the Iroquois believe that the gods dwell."
He hurried on, his eyes watering because of the dazzling light reflected from those crystal walls; and as he went he turned to lover's thoughts, and determined that, after all, the sun glow upon the white peaks was not one-half so lovely as the flush upon Madeleine's soft cheek. Here before him was Nature's finest insentient handiwork. It was glowing and full of music, but its loveliness lacked life, and its warmth was borrowed from the sun. It was only beautiful as a part of the environment of the life of the soul. How he longed for Madeleine to stand at his side and behold those everlasting hills in splendour and the sun swimming in red! And with that longing he half unconsciously breathed the healthful text to which she had attuned her happy soul, "It is life—glorious, everlasting life!"
Vitality rose to its full height within Geoffrey's body; and when he felt no more the weight of his heavy kit, he ran over the broken ground and up the narrow gorge, until two white walls closed him gently into the panting bosom of the crystal hills.
"Here is the home of fairies," he exclaimed, when he stopped at a great height, and looked upon three tiny lakes which made a trinity of motionless mirrors decked by feathers of cloud, the water like white wine brimming in great bowls of granite.
Immediately a gentle voice was wafted through the air, "Here is the home of fairies," and after a pause the information was repeated like the warble of a weary bird, the last notes dying inaudible around the cliffs.
Geoffrey dared not speak again. The genius of the place was over him, waiting to give a signal to the expectant choir. Footfalls preceded the traveller, the echo of his own. The many-mouthed King of the Mountains pattered before him, breathing the stranger a gentle welcome to the district which he ruled. Geoffrey crept on tiptoe to the edge of the nearest pool, until he could see the weedless rock-bottom and the land-locked salmon lying near the surface, gently fanning their red fins, and watching him with wondering eyes. Seating himself, the traveller bathed his weary feet and watched the water swallows, darting and splashing, snatching the fat flies which spotted the surface like drops of rain, sucking them in and pushing out their little black noses for more.
The sun went down and a chill crept into the wind. Geoffrey left the enchanted spot, and the salmon shooting like silver arrows through the darkening pool, and, again ascending, entered a richly-wooded glen through which a cascade ran in a white thread; and here, close to a winding path beaten out by the feet of mountain sheep, he pitched his camp and ate his frugal meal of dried meat, which he eked out by a few early berries and some sweet roots of the wood althæa.