“That was the word that Mr. Fairweather left for us. He says we shall have a wonderful view there, and that an excellent camping site is to be had just off the trail. I hope we shall not be visited by the trouble-makers to-night.”
“So do I, but I actually believe you would be in the dumps, in a regular blue funk, were we to be allowed to move along peaceably without excitement or thrills,” averred Miss Briggs.
Grace smiled and clucked to her pony.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon, when, after a day of toiling up steep grades, along precipitous cliffs, scattered mesas and buttes, they rode out on a level stretch of trail with a view spread before them such as none of those joyous, happy girls ever before had gazed upon.
“The Summit!” shouted Grace. “Did you ever see anything so perfectly gorgeous?” Grace removed her sombrero and sat gazing in silent enjoyment of the scene.
Roosevelt Lake, an emerald gem set in the vari-colored mountains, lay twenty-seven miles below them. To their left, against the skies, loomed the famous Four Peaks Mountains, and, to the right and below them, the Sierra Ancha Range, all a mass of gorgeous colors in the light of the late afternoon sun.
Hippy could repress his bubbling spirits no longer. He cleared his throat loudly.
“Hippy is going to make another speech,” said Anne.
“If he does I’ll run,” wailed Emma.
“Ladies and gentlemen—that includes myself—you are gazing on the largest artificial body of water in the world—Roosevelt Lake—a body of water completely walled in by mountains, thirty miles long and four miles across at its widest part. Set in the—”