A rabbit ran across the road and he smiled at the recollection of his first hunt. A quail whistled from the tangle of blackberry briars by the roadside. He looked quickly and saw the bob white sitting on the top rail of the old worn fence.
He seized Nan's arm.
"Look, Nan!"
She looked and smiled and the tears came unbidden. She turned away a moment and he didn't see.
They spent the night at the same old road-house and slept on feather beds. He hadn't felt the touch of a feather bed in years. He dreamed that he was at school again, a man of thirty-five, playing marbles with a crowd of towheaded boys and they were beating him at the game while Nan was standing near, her long plait of black hair hanging down her back, laughing at him because he was barefooted! He woke with a groan, shook off the nightmare, and slept soundly until morning.
They started next day at eight o'clock with the pack-horses to make the trip along the dim bridle trail, fourteen miles up the sides of frowning cliffs and over the tops of balsam-crowned peaks to the summit of Mount Mitchell.
Nan led the way, mounted on a sure-footed young stallion, and Stuart followed her on a little black mule he had selected from the barn for his exact likeness to one he had raised as a pet when a boy. The youngsters came struggling after them, mounted on an assortment of shaggy, scrubby looking animals that knew the mountain path as a rabbit knows his trail in the jungle.
They stopped for luncheon at the spring which forms the source of the Swannanoa and Stuart drank again from its cold limpid waters, while Nan's laughter rang in his ears.
At one o'clock they passed through the first series of clouds and out into the sunlight beyond. The next line of clouds was dark and threatening and suddenly poured rain. Slowly but surely the horses picked their way up the mountain-side through the storm and suddenly walked out into the sunlight again; they looked down on the smooth flat surface of the clouds through which they had passed.
"Glorious!" Stuart cried.