"We didn't see this when we came before, you remember," she answered. "It rained all the way up."
"Yes, it rains up here almost every day in the year, but the guide says we're going to get a view of six states to-morrow."
It was dusk when the party reached the summit. The horses were loosened to graze in the open field and the guides hurried to build a fire in front of the cave made by a projecting ledge of rock beneath which the party was to sleep.
The bed of balsam boughs was too sharp a contrast to Nan's million-dollar-room to permit Stuart much sleep. Besides the youngsters were giggling and laughing and joking most of the night. Only a big log marked the partition wall between the men's and women's side of the cave. The space was so limited it was necessary to sleep close together. The girls and boys never grew tired cracking silly jokes about the magnificence of their sleeping quarters. In vain Nan begged for quiet. It was three o'clock before they were still at last and she fell into a deep sleep.
Stuart rose, sat before the log fire and watched the regular rise and fall of her bosom as she slept like a child. On a distant mountain-side he heard the howl of a lonely wolf. Sixteen years ago the mountains were full of them and they came quite close. He was reminded of the narrowing strip of the savage world, fast disappearing before the march of civilization.
"I wonder if we'll ever conquer the last jungle—the heart of man?" he mused. "Somehow I have my doubts, and yet the faith never dies."
Again he looked at the sleeping woman and a wave of fierce mad rebellion swept his heart. Somewhere inside of him he heard the lonely cry of another wolf.
"She's mine—mine! Nature gave her to me in the morning of life—I was a fool. I should have taken her by force, if need be, and she would have thanked me in after years. She has complied with the conventions of Society and trampled the highest law of Life. Why not smash convention now at the call of that law?"
Again the wolf howled in the distant darkness and it seemed the echo of his own mad cry. He waked from his reverie with an angry start. He shuddered that he could have harboured the thought for a moment.
The eastern horizon was beginning to glow with the dawn. He rose, walked to the summit, and sat down on the pile of stones that marked the grave of Professor Mitchell. He watched in silence until he saw the sun's red rim suddenly leap above the blue-black peaks of the east and drive the last shadow of the night from the valleys below. With their fading mists he felt the darkness lift from his own heart and the sunlight of reason stream in. A new joy welled up from the depths of his spirit. He was alive to his finger tips and his imagination glowed with the consciousness that life was strong and clean, and worth while.