“Don’t look out until you see it all at once,” she said. “It’s too wonderful to take it by piece-meal.”
Billie, therefore, had not an inkling of what was in store for her until she stepped out of the cabin.
Nothing on all her journeys with her father could equal the grand panorama which was revealed beyond the cabin door. They appeared to be in a world of peaks—“Mr. and Mrs. Peak, and all the young Peaks,” she wrote to her father later. In the far distance were snow-capped peaks and nearer were lesser peaks. The cabin was built alarmingly near the edge of a great cañon, at the foot of which, hundreds of feet below, lay a little green valley amazingly peaceful in all this rugged scenery, in which cattle no bigger than pinheads at that distance, were quietly grazing.
Billie trembled to think what they might have climbed the night before without suspecting it. This was certainly a good place for a robbers’ nest. The cabin was perched on a shelf in the side of the mountain, and brave were the men, Billie thought, who dared to climb the path that led to it.
It was a gay breakfast party that gathered around the small table that morning and Minnie’s eyes glistened with appreciation at sight of the white cloth and the bunch of wild flowers in the center, which had been Elinor’s contribution to the breakfast.
Even Daniel Moore reflected the good spirits of Miss Campbell and the Motor Maids, although his hat and coat and all his luggage had been carried away on the train. He had talked a little of Evelyn with Miss Helen before breakfast.
“Don’t you think she is beautiful, Miss Campbell?” he asked.
“I certainly do; but she is very young and impetuous, and we must be extremely careful what we do, especially if you think she has been influenced against you in some way. Her father seems dreadfully stern and cruel. It made me shiver even to look at him.”
“He’s really quite fanatic about his religion,” answered Mr. Moore. “And you know what such people are—almost madmen; but he is crafty and shrewd and very cruel, and I would hate to involve you and the girls in any trouble. That is the reason I was hurrying on to Salt Lake City. From the itinerary you gave me, I judged that would be your next address, and I wanted to stop you before you got into difficulties.”
“The girls have set their hearts on seeing Evelyn again,” said Miss Campbell, carefully refraining from mentioning that her own heart had some leanings in that direction also.