CHAPTER XXIII.
EVERET MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
Everet Mapleson spent the next week mostly in hunting and fishing, occupying, however, a portion of one day in looking over the Hermitage again, although without the slightest return for his labor in finding anything new.
At the end of that time he began to grow very restless, and a feeling of depression and loneliness took possession of him.
A few days more of the same kind of life and he declared he could stand it no longer.
Still, he could not make up his mind what he really wanted to do, and was miserable and discontented.
He would have been glad to go to Brooklyn, ascertain where Gladys had gone for the summer, and then follow.
But he reasoned that Geoffrey would be with her this year, and knowing it would be simply maddening to see them together, he felt it was best that he should keep away.
But something he must do to kill time and amuse himself; he had an unaccountable distaste for gay society, and yet longed for some excitement.
“I believe I will take a Western trip,” he suddenly said, one morning, after having read in his paper an interesting account of a certain route taken by a party of travelers going to California and the Yosemite Valley.
Acting upon the impulse of the moment, he packed his portmanteau, dashed off a few lines to his mother informing her of his project, and was westward bound before noon.