After that for a time they sat over their crude table of rocks to stare away over the moonlit mountains. Johnny and the girl were wondering about many things. The great river, the island with living creatures moving upon it, their strange mission in this stranger land, all these came in for their share of perplexing thought.
It was quite wonderful as they sat there thinking of all that had gone before, and that which lay about them. On the far side was a storm, on the crest a wild tumult, but down here was quiet and peace.
There were no clouds. The moon came up. Everywhere were purple shadows, silent and deep. Not a breath of air stirred. Not a wild creature in all that land but appeared to be at rest.
“It’s like all of life,” Gordon Duncan said solemnly. “At times we find ourselves in the midst of terrible trouble, storms of life. We may have companions in these troubles, or they may be hidden away, our own secret troubles. In any case, it is quite wonderful to feel that about us, standing shoulder to shoulder with us, are friends ready at an instant’s notice to reach out a helping hand.
“Much of the meaning of life is just here.” His tone became more thoughtful. “Life, after all, is a storm and in a way the worst of storms, for many of us haven’t the faintest notion whither we are bound. One thing alone we know, we must struggle on. The one thing that makes the struggle far more than worth while is the splendid human companionship we enjoy while we are in the midst of the storm. As we travel on, it seems there is always a hand outstretched to guide us home.”
“A hand outstretched,” Faye said, thinking out loud. Before her mind’s vision she saw again the glistening slope down which she had been about to glide when Johnny seized her and drew her back.
“Back from what?” she asked herself.
As if in answer, Johnny said, “Look!”
Her eyes followed the direction of his arm. Then her cheeks went white.
The moon, rising higher and higher, had brought out the upper ridges of the mountain they had crossed. At the point where she had lost her footing and had been saved from a sudden plunge by the boy, the snow, blown over and beaten down by countless storms, had taken on the form of an inverted saucer. The edge of this great saucer hung more than a hundred feet over the edge of a gigantic precipice. From the outer rim of this snow saucer to the rocky ridges below was thousands of feet. The girl’s head whirled, her heart went sick at thought of that which she had escaped by so little. One second more of downward glide over that glistening saucer, and she would have been lost forever.