Part 7

Lord Stafford peered down into the ravine. "What a wicked looking place. We're quite on the edge, Miss Stillwater. Our lives are in your hands--and that terrible mountain on the right."

"It shadows us like fate," said Lord Canning.

"There is a mysterious voice warning us from the ravine. Remember, that was once the low cooing murmur of a placid stream."

"There's a lesson in that," said Mrs. Bunker. "Never trust a woman with a soft cooing voice."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha! Quite so, Mrs. Bunker."

"What a sudden change," remarked Lord Canning, "from a fairy pastoral to this mysterious wilderness. Are these sudden changes common to the country?"

"Common to the country--and the women," replied Indiana, laughing.

"Quite so, Miss Stillwater," said Lord Stafford. "You know Pope's familiar couplet--

Women like variegated tulips show, 'Tis to their changes, half their charms they owe.'"

"Do you echo that sentiment, Lord Stafford," asked Mrs. Bunker, archly.

"Well, really, that's a difficult question, Mrs. Bunker. One is bored by monotony, of course--but sometimes these sudden changes can be deucedly unpleasant--ha, ha, ha, ha!"

"There is the river," explained Indiana, pointing to a black rushing current, murmuring angrily below them. They watched it for a mile, sometimes writhing slowly in its rocky bed, like a long black snake, while the angry murmur grew faint and then rose again as the water rushed on with renewed power, frothing madly over the holders and rocks which barred its progress. Suddenly before them rose the blue, distant peak of one of the giant mountains.

"You wish to climb all the mountains?" inquired Indiana. "This will be the first--it is the nearest. I have climbed it." Lord Canning surveyed it with interest.

"And will you climb it with me again?"

"I suppose so. I climb it every year. It's only four miles from our camp to the trail."

"Always driving with this blue peak before us," remarked Lord Canning, after a while, "reminds me of the high aims we set for ourselves, and which we never seem to reach--the ideal of the true artist which he despairs of ever attaining--but, still, his eyes fixed on that pale blue peak of perfection in the sky, he forgets the bitter materialisms of life."

Indiana bent down and gazed at the dark current.

"Do not look down, Miss Stillwater. That is the river of Biting Reality. Close your ears to its threatening murmur--gaze with me before us. I am under the delusion that I have discovered this region. Naturally, I wish to christen everything myself. I would make that distant peak--"

"It is called--"

"Now, Miss Stillwater, I do not wish to know--I will christen it--humor me--I am one of those harmlessly insane people with one delusion. I name that peak the Mount of Perfection. You said you would climb it with me. It is a very arduous ascent, and you are young and 'frail.'" He looked down into the laughing eyes. "But when two climb together the stronger helps the weaker. All I ask--"

"Yes," said Indiana.

"Is that once in awhile you will smile up at me--as we climb--in order that I shall know you are not tired."

"I will smile," said Indiana. "That is not much to ask--"

"Ah, but will you smile brightly, so that I may know you have not lost courage; will you smile trustfully, so that I may feel you have implicit faith in any way I choose to lead--will you? Ah, well, I won't say any more--"

"Listen," interrupted Indiana. Far away he heard a faint roar. "The Falls."

"I will christen them later. That distant sound is very fascinating. I really cannot say yet what it conveys to me. But these falls are the culmination of the river--they typify some crisis in life--some great emotion into which all others are submerged."

He leaned back, with folded arms, watching the dense woods which had replaced the craggy mountain-wall, and listening to the growing roar of the falls. The air here was laden with balsam. Sometimes an icy breath from the deep woods, into which no sun could penetrate, fanned their faces.

"I have not yet named the lake on which we spent this forenoon. I hereby christen it Lake Dangerous, as a warning to those who might be deceived by its apparent harmlessness. All ye unwary ones, take heed of sudden storms, deceiving shallows, unfathomable depths, and certain rocky places, where supernatural powers are at work to steal the precious secret of the soul!"

At this dramatic proclamation Indiana gave vent to a ringing peal of laughter.

"What's the joke, Indiana?" called Mrs. Bunker.

"Oh, Lord Canning is talking the greatest amount of nonsense."

"Your nephew isn't near as serious as when I met him at Cannes," observed Mrs. Bunker. "Indiana brightens everybody up."

"Quite so, Mrs. Bunker. Now hadn't you better use your arts to brighten me up?"

"What have I been doing all this time? Wasting my sweetness, I see."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha! yes, Mrs. Bunker. You had better commence all over again."

As they drove on the sound of the falls grew into a loud roar. Miniature rapids could be seen, now and then, as the river emptied itself into small rocky basins, then plunged onward. Finally, Indiana slackened pace at a rustic bridge, where they alighted. This bridge led by short flights of steps to other ascending bridges spanning the falls.

"I'll sit down by the water," said Mrs. Stillwater. "I don't like to cross the falls. They make me giddy."

They saw her comfortably installed on a large boulder beneath a tree, near a spot where the river wandered off in a placid mood. Then they climbed the frail stairs leading to the different bridges, pausing at each to gaze closer at the fierce rush of the waters.

"What a wild, dark glen!" exclaimed Lord Canning, looking about him, as they reached the last bridge. "Those majestic pines stand like sentinels watching the falls." He gazed down into the enormous gorge called The Notch, into which the falls dashed, with a deafening sound, sending up a blinding shower of spray. "How the water seethes and boils and bubbles! It is like a gigantic cauldron. Magnificent for witches! What poisons, what love-potions and charms they could brew down there! Just the place for a conjuration!"

"You'd say that if you saw the place by moonlight. It looks simply unearthly."

"I should love to see it by moonlight. May I?" He looked pleadingly at Indiana.

"Well," she said, meditatively.

"Certainly," interrupted Mrs. Bunker. "We'll have a moonlight picnic, just as soon as there is a moon. Probably my son will be here then."

"My handkerchief is quite wet," said Lord Stafford, wiping the spray from his face.

"Take mine," offered Mrs. Bunker, holding up a wet morsel.

"Oh, my dear lady, of what use would that be?"

"I love the spray," remarked Indiana, taking off her hat and leaning over.

"Indiana, stop that! Lord Canning, will you hold her?"

"Allow me," said Lord Canning, putting his arms about her and bending himself to gaze down into the falls.

Their tremendous rush and power awoke a responsive chord in his own breast. He was conscious that what had been first an impulse with him was rapidly becoming a force, as wildly impetuous in its way as that upon which he was gazing.

In one part of the glen some logs had been stacked under the trees. Lord Canning secured one. "I wish to test the force of the water," he said. It took all the strength he possessed to raise the log high in the air and fling it down into the falls. There, it was lifted and tossed by the eddying current, then whirled onward, out of sight, as though it had been a leaf. "Tremendous power! Miss Stillwater, you have gazed long enough into the witches' cauldron."

They ascended slowly, behind Mrs. Bunker and Lord Stafford.

"Let us rest a little while," said Lord Canning. "I should like to sit in this mysterious glen and listen to the falls as we hear them now--on the bridge they were too deafening."

They sat down beneath one of the immense pines, which looked down on the falls. Lord Canning closed his eyes and leaned back on the deep green moss. It was a spot where the sun seldom penetrated. "I christen these the Magic Falls," he said, after a few moments, in which Indiana idly plucked the moss. "Listening to them one loses all sense of past or future. Here, just before we reach the falls--but in view of them, within sound of them, before we are carried away by their impetuous rush, rendered dizzy and blinded by their thunder and spray--one can rest. This is one of life's lulls. We all deserve to rest one day in a spot like this, deeply shaded and carpeted with moss, within sound of the Magic Falls. Here the world stops, for once,--the world, with all its pros and cons, its clear and valuable logic, of which one grows very weary. The world itself must tire sometime of its plentiful stock of common sense. Then, I christen this The World's Rest."

*CHAPTER IX.*

*In an Orchard of the Memory*

When Lord Canning and Indiana finally rejoined the others, they were made the subject of much reproval and interrogation.

"Blame me, Mrs. Bunker!" said Lord Canning. "Dinner is a fact that I had forgotten."

"Apparently," answered Mrs. Bunker, who looked wonderfully well pleased considering her impatience.

"That is something new for you, Thurston. You always used to be quite punctilious in the matter of meals."

"Indeed, Uncle Nelson!"

"Lord Canning has lost his memory for the time being," explained Indiana. "He is just a trifle demented--by his own confession."

"Don't be alarmed, good people!" said Lord Canning, with a far-away look. "I belong to the harmless variety. Miss Stillwater, who is my keeper for the present, can testify to that."

"Oh yes, quite harmless! He has only one delusion. He believes that he has discovered the Adirondacks, and he christens everything that he sees, with a name of his own."

As they made their way to the wagon, Lord Canning read an indescribable expression on his uncle's face, which amused him greatly.

"Thurston never went on like this at the country houses we visited in England," reflected Lord Stafford, on the homeward drive. "It seems that people act differently abroad from their manner at home."

"Don't take the old road home, Indiana!" cried Mrs. Bunker as they started. "It's too long."

"The sun is sinking," observed Lord Canning, "but all we know of it here in the woods is this soft, golden haze. This is the most beautiful time to drive. The others may be hungry, but I think we have arranged it very well, to suit ourselves. How still the woods are at sundown! Look at their deep, rich green in the golden light! Do you hear that musical murmur? It's one of those tiny brooks--we have just passed it. You are to show me one to-morrow near the camp. What time before breakfast? Eight? Half-past seven? Say seven. Now do not be late."

As the light gradually faded, they felt a touch of frost in the air. Its exhilarating effect was heightened by the rapid speed the ponies had taken on the homeward road.

"Grandma Chazy wants me to take the new road back. It's a short-cut," whispered Indiana.

"I don't like short-cuts," murmured Lord Canning, crossly.

"Indiana, you're not--well, what do you think of that girl, Lord Stafford?" As Indiana took the forbidden road, both she and Lord Canning laughing with intense enjoyment. "Just like naughty children, aren't they, Lord Stafford?"

"Ha, ha, ha, ha! yes, Mrs. Bunker," laughed Lord Stafford, edified beyond description at hearing his serious nephew, with a scientific bent, classed in the category of naughty children.

"I hope cook won't mind," ventured Mrs. Stillwater, with a worried expression.

"Ten to one she will, Mary. But don't get worried over that yet. You can have an hour's peace of mind before she gives you notice."

"It's so hard to get another up here, or I wouldn't care," added Mrs. Stillwater, apologetically. "You see I should have to telegraph Mr. Stillwater--and he would have all the bother of getting us one, putting her on the train, you see--and then, Lord Stafford, she mightn't suit."

"Quite so, Mrs. Stillwater."

"Don't allow a small matter of cooks to annoy you, Mrs. Stillwater," said Lord Canning. "In case of emergency call on me. There are certain dishes which I pride myself upon. If cook has the bad taste to leave us, we will camp out in earnest."

"You're very good, Lord Canning," replied Mrs. Stillwater, laughing.

"Have you ever tried these special dishes, Lord Stafford?" inquired Mrs. Bunker.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha! no, Mrs. Bunker, My nephew is developing accomplishments which surprise me, to say the least, Mrs. Bunker."

"Isn't this fascinating! Look at the soft, dim perspective of the stream winding off there! The little islands, mysterious and fairy-like, in the deepening light! Those low clouds floating in the glassy surface--the picture fading imperceptibly, as we gaze! That gentle, continuous ripple with it all! There is no poetry to equal this. None which could convey such a sense of infinite peace and calm," enthused Lord Canning.

"I love this old road," said Indiana.

"I, too, love this old road," echoed Lord Canning, fervently.

When they finally emerged upon the open country there was still a dull, fiery streak in the western sky. In this fiery streak the evening star, rising slowly above the dark-blue outline of the mountains, glimmered faintly, a pearl in a ruby setting. As they drove on in the growing night, lights gleamed from scattered homesteads; the clear cold air blew keenly in their faces.

"I'm thinking longingly of that glorious fire in the hall," said Lord Stafford, rubbing his hands.

"There'll be a heavy frost to-night," remarked Indiana. "I can feel it. You'll see a great change in the foliage to-morrow."

"This is most exhilarating. I have been watching that long twilight in the west. How clear and bright it is there! This is a purely Northern sky," exclaimed Lord Canning.

A week later they received word from Mr. Stillwater that he was coming for the remainder of the season. Lord Stafford was present when the letter arrived, and notified his nephew in this wise.

"Pa's coming!" he exclaimed, bursting into Lord Canning's room.

"What!"

"Pa's coming!" he repeated, in a feminine falsetto.

"What do you mean, Uncle Nelson?" interrogated Lord Canning, in an irritated voice.

"I'm repeating Miss Stillwater's words, 'Pa's coming!'"

"Oh!" Lord Canning gazed out of his window at the lake, thinking. "So papa is coming. Well, all the better!"

"He arrives to-morrow, the fifteenth. They're arranging a deer-hunt for the day after. The guides are jubilant that the real business of the season is to commence. They've been idling so long. Haven't you opened your letters yet, Thurston?" noticing the pile of letters on the table.

"I have read my mother's--here it is. She is well, thank God!"

"And you're going off without opening the rest of your mail--part of it arrived two days ago. There might be something important."

"I have an appointment with Miss Stillwater. That is the most important thing at present."

"Why--what--where are you going?"

"Well, if you must know, Uncle Nelson, I am invited to help her catch pollywogs down here by the lake. She does not like to be kept waiting. I'm in a great hurry, Uncle Nelson. Ha, ha, ha, ha!" He rushed out of the room.

Lord Stafford sank into a chair, holding his sister's letter.

"Well, I don't know what to make of Thurston. It really looks as though that little thing has bewitched him--that little blonde thing--it's too absurd!--ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!--she's clever, though!--she runs the entire tribe of them--mother, father and grandmother. She can turn Thurston round her little finger--em--en! Perhaps I ought to devise some means of getting him away from here. I promised his mother to look after him. But then the hunting is just about to commence, and I've been looking forward to it--so long--besides, what would Mrs. Bunker say?"

Catching pollywogs was one of Indiana's favorite recreations. She kept them in bottles for the pleasure of seeing them turn into frogs.

"Look at this little one! How beautifully green and speckled!" She held the little squirming, slippery thing fondly in her hand.

"I wish I were a pollywog!" said Lord Canning.

This remark, coming from such a source, appealed to Indiana's sense of humor. She laughed until the tears rose to her eyes, while Lord Canning surveyed her with a deeply injured expression.

"It's most unkind of you to ridicule my ambitions in this way, Miss Stillwater."

"And such lofty ambitions, too."

"They were--once, but they have gradually diminished, until now I am quite satisfied to be a pollywog--but that one in your hand, you understand."

Indiana put it into the bottle, then leaned back on the soft ground clasping her hands behind her head.

"Tired--so soon? But you weary of most things like this, I have perceived--a truly feminine trait." He lit a cigar.

It was one of those fair, bright autumn days, when one could imagine it was June instead of September, were it not for the glorious splashes of color that enlivened the lake.

"Do you notice," said Indiana, gazing upward through the pines, "how near the sky seems to us here?"

"Yes," said Lord Canning, "heaven seems very near to me here"--he bent down, looking into her eyes--"very near, and sometimes very far--"

The sound of a mandolin floated to them over the water.

"Glen!" cried Indiana, starting up. Lord Canning rose also, self-contained and somewhat pale. They watched the boat growing larger. Burt was rowing and Glen playing, "My Georgia Lady-love." Indiana stood up and waved her handkerchief.

"Why does he play that now?" she thought. "He played it that day in the orchard--when he told me--and I was sorry for him. It was such a beautiful day! He said there would never be another--maybe there won't.

"'Way down in dear old Georgia State, We parted--but she said she would wait--'"

sang Indiana, to the familiar strains. "There were so many apple-blossoms, and they were falling--falling over my face, my neck, my hair. The sky was so blue when I looked up through the blossoms--a different blue from this--

'She slowly dropped her head, And then she softly said: 'Mister Johnson, 'deed I loves you too.''

We cried and made ourselves miserable--I wanted to kiss and comfort him, I wanted to whisper what he wished to hear--but something held me back. I was sorry for myself as well as for him. I wanted to please everyone--his folks and mine--but I couldn't. I didn't know then--I was waiting for this. But I'm sorry for Glen--so sorry!" She saw the boat through a mist of tears and the mandolin sounded far, very far away, as though Glen were still playing it in the orchard of her memory, where the blossoms fell, in a last rosy glow of the sun.

Lord Canning watched her, jealous of the new expression on her face. He realized she was carried away by some recollection in which Glen held a part. "A boy-and-girl affair, probably," he thought. "There is always a boy-and-girl affair, but it seldom amounts to anything--very seldom."

Glen joyfully recognized Indiana waving from the shore. "Looks as though she'd been standing watching for me ever so long, but that's too much to expect." Burt rowed slowly in, while Glen waved his cap, gaily. Indiana ran down to the dock to meet him, slowly followed by Lord Canning.

"Well, Glen, here you are at last!"

"Glad to see me back, Indiana?" he asked, holding her hand, while Lord Canning stood discreetly in the background.

"Cause--Lord Canning, this is Glen Masters, my old friend and playmate--the Right Honourable Thurston Ralph Canning, Viscount. Right?"

"Perfectly."

"Glen's a character," continued Indiana, "he hates cities."

"I do, sir," said Glen, rather aggressively. "But I'm not out of the swim. I keep myself thoroughly posted upon politics and literature of the world."

"He fought in the Spanish-American war," said Indiana, putting her hand proudly on his shoulder.

"And when it was over," laughed Glen, "I came, like Cincinnatus, back to the plow. My father's been working a farm this spring for his health, and I've been helping him."

"Character, brain, muscle," observed Lord Canning. "That is the stuff which has made the American nation what it is to-day." He extended his hand to Glen, who grasped it without enthusiasm.

"Mail for me, Indiana?"

"Yes, it's all up in your room." He took his coat and several other things from the boat.

"Did you have a nice time?" asked Indiana.

"Oh, I'll tell you all about it later. We had a fine time, lots of sport. I must go and shake hands with the folks now, and read my mail. See you later, sir." He swung his coat over his shoulder and saluted them, military fashion.

"Will you take me for a walk, Miss Stillwater?"

Indiana looked hesitatingly up at the camp.

"Oh, perhaps you would prefer to stay and talk with your old playmate. Do as you feel inclined, Miss Stillwater." But he looked distinctively aggrieved.

"Oh, no," said Indiana, carelessly. "There is plenty of time for that. He will tell us his experiences around the fire to-night. Where would you like to go?"

"Oh, let us simply follow one of those little 'trails' through the woods--one of those charming little trails, which one loses, and finds again, like a broken thread of thought, in the forest. There is always the murmur of some distant stream, which one vaguely hopes to reach--and sometimes a glimpse of blue sky through the dark pines."

*CHAPTER X.*

*The Might of the Falls*

"She doesn't look a day over thirty! Remarkable!" said Lord Stafford.

"She grasps the ideas I present to her with astonishing quickness," answered his nephew, absently. "A very bright, eager mind. She has innate refinement and tact--for all her unconventional freedom of manner, which is only the outcome of her unconsciousness--and that is, after all, her particular charm, her unconsciousness. I catch a glimpse, now and then, of a certain wildness of spirit. I fear she would beat her wings against--certain fetters--unless--unless--well, it is most interesting to watch the phases of this young, tender nature--the product of a new civilization."

"Thurston, who in the world are you talking about?"

"Miss Stillwater, of course!"

"I thought so. You were talking about the young one and I was talking about the old one. It's very irritating--you've done that before."

"When did I do it before? And be kind enough to explain who you mean by 'the old one'?"

"Mrs. Bunker, of course."

"Oh, Mrs. Bunker!" repeated Lord Canning, with a sarcastic intonation. "I presume I have the same right to talk about Miss Stillwater as you have to talk--about Mrs. Bunker, Uncle Nelson!"

"No one's disputing your right, but you're continually talking about her!"

"I wasn't aware I monopolized the conversation to that degree."

"Well, you do. You're continually 'studying' her and relating the results of your observations. I should think you would know her by heart before you left her."

"Unfortunately, so far, I have not been allowed an opportunity for such extended knowledge. I'm rarely left alone with her long enough for a proper interchange of ideas. There are always so many plans and excursions on foot."

"By George, you're off with her all the time, somewhere!"

"Not for long," said Lord Canning, gloomily. "Before one is aware, it's lunch or dinner--meals are so interfering! What's that?" Lord Stafford peered out of the window. They were sitting in his room, which was flooded with moonlight.

"It's that Masters fellow. He's playing his mandolin on the lake. Fancy, at this hour!"

They smoked for awhile in silence, listening. It was long after twelve.

"We're going on a moonlight picnic to the Falls to-morrow night."

"Are we?"