through the roof. The river ran west for a while from Cornice House,
and then tacked north-east with a sudden bend round the base of the
foot-hills; and since my track formed a sort of rough hypotenuse to
this angle, I heard the voice of the rapids die away and almost
cease, and then begin again to whisper and murmur, until, as I came
within a mile or so of Eucalyptus, they were loud at my feet, though
still unseen. I am not a devout man, but I can take off my hat now
and then; and all the way that morning a couple of sentences were
ring-dinging in my head: 'Lift up your hearts! We lift them up unto
the Lord!' You know where they come from, I dare say.

"By and by the track took a sharp and steep trend down hill, then a
curve; the trees on my right seemed to drop away; and we found
ourselves on the edge of a steep bluff overhanging the valley, the
whole eastern slope of which broke full into sight in that instant,
from the river tumbling below--by sticking out a leg I could see it
shining through my stirrup--to the rocky _aretes_ and smoothed-out
snowfields round the peaks. It made a big spectacle, and I suppose I
must have stared at it till my eyes were dazzled, for, on turning
again to follow the track, which at once dived among the pines and
into the dusk again, I did not observe, until quite close upon her, a
woman coming towards me.

"And yet she was not rigged out to escape notice. She had on a
scarlet Garibaldi, a striped red-and-white skirt, bunched up behind
into an immense polonaise, and high-heeled shoes that tilted her far
forward. She wore no hat, but carried a scarlet sunshade over her
shoulder. Her hair, in a towsled chignon, was golden, or rather had
been dyed to that colour; her face was painted; and she was glaringly
drunk.