allowed to ramble at will over the ranch; but with the instinct of a
domestic animal he always returned to the house, and sat in the porch,
where Josephine usually found him awaiting her when she herself returned
from a visit to the mill. Coming thence one day she espied him on the
mountain-side leaning against a projecting ledge in an attitude so rapt
and immovable that she felt compelled to approach him. He appeared to
be dumbly absorbed in the prospect, which might have intoxicated a saner
mind.

Half veiled by the heat that rose quiveringly from the fiery canyon
below, the domain of Burnt Ridge stretched away before him, until,
lifted in successive terraces hearsed and plumed with pines, it was at
last lost in the ghostly snow-peaks. But the practical Josephine seized
the opportunity to try once more to awaken the slumbering memory of her
pupil. Following his gaze with signs and questions, she sought to draw
from him some indication of familiar recollection of certain points of
the map thus unrolled behind him. But in vain. She even pointed out the
fateful shadow of the overhanging ledge on the road where she had picked
him up--there was no response in his abstracted eyes. She bit her lips;
she was becoming irritated again. Then it occurred to her that, instead
of appealing to his hopeless memory, she had better trust to some
unreflective automatic instinct independent of it, and she put the
question a little forward: "When you leave us, where will you go from
here?" He stirred slightly, and turned towards her. She repeated her
query slowly and patiently, with signs and gestures recognized between
them. A faint glow of intelligence struggled into his eyes: he lifted
his arm slowly, and pointed.

"Ah! those white peaks--the Sierras?" she asked, eagerly. No reply.
"Beyond them?"