The young man drew the reins over his arm and moved forward, glancing
behind him at intervals to assure himself that his charge was all right.
As they approached the summit of the mountain the path took abrupter
turns, and was crossed in numberless places by the channels of winter
avalanches, which had mown down great pines as if they had been blades
of grass. Here and there a dry water-course stretched like a wrinkle
along the scarred face of the hill.

"Look at that, Miss Ruth!" cried Lynde, checking the mule and pointing
to a slope far below them.

Nature, who loves to do a gentle thing even in her most savage moods,
had taken one of those empty water-courses and filled it from end to end
with forget-me-nots. As the wind ruffled the millions of petals, this
bed of flowers, only a few inches wide but nearly a quarter of a mile in
length, looked like a flashing stream of heavenly blue water rushing
down the mountain side.

By and by the faint kling-kling of a cowbell sounding far up the height
told the travellers that they were nearing the plateau. Occasionally
they descried a herdsman's chalet, pitched at an angle against the wind
on the edge of an arete, or clinging like a wasp's-nest to some jutting
cornice of rock. After making four or five short turns, the party passed
through a clump of scraggy, wind-swept pines, and suddenly found
themselves at the top of Montanvert.

A few paces brought them to the Pavilion, a small inn kept by the guide
Couttet. Here the mules were turned over to the hostler, and Miss Ruth
and Lynde took a quarter of an hour's rest, examining the collection of