would have got to their destination in the Valley; but here they were
twelve miles from it. Whether this was fortunate or unfortunate may be
seen later. Comfortably bestowed in this mountain tavern, after they had
toasted and eaten their venison and lit their pipes, they drew about the
fire.

Besides the four, there was a figure that lay sleeping in a corner on a
pile of pine branches, wrapped in a bearskin robe. Whoever it was slept
soundly.

"And what was it like--the gold-pan flyer--the tobogan ride, Shon?"
remarked Jo Gordineer.

"What was it like?--what was it like"? replied Shon. "Sure, I couldn't
see what it was like for the stars that were hittin' me in the eyes.
There wasn't any world at all. I was ridin' on a streak of lightnin',
and nivir a rubber for the wheels; and my fingers makin' stripes of blood
on the snow; and now the stars that were hittin' me were white, and thin
they were red, and sometimes blue--"

"The Stars and Stripes," inconsiderately remarked Jo Gordineer.

"And there wasn't any beginning to things, nor any end of them; and whin
I struck the snow and cut down the core of it like a cat through a glass,
I was willin' to say with the Prophet of Ireland--"

"Are you going to pass the liniment, Pretty Pierre?" It was Jo Gordineer
said that.

What the Prophet of Israel did say--Israel and Ireland were identical to