CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE WHERE THE TRAIL LED
The little lost, almost hidden, trail haunted Josephine Bayley. Shethought of it the next morning when she first awoke. It was still hardlydaylight when she sprang from bed. "I'm going to climb it to the verytop," she thought, "for where others have been, I, too, can go, andmaybe I'll be there in time to see the sun rise."
She quickly donned her khaki hiking-clothes, with the short skirt andbloomers; then, taking a stout, knobbed club that Mr. Enterprise Twigglyhad given her for a weapon, should she meet a snake or wildcat, away shestarted, climbing with eager feet, and singing as soon as she was out ofhearing, for the very joy of living.
When a tangle of brush impeded her progress, she thrust the stick aheadand beat the vines and bushes, and then fearlessly pushed through.
"All properly brought-up snakes are hibernating now," she remarked to anoverhanging branch that she had to stoop to pass under. "Poor littlesnakes," she ruminated, "in the hearts of them they probably are askindly-intentioned as any of us. They love to live in their wildmountain homes, and they would far rather slip away from us than hurtus, but even the truly harmless ones are always battered to death assoon as they are seen, although in gardens they are of great value, ifonly gardeners knew."
A bird from somewhere sang to her, just, a joyous morning-song. "Whichmeans that the sun is coming up and I have not reached the top of thislittle lost trail, and, what is more, I'm not likely to until the day iswell advanced," said the girl to herself. This because of a dense growthof pine that arose just ahead of her. Then it was that Josephine Bayleynoticed that the old trail had evidently been abandoned, for crossing itwas a newer one that had been recently used. With a little skip ofdelight, the girl-teacher turned into the new trail that led through thepine clump, and, ascending easily, to her great joy she saw one of thelower peaks just above her.
"Oh! oh!" she thought happily. "How I have longed to know what laybeyond this mountain that is in my dooryard, so to speak. I do hope itis not merely another and higher range. Well, I soon shall know."
With feet that seemed tireless, the girl-teacher climbed the short steepbit of trail that was left, and stood at the very summit. Then, witharms outflung, she cried aloud: "Oh, the wonder of it! Now I know howBalboa must have felt when he first beheld the Pacific."
Lake Tahoe, a great sheet of glistening blue, framed in the gray ofjagged cliffs and the dark green of encircling pines, lay not many milesbeyond. The sun, still near the horizon, was pouring its molten goldover the water, sky, and mountains, transforming them to celestialloveliness. With clasped hands the girl-teacher stood, gazing with hervery soul in her eyes. Her hat had been thrown on a rock near by, andthe breeze from the lake was tossing her curling locks back from herforehead.
Little did she dream how beautiful she looked, and still less did shedream that she was being observed by some one who thought her theloveliest creature he had ever seen.
Fifteen minutes passed before the girl became conscious of hersurroundings. Not far from the summit, and near a clump of shelteringpines, she saw a camp-fire, and the coals were smoldering. Some one mustbe near, she thought. For one panicky moment she realized howunprotected, how very much alone, she was on that high peak, but, as noone appeared, she decided that the camper had gone his way, and she,too, turned, and, after one more glance back at the water, retraced hersteps to her cabin home.
But the camper had not gone. He had been lying very still behind a greatgray boulder. He knew that this maiden had climbed the trail, wishing tobe alone, and, too, he had reasons of his own for not desiring to makehis presence known.
As Josephine Bayley descended the trail, her fancy followed themysterious camper, wondering what he might look like,--a hoary-beardedprospector, perhaps, still hunting for that elusive vein of silver. Hadshe seen the young man who stood erect soon after her departure, had shenoted his square chin, his gray, far-seeing eyes, his keen, kind face,tanned by the beating of sun and wind, sleet and rain, she would havebeen more interested and curious than ever.