undergrowth at the top—and stood still with a cry that was almost a sob. Below him spread a wide valley, green and open and full of sunshine, at its foot, in exactly the opposite quarter from where it should be, lay the shining blue of the lake. Oscar’s little house, still in quite the wrong direction, stood on the ridge at his right, the door open, the curtains flying, the red roof basking in the sun. A pleasant home-like tinkle came up from the grassy slope below him where the contented Hulda was grazing peacefully.
“Gee!” said Hugh and sat down abruptly on the grass. “Gee, but I’m glad to see this place again!”
It looked indeed, to his weary desperate eyes, like a true bit of Paradise. He thought quickly of the name at which he had laughed a little when he saw it written in Oscar’s hand upon the map. It was, after all, not so much amiss to call the valley “The Promised Land.”
