thing was real. And then, that last, scant direction—three words fairly squeezed out of his throat! Carron had the unusual sensation of seeing his chimera, his gauzy fable, which all day had led him like a mirage threatening each moment to melt into air, now suddenly grown possible to the imagination, palpable, almost solid.
A light and irresponsible pleasure quickened in his veins. The world had one more adventure left, dangerous enough, but not too serious. The figure of the man on the road, unpaid by his own act and vainly searching, receded from his mind. He was leaving it behind with the dusty high valley, the thin trees and the traveled roads. He was entering upon the unexpected and the unwanted. White grass was giving place to growth of pine, filling the sharpening cañon. Now he was plunged into trees; again, he emerged among strewn boulders with a sudden little lake like a burning-glass on the one hand. In the bright eye of this he saw himself and his fretful beast reflected, little creatures in a great landscape, creeping on a road which clung to the foot of the cliffs. Tremendous heat of mid-afternoon hung in the cañon, a white and sparkling light growing ghostly with distance. Straight before him, as if at the end of his journey, he saw the two rocks like gates flung open into some garden of mountains
6
