The Lawtons were not going to the picnic. Bennington was to take Mary
down to Rapid, where the girl was to stay with a certain Dr. McPherson
of the School of Mines.
An early start was accomplished. They rode down the gulch through the
dwarf oaks, past the farthermost point, and so out into the hard level
dirt road of Battle Creek cañon. Beyond were the pines, and a rugged
road, flint-edged, full of dips and rises, turns and twists, hovering
on edges, or bosoming itself in deep rock-strewn cuts. Mary's little
pony cantered recklessly through it all, scampering along like a
playful dog after a stone, leading Bennington's larger animal by
several feet. He had full leisure to notice the regular flop of the Tam
o'Shanter over the lighter dance of the hair, the increasing rosiness
of the cheeks dimpled into almost continual laughter, to catch stray
snatches of gay little remarks thrown out at random as they tore along.
After a time they drew out from the shadow of the pines into the
clearing at Rockerville, where the hydraulic "giants" had eaten away
the hill-sides, and left in them ugly unhealed sores. Then more rough
pine-shadowed roads, from which occasionally would open for a moment
broad vistas of endless glades, clear as parks, breathless descents, or
sharp steep cuts at the bottom of which Spring Creek, or as much of it
as was not turned into the Rockerville sluices, brawled or idled along.
It was time for lunch, so they dismounted near a deep still pool and
ate. The ponies cropped the sparse grasses, or twisted on their backs,
all four legs in the air. Squirrels chattered and scolded overhead.
Some of the indigo-coloured jays of the lowlands shot in long level
flight between the trees. The girl and the boy helped each other,
hindered each other, playing here and there near the Question, but
swerving always deliciously just in time.
After lunch, more riding through more pines. The road dipped strongly
once, then again; and then abruptly the forest ceased, and they found
themselves cantering over broad rolling meadows knee-high with grasses,
from which meadow larks rose in all directions like grasshoppers. Soon
after they passed the canvas "schooners" of some who had started the
evening before. Down the next long slope the ponies dropped cautiously
with bunched feet and tentative steps. Spring Creek was forded for the
last time, another steep grassy hill was surmounted, and they looked
abroad into Rapid Valley and over to the prairie beyond.
Behind them the Hills lay, dark with the everlasting greenery of the
North--even, low, with only sun-browned Harney to raise its cliff-like
front above the rest of the range. As though by a common impulse they
reined in their horses and looked back.
"I wonder just where the Rock is?" she mused.