Gertrude stood beside her sister. "You are quite right," she admitted.
"We have spent our month here and missed the only overpowering
spectacle. This is Dante."
"Indeed it is," he assented, eagerly. "I must tell you. The first
time I got into the Gap with a locating party I had a volume of Dante
in my pack. It is an unfortunate trait of mine that in reading I am
compelled to chart the topography of a story as I go along. In the
'Inferno' I could never get head or tail of the topography. One night
we camped on this very ledge. In the night the horses roused me. When
I opened the tent fly the moon was up, about where it is now. I stood
till I nearly froze, looking--but I thought after that I could chart
the 'Inferno.' If it weren't so dry, or if we were going to stay all
night, I should have a camp-fire; but it wouldn't do, and before you
get cold we must start back.
"See," he pointed, far down on the left. "Can you make out that speck
of light? It is the headlight of a freight train crawling up the range
from Sleepy Cat. When the weather is right you can see the white head
of Sleepy Cat Mountain from this spot. That train will wind around in
sight of this knob for an hour, climbing to the mining camps."
Doctor Lanning called to Marie. Gertrude stood with Glover.
"Is that the desert of the Spanish Sinks?" she asked, looking into the
stream of the moon.
"Yes."
"Is that where you were lost two days?"
"My horse got away. Have you hurt your hand?"
She was holding her right hand in her left. "I tore my glove on a
thorn, coming up. It is not much."
"Is it bleeding?"
"I don't know; can you see?"
She drew down the glove gauntlet and held her hand up. If his breath
caught he did not betray it, but while he touched her she could very
plainly feel his hand tremble; yet for that matter his hand, she knew,
trembled frequently. He struck a match. It was no part of her
audacity to betray herself, and she stepped directly between the others
and the little blaze and looked into his face while he Inspected her
wrist. "Can you see?"
"It is scratched badly, but not bleeding," he answered.
"It hurts."
"Very likely; the wounds that hurt most don't always bleed," he said,
evenly. "Let us go."
"Oh, no," she said; "not quite yet. This is unutterable. I love this."
"Your aunt, I fear, is not interested. She is complaining of the cold.
I can't light a fire; the mountain is all timber below----"
"Aunt Jane would complain in heaven, but that wouldn't signify she
didn't appreciate it. Why are you so quickly put out? It isn't like
you to be out of humor." She drew on her glove slowly. "I wish you
had this wrist----"