Bennington was treated to full measure of this experience. He found the

John Logan lode without much difficulty, and followed its length with

less, for the simple reason that its course lay over the round brow of

a hill bare of trees. He also discovered the "Northeast Corner of the

Crazy Horse Lode" plainly marked on the white surface of a pine stake

braced upright in a pile of rocks. Thence he confidently paced south,

and found nothing. Next trip he came across pencilled directions

concerning the "Miner's Dream Lode." The time after he ran against the

"Golden Ball" and the "Golden Chain Lodes." Bennington reflected; his

mind was becoming a little heated.

"It's because I went around those ledges and boulders," he said to

himself; "I got off the straight line. This time I'll take the straight

line and keep it."

So he addressed himself to the surmounting of obstructions. Work of

that sort is not easy. At one point he lost his hold on a broad, steep

rock, and slid ungracefully to the foot of it, his elbows digging

frantically into the moss, and his legs straddled apart. As he struck

bottom, he imagined he heard a most delicious little laugh. So real was

the illusion that he gripped two handfuls of moss and looked about

sharply, but of course saw nothing. The laugh was repeated.

He looked again, and so became aware of a Vision in pink, standing just

in front of a big pine above him on the hill and surveying him with

mischievous eyes.

Surprise froze him, his legs straddled, his hat on one side, his mouth

open. The Vision began to pick its way down the hill, eyeing him the

while.

That dancing scrutiny seemed to mesmerize him. He was enchanted to

perfect stillness, but he was graciously permitted to take in the

particulars of the girl's appearance. She was dainty. Every posture of

her slight figure was of an airy grace, as light and delicate as that

of a rose tendril swaying in the wind. Even when she tripped over a

loose rock, she caught her balance again with a pretty little uplift of

the hand. As she approached, slowly, and evidently not unwilling to

allow her charms full time in which to work, Bennington could see that

her face was delicately made; but as to the details he could not judge

clearly because of her mischievous eyes. They were large and wide and

clear, and of a most peculiar colour--a purple-violet, of the shade one

sometimes finds in flowers, but only in the flowers of a deep and shady

wood. In this wonderful colour--which seemed to borrow the richness of

its hue rather from its depth than from any pigment of its own, just as

beyond soundings the ocean changes from green to blue--an hundred moods

seem to rise slowly from within, to swim visible, even though the mere

expression of her face gave no sign of them. For instance, at the

present moment her features were composed to the utmost gravity. Yet in

her eyes bubbled gaiety and fun, as successive up-swellings of a

spring; or, rather, as the riffles of sunlight and wind, or the

pictured flight of birds across a pool whose surface alone is stirred.




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