The Claim Jumpers

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.