Helen hoped the comparison was undeserved, but the advice was sound. The blankets spread out on the grass looked inviting and they felt comfortably warm in the sunshine. The breeze was slow, languorous, fragrant, and it brought the low hum of the murmuring waterfall, like a melody of bees. Helen made a pillow and lay down to rest. The green pine-needles, so thin and fine in their crisscross network, showed clearly against the blue sky. She looked in vain for birds. Then her gaze went wonderingly to the lofty fringed rim of the great amphitheater, and as she studied it she began to grasp its remoteness, how far away it was in the rarefied atmosphere. A black eagle, sweeping along, looked of tiny size, and yet he was far under the heights above. How pleasant she fancied it to be up there! And drowsy fancy lulled her to sleep.
Helen slept all afternoon, and upon awakening, toward sunset, found Bo curled beside her. Dale had thoughtfully covered them with a blanket; also he had built a camp-fire. The air was growing keen and cold.
Later, when they had put their coats on and made comfortable seats beside the fire, Dale came over, apparently to visit them.
"I reckon you can't sleep all the time," he said. "An' bein' city girls, you'll get lonesome."
"Lonesome!" echoed Helen. The idea of her being lonesome here had not occurred to her.
"I've thought that all out," went on Dale, as he sat down, Indian fashion, before the blaze. "It's natural you'd find time drag up here, bein' used to lots of people an' goin's-on, an' work, an' all girls like."
"I'd never be lonesome here," replied Helen, with her direct force.
Dale did not betray surprise, but he showed that his mistake was something to ponder over.
"Excuse me," he said, presently, as his gray eyes held hers. "That's how I had it. As I remember girls--an' it doesn't seem long since I left home--most of them would die of lonesomeness up here." Then he addressed himself to Bo. "How about you? You see, I figured you'd be the one that liked it, an' your sister the one who wouldn't."
"I won't get lonesome very soon," replied Bo.
"I'm glad. It worried me some--not ever havin' girls as company before. An' in a day or so, when you're rested, I'll help you pass the time."
Bo's eyes were full of flashing interest, and Helen asked him, "How?"
It was a sincere expression of her curiosity and not doubtful or ironic challenge of an educated woman to a man of the forest. But as a challenge he took it.