them. The stranger consulted a small map.
"This is Buck Mountain," he announced rather than
queried; "Greenstream Village is beyond, west
from here, with the valley running north and south."

"You have got us laid out right," Gordon assented;
"this all's not new to you." It was as close
to the direct question as Gordon Makimmon could
bring himself. And, in the sequel, it proved the
wisdom of his creed; for, obviously, the other
avoided the implied query. "The Government
prints a good map," he remarked, and turned his
shoulder squarely upon any prolongation of the conversation.

They were now at the summit of Buck Mountain,
but dense juniper thickets hid from them any extended
view. After a turn, over the washed, rocky
road, the Greenstream Valley lay outspread below.

The sun was lowering, and the shadow of the
western range swept down the great, somber, wooded
wall towering against an illimitable vault of rosy
light; the lengthening shadows of the groves of trees
on the lower slope fell into the dark, cool, emerald
cleft. It was scarcely three fields across the shorn,
cultivated space to the opposite, precipitous barrier;
between, the valley ran narrow and rich into a faint,
broken haze of peaks thinly blue on either hand.
And, held in the still green heart of that withdrawn,

[[30]]

p029 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p030w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p031

v?