"one of my relations--like cousin Hiram."
"I wish you would think of me as being as true a friend," said the young
man earnestly.
She did not reply immediately, but seemed to be examining the distance.
They were not far from the canyon now, and the river bank. A fringe of
buckeyes hid the base of the mountain, which had begun to tower up above
them to the invisible stage road overhead. "I am going to be a real
guide to you now," she said suddenly. "When we reach that buckeye corner
and are out of sight, we will turn into it instead of going through the
canyon. You shall go up the mountain to the stage road, from THIS side."
"But it is impossible!" he exclaimed, in astonishment. "Your uncle said
so."
"Coming DOWN, but not going up," she returned, with a laugh. "I found
it, and no one knows it but myself."
He glanced up at the towering cliff; its nearly perpendicular flanks
were seamed with fissures, some clefts deeply set with stunted growths
of thorn and "scrub," but still sheer and forbidding, and then glanced
back at her incredulously. "I will show you," she said, answering his
look with a smile of triumph. "I haven't tramped over this whole valley
for nothing! But wait until we reach the river bank. They must think
that we've gone through the canyon."
"They?
"Yes--any one who is watching us," said the girl dryly.
A few steps further on brought them to the buckeye thicket, which
extended to the river bank and mouth of the canyon. The girl lingered
for a moment ostentatiously before it, and then, saying "Come," suddenly
turned at right angles into the thicket. Brice followed, and the next
moment they were hidden by its friendly screen from the valley. On the
other side rose the mountain wall, leaving a narrow trail before them.
It was composed of the rocky debris and fallen trees of the cliff, from
which buckeyes and larches were now springing. It was uneven, irregular,
and slowly ascending; but the young girl led the way with the free
footstep of a mountaineer, and yet a grace that was akin to delicacy.
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