They followed narrow trails through the ceanothus-bushes, riding one behind the other; they climbed steep trails among the pines; then went down steep trails among granite boulders; they rode side by side through little upland valleys and grassy meadows.  They broke off sprays of resinous needles as they rode, inhaling the sharp odours; they stooped for handfuls of fragrant sage; they splashed through swampy places where the grass and stalks of lush flowers swept their stirrups, through rock-bound noisy streams where they must pick their way cautiously, and where the horses snorted and shook their heads and Gloria laughed gleefully.  To-day was like the completion of that other day when they had ridden to Coloma—­to both it seemed that it was only yesterday.  The weeks in between did not matter; they were wiped out of life by the green magic.  Unfinished topics, left over from the first ride, presented themselves now to be completed.  Once Gloria, speaking of their first woodland luncheon, said “Yesterday.”  Once King, as they crossed a wild mountain brook, said, “There’s one’s nest now.  On that rock down by the waterfall.  Looks like a bit of the rock itself, with moss all about it,” and Gloria understood that it was her water-ouzel he was talking about.

“It was springtime yesterday and to-day it’s summer!” said Gloria.

“It’s always springtime somewhere in the world,” answered King.  “To-day we’ll ride from one season up into the other.”

“More magic!” laughed Gloria.

It is always springtime somewhere in the world!  As youth knows and remembers, as age forgets.  Always a place somewhere for laughter and love and light hands caressing, for bird song and bird mating and colourful flowers.  And to-day they were seeking this place among the mountains, riding on expectantly through dark passes, climbing winding trails, looking across deep canons and blue ridges.  Gloria thought dreamily that she would like always to be riding thus, leaving summer behind and below, questing the joyous, full-sapped springtime.

He had promised to show her his latest temporary camp.  They came to it before noon at an altitude of well above seven thousand feet.  In a grassy open space they left their horses; King carried their lunch bundle and they went on on foot.  Along the frothing creek, along the mountain-side through a wild country of dwarfed vegetation.  She began to understand a thing he had told her; that the Sierra is the land of dwarf and giant.  Pine and cedar and, in one spot he knew, mighty sequoia piercing at the sky; and here pine, dwarfed, pygmied until it was but a mat of twisted, broken twigs carpeting the heights.  “And I have walked among the pine tops!” cried Gloria.  For up here there was scant soil; here the winds raged and the snow heaped itself high in the late fall and remained, icy-crusted, into late summer; and here, now, the springtime had just come.  Never had Gloria seen more beautiful flowers, flowers half so delicate-looking.  And yet how hardy they must be, to live here at all!