“That’s part of your mistake, Jeannie, perhaps,” returned her sister.  “If you had been there you’d have spoiled the picture.”

“Look at that!” exclaimed Leslie, showing her beryl.  “That’s for Miss Craydocke.”  And then, when the first utterances of amazement and admiration were over, she told them the story of the child and her misfortune, and of what Miss Craydocke had done. “That’s beautiful, I think,” said she.  “And it’s the sort of beauty, may be, that one might feel as one went along.  I wish I could find—­a diamond—­for that woman!”

“Thir garnits on Feather-Cap,” put in Jim the driver.

“Oh, will you show us where?”

“Well, ’t ain’t nowhers in partickler,” replied Jim.  “It’s jest as you light on ’em.  And you wouldn’t know the best ones when you did.  I’ve seen ’em,—­dead, dull-lookin’ round stones that’ll crack open, chock—­full o’ red garnits as an egg is o’ meat.”

“Geodes!” cried Dakie Thayne.

Jim Holden turned round and looked at him as if he thought he had got hold of some new-fashioned expletive,—­possibly a pretty hard one.

They came down, now, on the other side of the Cliff, and struck the ford.  This diverted and absorbed their thoughts, for none of the ladies had ever forded a river before.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” asked Mrs. Linceford.

“Safe as meetin’,” returned Jim.  “I’d drive across with my eyes shot.”

“Oh, don’t!” cried Elinor.

“I ain’t agoin’ ter; but I could,—­an’ the hosses, too, for that matter.”

It was exciting, nevertheless, when the water in mid-channel came up nearly to the body of the wagon, and the swift ripples deluded the eye into almost conviction that horses, vehicle, and all were not gaining an inch in forward progress, but drifting surely down.  They came up out of the depths, however, with a tug, and a swash, and a drip all over, and a scrambling of hoofs on the pebbles, at the very point aimed at in such apparently sidelong fashion,—­the wheel-track that led them up the bank and into the ten-mile pine woods through which they were to skirt the base of the Cairn and reach Feather-Cap on his accessible side.  It was one long fragrance and stillness and shadow.

They overtook the Routh party at the beginning of the mountain-path.  The pine woods stretched on over the gradual slope, as far as they would climb before dinner.  Otherwise the midday heats would have been too much for them.  This was the easy part of the way, and there was breath for chat and merriment.

Just within the upper edge of the woods, in a comparatively smooth opening, they halted.  Here they spread their picnic, while up above, on the bare, open rock, the young men kindled their fire and heated the coffee; and here they ate and drank, and rested through the noontide.

Light clouds flitted between the mountains and the heavens, later in the day, and flung bewildering, dreamy shadows on the far-off steeps, and dropped a gracious veil over the bald forehead and sun-bleak shoulders of Feather-Cap.  It was “weather just made for them,” as fortunate excursionists are wont to say.