Early in the morning, they set out.  Crossing the canyon, they climbed the Oak Knoll trail—­down which the artist and Conrad Lagrange had been led by the uncanny wisdom of Croesus, a few weeks before—­to the pipe-line.  Where the path from below leads into the pipe-line trail, under the live-oaks, on a shelf cut in the comparatively easy slope of the mountain’s shoulder, they paused for a look over the narrow valley that lay a thousand feet below.  Across the wide, gray, boulder-strewn wash of the mountain torrent’s way, with the gleaming thread of tumbling Clear Creek in its center, they could see the white dots that marked the camp back of the old orchard; and, farther up the stream, could distinguish the little opening with the cedar thicket and the giant sycamores that marked the spot where Sibyl was born.

Aaron King, looking at the girl, recalled that day when he and Conrad Lagrange, in a spirit of venturesome fun, had left the choice of trails to the burro.  “Good, old Croesus!” he said smiling.

She knew the story of how they had been guided to their camping place, and laughed in return, as she answered, “He’s a dear old burro, is Croesus, and worthy of a better name.”

“Plutus would be better,” suggested the artist.

“Because a Greek God is better than a Lydian King?” she asked curiously.

“Wasn’t Plutus the giver of wealth?” he returned.

“Yes.”

“Well, and wasn’t he forced by Zeus to distribute his gifts without regard to the characters of the recipients?”

She laughed merrily.  “Plutus or Croesus—­I’m glad he chose the Oak Knoll trail.”

“And so am I,” answered the man, earnestly.

Leisurely, they followed the trail that is hung—­narrow thread-like path—­high upon the mountain wall, invisible from the floor of the canyon below.  At a point where the trail turns to round the inward curve of one of the small side canyons—­where the pines grow dark and tall—­some thoughtful hand had laid a small pipe from the large conduit tunnel, under the trail, to a barrel fixed on the mountainside below the little path.  Here they stopped again and, while they loitered, filled a small canteen with the cold, clear water from the mountain’s heart.  Farther on, where the pipe-line again rounds the inward curve of the wall between two mountain spurs, they turned aside to follow the Government trail that leads to the fire-break on the summit of the Galenas and then down into the valley on the other side.  At the gap where the Galena trail crosses the fire-break, they again turned aside to make their leisure way along the broad, brush-cleared break that lies in many a fold and curve and kink like a great ribbon on the thin top of the ridge.  With every step, now, they were climbing.  Midday found them standing by a huge rock at the edge of a clump of pines on one of the higher points of the western end of the range.  Here they would have their lunch.