At the Ranger Station, they stopped—­Conrad Lagrange wishing to greet the mountaineer official, whom he had learned to know on his former trip.  But the Ranger was away somewhere, riding his lonely trails, and they did not tarry.

Just above the Station, they left the main road to follow the way that leads to the Morton Ranch in the mouth of Alder Canyon—­a small side canyon leading steeply up to a low gap in the main range.  Beyond Morton’s, there is only a narrow trail.  Three hundred yards above the ranch corral, where the road ends and the trail begins, the buildings of the mountaineer’s home were lost to view.  Except for the narrow winding path that they must follow single file, there was no sign of human life.

For three weeks, they knew no roads other than those lonely, mountain trails.  At times, they walked under dark pines where the ground was thickly carpeted with the dead, brown needles and the air was redolent with the odor of the majestic trees; or made their camps at night, feeding their blazing fires with the pitchy knots and cones.  At other times, they found their way through thickets of manzanita and buckthorn, along the mountain’s flank; or, winding zigzag down some narrow canyon wall, made themselves at home under the slender, small-trunked alders; and added to the stores that Croesus packed, many a lusty trout from the tumbling, icy torrent.  Again, high up on some wind-swept granite ridge or peak, where the pines were twisted and battered and torn by the warring elements, they looked far down upon the rolling sea of clouds that hid the world below; or, in the shelter of some mighty cliff, built their fires; and, when the night was clear, saw, miles away and below, the thousands of twinkling star-like lights of the world they had left behind.  Or, again, they halted in some forest and hill encircled glen; where the lush grass in the cienaga grew almost as high as Croesus’ back, and the lilies even higher; and where, through the dark green brakes, the timid deer come down to drink at the beginning of some mountain stream.  At last, their wanderings carried them close under the snowy heights of San Gorgonio—­the loftiest of all the peaks.  That night, they camped at timber-line and in the morning,—­leaving Croesus and the outfit, while it was still dark,—­made their way to the top, in time to see the sun come up from under the edge of the world.

So they were received into the inner life of the mountains; so the spirit that dwells in that unmarred world whispered to them the secrets of its enduring strength and lofty peace.

From San Gorgonio, they followed the trail that leads down to upper Clear Creek—­halting, one night, at Burnt Pine Camp on Laurel Creek, above the falls.  Then—­leaving the Laurel trail—­they climbed over a spur of the main range, and so down the steep wall of the gorge to Lone Cabin on Fern Creek.  The next day, they made their way on down to the floor of the main canyon—­five miles above the point where they had left it at the beginning of their wanderings.