Presently a near cliff came between him and the higher view and, with a lift and drop of his square shoulders, he settled back in his chair.  He drew his hand across his eyes, the humorous lines deepened and, like one admitting a weakness, he shook his head.  It was always so; the sight of any mountains, a patch of snow on a far blue ridge, set his pulses singing; wakened the wanderlust for the big spaces in God’s out-of-doors.  And this canyon of the Snoqualmie was old, familiar ground.  He had served his surveyor’s apprenticeship on these western slopes of the Cascades.  He had triangulated most of these peaks, named some of them, and he had carried a transit to these headwaters, following his axman often over a new trail.  Now, far, far down between the columns of hemlock and fir, he caught glimpses of the State road on the opposite bank of the stream that, like a lost river, went forever seeking a way out, and finally, for an instant he saw a cabin set like a toy house at the wooden bridge where the thoroughfare crossed.  Then the eastbound, having made a great loop, found another hidden gateway and moved up to the levels above Lake Keechelus.  The whistle signalled a mountain station, and Tisdale rose and went out to the platform; when the trucks jolted to a standstill, he swung himself down to the ground to enjoy a breath of the fine air.

The next moment he found himself almost upon a wrecked automobile.  He saw in a flash that the road, coming through a cut, crossed the railroad track, and that in making a quick turn to avoid the end of the slowing train, the chauffeur had forced the car into the bank.  The machine was still upright, but it listed forward on a broken axle.  A young woman who had kept her seat in the tonneau was nursing a painful wrist, while two girls, who evidently had come through the accident unscathed, were trying to help the only man of the party up from the ground.  Tisdale bent to give him the support of his shoulder, and, groaning, the stranger settled against the side of his car and into a sitting position on the edge of the floor, easing an injured leg.  He had also received an ugly hurt above his brows, which were heavy and black and met in an angle over a prominent nose.

The lady in the tonneau and one of the girls had the same marked features and the same brilliant dark eyes, though the retreating chin, which in the man amounted to almost a blemish, in them was modified.  But the last one in the party, whom Tisdale had noticed first, was not like the rest.  She was not like any one in the world he had seen before.  From the hem of her light gray motoring coat to the crown of her big hat, she was a delight to the eyes.  The veil that tied the hat down framed a face full of a piquant yet delicate charm.  She was watching the man huddled against the machine, and her mouth, parted a little, showed the upper lip short with the upward curves of a bow.  It was as though words were arrested, half spoken, and her eyes, shadowy under curling dark lashes, held their expression, uncertain whether to sparkle out or to cloud.