The limited, under way again, dropped below the cloud.  Great peaks and shoulders lifted everywhere; they began to make the loop around an incredibly deep and fissure-like gorge.  It was a wonderful feat of railroad engineering; people on the other side of the car got to their feet and came over to see.  The girl, with the yellow blank in her hand, drew close to Tisdale’s elbow.  “Oh, no,” she demurred, when he rose to offer his seat, “I only want standing room just a moment.  There’s going to be a delightful view of Scenic.”

The passenger beside Hollis picked up his bag.  “Take my place,” he said.  “I am getting off at the Springs.”

Then presently, when she had moved into the vacated seat next the window, the peaks stood apart, and far, far below the untouched forest at the summer resort stood out darkly, with the gay eaves and gables of the hotel etched on it like a toy Swiss chalet on a green plateau.

“Oh,” she cried softly, “it never seemed as charming before; but, of course, it is coming, as we have, straight from the hot desert.  There’s the coolest, fragrant wood road down there, Mr. Tisdale, from the hotel to Surprise Falls.  It follows the stream past deep green pools and cascades breaking among the rocks.  Listen.  We should hear the river now.”

Tisdale smiled.  There was nothing to be heard but the echo of the running trucks and the scream of the whistle repeated from cliff and spur.  They were switchbacking down the fire-scarred front of a mountain.  He bent a little to look beyond her.  It was as though they were coasting down a tilted shelf in an oblique wall, and over the blackened skeletons of firs he followed the course of the river out through crowding blue buttes.  Returning, his glance traced the track, cross-cutting up from the gorge.

“I know Surprise Falls,” he said; “and the old Skykomish from start to finish.  There’s a point below the Springs where the current boils through great flumes of granite into a rocky basin.  Long before the hotel was thought of, I fished that pool.”

“I know!  I know!” she responded, glowing.  “We—­Miss Morganstein and her brother and I—­found it this summer.  We had to work down-stream across those fissures to reach it, but it was worth the trouble.  There never was another such pool.  It was like a mighty bowl full of dissolving emeralds; and the trout loved it.  We caught twenty, and we built a fire on the rocks and cooked them.  It was delightfully cool and shady.  It was one of those golden days one never forgets; I was sorry when it was gone.”  She paused, the high wave of her excitement passed.  “I never could live in that treeless country,” she went on.  “Water, running as God made it, plenty of it, is a necessity to me.  But please take your seat, Mr. Tisdale.”  She settled back in her place and began to date her telegram.  “I am just sending the briefest message to let Mrs. Feversham know where I am.”

“The porter is coming back for it now,” he answered “And thank you, but I am going in the smoking-car.”