Aromatic-scented branches brushed our faces, and we had to part them before we could pass on.  Then they flew back into their accustomed places, resenting our intrusion by shaking over us a shower of fragrant dew.  The path, which was always narrow, had fallen away a little here and there, for it is no one’s business to repair it now, since the making of the railway has turned pilgrims into tourists.  There was just room for man or beast to walk without danger, but so sheer were the descents below us, so great the drop, that a woman might have been pardoned a few tremors.  “It’s a good thing you’re not a girl,” said I to the Little Pal, across my shoulder, holding back a particularly obstinate branch which would have liked to push us over the precipice, with its lean black arm.  “You would be screaming, and I shouldn’t know what to do for you.”

“Not if I were an American girl,” he replied, bristling with patriotism.

“Is your sister plucky?”

“As plucky as I am; but perhaps that’s not saying much.  So you’re glad I’m not a girl?”

“I wouldn’t metamorphose you, and lose my comrade.  Still, if your sister were like you, and not an heiress, I should——­”

“You would—­what?”

“Like to meet her.  But she would probably detest me, and wonder how her brother could have endured my society for weeks on end.”

I was looking back, as I spoke, at the Boy, who was close behind, when suddenly his smile seemed to freeze, and springing forward he caught me by the coat sleeve.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, for he was pale under the brown tan.

For an instant he did not answer.  Then, with his lips trembling slightly, he smiled again.  “I thought you were going to be killed, that’s all,” said he, “so I stopped you.  You were looking back at me, but I saw that—­that you were just going to tread on a stone which Fanny had loosened with her hoof as she passed.  If you had stepped there, before you could regain your balance, you—­but there’s no use talking of it.  Only do look where you’re walking, won’t you, when we’re on a path like this?  Now we can go on.”

“Why, you little duffer, you’re as white as a ghost!” I exclaimed.  “If the stone had slipped I should have jumped back.  The path isn’t really so narrow.  It only gives that effect because it’s steep, and hangs over the edge of a precipice.  Still, many thanks for your solicitude.”

“I believe, after all, I’ll have to rest for a minute,” the Boy said apologetically.  “I feel—­a little queer.  You needn’t wait.  I’m sorry you should see me like this.  You’ll think that there’s nothing to choose between me and a girl.  But I’m not always a coward.”

“I know that well enough,” I assured him.  “You’re not a coward now.  But come on.  You shall rest when the path widens, where the others are stopping.”

I caught his hand to pull him along, since we could not walk abreast, and it was icy cold.  Yet it was not for himself that he had feared, and my heart was very warm for the Little Pal, as I steered him carefully past the loose, flat stone on the edge of the narrow path.