definitely looking for him.  At least they had been a month ago, and he supposed that they had not given up the search, even though later events had pushed his disgrace out of print.  The man they had shot was hovering close to death in a hospital, the last Jack read of the case.  It certainly would be wiser to wait a while.  So he took his camp outfit to Taylor Rock again and stayed there until his four days were gone.

That time he killed a deer and got a shot at a young bear, and came back to his post in a fairly good humor.  The little glass room had a homey look, with the late afternoon sunlight lying warm upon the map and his piles of magazines and papers stacked neatly on their shelf.  Since he could not be where he wanted to be, Jack felt that he would rather be here than anywhere else.  So his third month began with a bleak kind of content.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IN WHICH A GIRL PLAYS BILLIARDS ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP

Jack heard some one coming, snatched up a magazine and his pipe and promptly retired to his pet crevice in the rocks.  Usually he locked the door before he went, but the climber sounded close—­just over the peak of the last little knob, in fact.  He pulled the door shut and ran, muttering something about darned tourists.  Drive a man crazy, they would, if he were fool enough to stay and listen to their fool talk.

He crawled well back into the niche, settled himself comfortably and lighted his pipe.  They never came over his way—­and the wind blew from the station.  He did not believe they would smell the smoke.

Darn it all, he had the wrong magazine!  He half rose, meaning to scurry back and get the one he wanted; but it was too late now.  He heard the pebbles knocked loose where the faint trail dipped down over the knob directly behind the station.  So he settled back with his pipe for solace, and scowled down at the world, and waited for the darn tourists to go.

But this particular darn tourist had two reasons for lingering up there.  Her first and greatest reason was a sheer delight in the panorama spread below and all around her, and the desire to saturate her soul with the beauty of it, her lungs with the keen elixir of the wind, heady with the eight thousand feet of altitude.  Her second reason was a perverse desire to show Kate that she was not to be bossed around like a kid, and dictated to and advised and lectured whenever she wanted to do something which Kate did not want to do.  Why, for instance, should she miss the pleasure of climbing to the very top of the peak just because Kate began to puff before they were half way up, and wanted to turn back?