Jack had an inspiration.  He climbed hurriedly down off the rock, got his own looking glass and climbed back again.  He turned the glass so that the sun shown on it aslant and threw a glare toward her.  Then he lifted the telescope quickly to see if she noticed the sparkle.  After a moment he decided that she had seen it but did not quite know what had caused it.  At any rate, she was still looking that way, which was something.

Like the boy he was, he lay down on his stomach, balanced the telescope across a splintered notch in the rock so that he could steady it with one hand, and with the other he tilted the mirror; inadvertently tilted the telescope also, and came near smashing the mirror before he got the two balanced again.  Well, she was still looking, at any rate.  And now she was frowning a little, as though she was puzzled.

He signalled again, and this time he managed to keep her in the field of the telescope.  He saw her smile suddenly and glance down at her vanity mirror.  Still smiling, she lifted it and turned it to the sun, looking from it to the peak.

“She’s on!  I’ll be John Browned if she ain’t on to it already!” Jack chortled to the birds, and sent her a signal.  She answered that with a flash.  He managed two flashes without losing her in the telescope, and she immediately sent two flashes in reply.  Three he gave, and she answered with three.  He could see her laughing like a child with a new game.  He could see the impish light in her eyes when she glanced up, like a woman engrossed in her favorite pastime of be-deviling some man.  He laughed back at her, as though she was as near to him as she looked to be.  He quite forgot that she was not, and spoke to her aloud.

“Some little heliographing—­what?  Come on up, and we’ll make up a code, so we can talk!  Aw, come on—­it ain’t so far!  Husky girl like you can climb it in no time at all.  Aw, come on!”

A couple of tourists, panting up to the peak with unsightly amber goggles and a kodak and a dog, found him addressing empty air and looked at him queerly.  Jack could have murdered them both when he turned his head and saw them gaping open-mouthed at his performance.  But he did not.  He climbed shame-facedly down and answered the usual questions with his usual patient courtesy, and hoped fervently that they would either die at once of heart failure or go back to the lake and leave him alone.  Instead, they took pictures of the station and the rocks and of him—­though Jack was keen-witted enough to keep in the shade and turn his face away from the camera.

They were such bores of tourists!  The woman was sunburned and frowsy, and her khaki outing suit was tight where it should be loose, and hung in unsightly wrinkles where it should fit snugly.  Her high-laced mountain boots were heavy and shapeless, and she climbed here and there, and stood dumpily and stared down at Jack’s beloved woods through her amber glasses until she nearly drove him frantic.  She kept saying:  “Oh, papa, don’t you wish you could get a snap of that?” and “Oh, papa, come and see if you can’t snap this!”