"No, I will live, or rather headquarter, with Welborn as long as he lets me. Landy says that a rough, hazardous trail just back of our house leads directly to the near corner of the property. It's the route of the old proposed road to the Tranquil Meadows. We're to try that trail this morning, and I will have to stop and tell Welborn what I am doing. He will be surprised, but not interested. Welborn is self-centered on getting some 'quick' money. When he gets that done he's going to be busy using it, either to straighten out his own financial affairs or to down or suppress some financier that has busted in on his plans. In either event, we will lose him. Welborn doesn't belong out here. He belongs in the jam, the crush, the mob, where they strive only for personal gain--either in bulking up a lot of money or acquiring personal rank or status. He's young, industrious and impetuous; he might get it done. It's a great game, I'm told; it engenders some joy and a lot of grief. Personally, I'd rather put in the time handling a pup or growing a clutch of chickens." Landy's appearance with the saddled horses interrupted the discussion. 14 The path over which Landy guided his little partner may have been an animal trail before the days of the intrusion of the white men. It had its beginnings in a little unnoticeable niche at the Welborn cabin. It wound a narrow way along the face of the cliff and led down and around to cross a quick-flowing brook that farther down was to take the name "Mad Trapper's Fork." Halfway down, Landy pointed out that some blasting here and a bridge there would make a serviceable thoroughfare. Davy was fairly busy in retaining his saddle-seat as Peaches followed old Frosty around the dangerous turns. At the halt, and during Landy's remarks, he gazed at the towering peaks on the one side and the yawning ravine on the other, and suggested that he, Landy, could no doubt construct the proposed improvement some afternoon when he was resting from his strenuous work in the hay field. The sarcasm was ignored. Landy searched out a convenient crossing of the little stream. Once out of the stream bed the party was to encounter a vast tableland of grazing ground that seemed bounded by hills and peaks on all sides--the Tranquil Meadows. It was Davy's time to halt the procession. As was his custom, he rode Peaches in front of Frosty and stopped for an extended inspection. "A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou Beside me, singing in the Wilderness--Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"