"Come, then." He found footing on a higher bough, and leaping on the log, turned to reach his hands down to her. "Come." And when she had gained the place he was on the ground again, calling her attention to the surest step. But she took it incautiously, missed, and fell. He could only throw out his arms to break the fall, and for that instant her head was on his breast. Their young eyes met; a mist was in hers and the pink deepened in her face. "You do love me," he said. "Some day you are going to tell me so." Then he put her on the boughs at his feet, and turned and looked off over the windfall. His lips were set and his brows contracted in a deep, vertical line. But when Martha moved on with Ginger he went to his horse and brought him back to the cedar. "I think we are through the worst," he said quietly, "and if you are rested, you can ride now." He stooped, offering his hand for her foot, and when she was up, he led the horse, stopping to hold aside a trailing bough, breaking another short off, making Colonel step the logs, or if that were impossible, skirting and doubling to avoid the leap. But he had nothing more to say, and he kept his eyes turned resolutely from her, with still frowning brows. The ascent became steeper. They emerged from the windfall and took breath on a rocky shoulder. Over them rose the round crown of the great hilltop, bald or tufted with heather. The settlers, picking up the trail, pushed on. From time to time a stone gave under the reluctant Ginger’s hoofs and rattled down the incline. In places he stopped morosely, setting his legs like posts. Then Martha tugged vehemently at the halter, as though she hoped to uproot him bodily, while Eben, with the judicious use of a hazel, admonished and urged from behind. When these resources failed, Colonel charged the little cayuse, nipping him smartly in the flank, and started him in a panic. But at last the final stretch was finished and they were on the summit. Alice dismounted and they walked a few yards to the eastern side, which broke away in great, treeless steps. Far below, the forest stretched like a smooth plain, through which the Nisqually trailed and doubled like a changeable ribbon in the sun. But the girl’s eager eyes turned first northwestward, where, sixty miles distant, the Olympic Mountains shone dimly through summer haze, a pastel of blue and white, and enclosed in their hollow a turquoise sea. Was that bright moving speck a bit of cloud or was it the _Phantom_ with the light on her sails? Her glance came back and before her clear-cut, near, rose the bastioned heights of the Cascade Range, and, over-topping icy minarets and domes, vast, mighty, in Alpine splendor, loomed the triple crest of Mt. Rainier. "Well," said Forrest finally, "is it worth the effort?"