Jerry’s jealousy and alarm boiled past the point of prudence. He made up his mind to get off early that afternoon and go to see June, and, as he expressed it in his own thoughts, “have it out with her.” He had no idea what he intended to say, but he was going to find out what her attitude was to Rion, and, if need be, accuse her of her perfidy. He had perfected his plan of escape from the office when Black Dan informed him that he was considering the purchase of a new horse and would be obliged if Jerry--a notable judge of horseflesh--would take it for a spin along the grade road and report his opinion of it. Black Dan’s requests in this way were exceedingly like commands. But no one, from Barney Sullivan, the smartest superintendent in Virginia, to the youngest miner working on the ore-breasts, had ever dared to question them. With his face red with rage Jerry bowed his head in acquiescence, and that afternoon at the hour when he had hoped to be confronting June in her own parlor he was flying along the road toward Carson, cursing to himself as he held the reins over the back of Black Dan’s new horse. The afternoon was magnificent, held in a diamond-like transparence and blazing with sun. The mountain air tempered its heat. As Jerry flew along that remarkable road which curves, like an aërial terrace, round the out-flung buttresses of Mount Davidson, the Sierra, a lingering enameling of snow on its summits, spread before him. Rising high in tumbled majesty, mosaics of snow set in between ravines of swimming shadow, it looked unsubstantially enormous and unreal like scenery in dreams. Between it and Mount Davidson vast, airy gulfs of space fell away that seemed filled, as a glass might be with water, with a crystal stillness. The whole panorama, clarified by thin air, and with clear washes of shade laid upon it, was like a picture in its still, impersonal serenity. Jerry, in his rage, let the horse have its head and they sped forward, past the outlying cabins that made a scattering along the approach to the town, past the timbered openings of the lone prospector’s tunnels, to where the ledge of road rimmed the barren mountain flank. They were flying forward at an exhilarating pace when he noticed a woman’s figure some distance in front walking on the narrow edge of path and moving forward at a brisk rate of speed. As he overhauled it his glance began to fasten on it with growing eagerness. The woman heard the thud of the flying hoofs behind her, and drew aside, as close to the outer edge as she dared, looking with eyes that blinked in the sunlight at the approaching buggy. Jerry’s face flushed with a sudden realizing of the completely unexpected. It was June. She did not recognize him at first, and drew back, as the horse, in a swirl of dust and spume flakes, came to a stop beside her. Then she saw who it was and with a low-toned “Jerry!” stood staring at him.