The Cross, in the distance, was softened again to a miracle of dim yellow laid against a field of purple, and, like a speck, a huge eagle swept in circles round its point to come to rest on its extreme summit. He turned from admiring its flight to inspect a bowlder that had tumbled down from the slope above and come to rest in a big dent; it had smashed in the top of the pipe. He picked up a piece of a storm-broken limb, used it as a lever, and sent the rock crashing across the pipe to go bounding down the hillside as it gained momentum with every leap. There was a startled snort, a sudden threshing of the brush, and it parted to disclose a girl astride a horse that was terrified and endeavoring his best to dismount his rider. Dick, surmising that horse and rider had suffered a narrow escape from the bowlder, ran toward them remorsefully, but the girl already had the animal in control after a display of splendid horsemanship. "Thank you," she said, as he hastened toward the horse's head, intent on seizing the snaffle. "Please don't touch him. I can quiet him down." "I am so sorry," he pleaded, with his hat in his hand. "I had no idea that any one ever rode up this way." "Don't apologize," she answered, with a careless laugh. "No one ever does, save me. It's an old and favorite view of mine. I used to ride here, to see the Cross, many years ago, before I went away to school. So I came back to see my old friend, and--well--your bowlder would have struck us if my horse hadn't jumped." She laughed again, and reached a yellow-gauntleted hand down to pat her mount's shoulder with a soothing caress. The horse stopped trembling, and looked at Dick with large, intelligent eyes. "Ah," said Dick, remembering the garrulity of the engineer. "I believe you must be Miss Presby." Even as she said simply: "I am, but how did you know? I don't remember ever seeing you," he took note of her modish blue riding-dress with divided skirts and patent-leather boots. There was a clean freshness about her person, a smiling candor in her eyes, and a fine, frank girlishness in her face that attracted him beyond measure. She appeared to be about twenty years of age, and was such a girl as those he had known and danced with, in those distant university days when his future seemed assured, and life a joyous conquest with all the odds in his favor. Now she was of another world, for he was, after all, but a workingman, while she, the daughter of a millionaire lumberman, would dance and associate with those other university men whose financial incomes enabled them to dawdle as they pleased through life. He had no bitterness in this summary, but he sustained an instant's longing for a taste of that old existence, and the camaraderie of such girls as the one who sat before him on her horse. "No," he said, looking up at her, "you never saw me before. I have been in the Blue Mountains but six weeks. I am Richard Townsend."