TIMBER LINE BY ALIDA SIMS MALKUS AUTHOR OF “RAQUEL OF THE RANCH COUNTRY” AND “THE DRAGON FLY OF ZUÑI” Illustrated by Ruth King HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY NEW YORK ------------------------------------------------------------------------ COPYRIGHT, 1929, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY QUINN & BODEN COMPANY, INC., RAHWAY, N. J. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TO SIBYL ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TIMBER LINE CHAPTER I A CABIN ON THE CASCADA Capped in snow, their flanks of felspar rock robed in glistening drifts, the Coronado Peaks swept to towering altitudes above the dark green of the forests. Keen, fresh, heady as wine, was the air in those high places, and each minute crevasse, each ridge, was etched clearly in the sparkling winter sunlight. But there was no eye to see the glories outspread before these sister queens of the Rockies. The eagles which soared above them through the blue of summer had departed to lower altitudes with the first icy breath of winter, and even now were nesting in canyon crags, where as early as March their Spartan young would hatch. The grizzly of the Holy Ghost would not stir from his deep cave and still deeper lethargy for another month, and it was too far above timber line for the lobo and his followers to find food. The sun was sinking rapidly. Over the ridges a sharp light wind whistled. But below in the forests there was a hush, deeper than the hush of summer, for now there was no scurrying about of small creatures, the hum of insect life was lacking, and even the trees slept. Yet beneath the low branches of a cluster of fir trees a life-and-death struggle was going on. A large wolf, gaunt beneath a splendid, tawny coat, strove in silent agony, his lips twisted back from his white tusks, to free himself from the icy steel thing that had held him all day. He made not a sound to break the stillness. This was instinctive caution, for so dulled with pain had his hearing become that he did not even notice the approach of a human being. On a ridge above the fir and spruce stand a figure had appeared, and now stood outlined against the turquoise sky and snowy peaks; a girl, dressed in furry woolens of white and green, snowshoes in hand. She looked across the rim of the world and in a moment, as though a master stage director had so managed, her figure was bathed in a rosy light that changed the glacier-like heights above to flame-colored damask.