Whoever had laid that foundation had
done it many a moon before. Yet the sward about was kept as if a
gardener had it in charge.
A noble stretch of lake and mountain spread out before her gaze.
Straight across the lake two deep clefts in the eastern range opened on
the water, five miles apart. She could see the white ribbon of foaming
cascades in each. Between lifted a great mountain, and on the lakeward
slope of this stood a terrible scar of a slide, yellow and brown, rising
two thousand feet from the shore. A vaporous wisp of cloud hung along
the top of the slide, and above this aerial banner a snow-capped
pinnacle thrust itself high into the infinite blue.
"What an outlook," she said, barely conscious that she spoke aloud. "Why
do these people build their houses in the bush, when they could live in
the open and have something like this to look at. They would, if they
had any sense of beauty."
"Sure they haven't? Some of them might have, you know, without being
able to gratify it."
She started, to find Jack Fyfe almost at her elbow, the gleam of a
quizzical smile lighting his face.
"I daresay that might be true," she admitted.
Fyfe's gaze turned from her to the huge sweep of lake and mountain
chain. She saw that he was outfitted for fishing, creel on his shoulder,
unjointed rod in one hand. By means of his rubber-soled waders he had
come upon her noiselessly.
"It's truer than you think, maybe," he said at length. "You don't want
to come along and take a lesson in catching rainbows, I suppose?"
"Not this time, thanks," she shook her head.
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