“He has to round the next turn!  Never mind!  He didn’t hear,” interjected Wayland irritably.

“All the same,” she said, “I’m going to send one of those pictures up to you for the cabin.  There is Hope sitting on top of the World, eyes bandaged, harp strings broken—­”

“Don’t send that one!  Jim-jams enough of my own up here!  I want my Hope clear-eyed even if she has to go it blind for a bit as to you—­”

“Then there’s Faith sheathing her sword—­”

“Not putting away the Big-Stick,” interrupted Wayland.

“Then you’ll have to take the Happy Warrior—­”

“I forget that one:  I’ve been up here four years, you know?”

“It’s the Soldier asleep on the Battle-Field—­”

“You mean the picture of the girl kissing the man in his sleep—­Yes, that will do all right for me.  You can send that one—­”

And the Missionary’s boy came over the edge of the Ridge trail in a hand spring.

CHAPTER III

THE CHALLENGE TO A LOSING FIGHT

“Hullo, Dick!  Who is talking of pictures and things?” The high falsetto announced the Missionary’s boy of twelve, who promptly turned a hand spring over the slab bench, never pausing in a running fire of exuberant comment.  “Get on y’r bib and tucker, Dickie!  You’re goin’ t’ have a s’prise party—­right away!  Senator Moses and Battle Brydges, handy-andy-dandy, comin’ up with Dad and MacDonald!  Oh, hullo, Miss Eleanor, how d’ y’ get here ahead?  Did y’ climb?  We met His Royal High Mightiness and His Nibs goin’ to the cow-camp.  Say, Miss Eleanor, I don’t care what they say, I’m goin’ to take sheep all by my lonesome this time, sure; goin’ t’ ride Pinto ‘cause he’s got a big tummy t’ keep him from sinking when he swims.  You needn’t laugh, it’s so!  You ask Dad if a tum-jack don’t keep a horse from sinkin’!  Say—­” sticking forward his face in a whisper—­“Senator oughtn’t to sink—­eh?”

“You don’t swim sheep unless you’re a pilgrim,” admonished Wayland; but at that moment, the Senator himself came over the edge of the Ridge, bloused and white-vested and out of breath, a bunch of mountain flowers in one hand, his felt hat in the other; and three men bobbed up behind, Indian file, over the crest of the trail, the Missionary, Williams, stepping lightly, MacDonald swarthy and close-lipped, taking the climb with the ease of a mountaineer, Bat Brydges, the Senator’s newspaper man, hat on the back of his head, coat and vest and collar in hand, blowing with the zest of a puffing locomotive.

“Whew!” The Senator dilated expansively and sank again.  “Here we are at last!  You here, Miss Eleanor?  Evening—­Wayland!  Night to you, Calamity!  How is the world using you since you stopped tramping over the hills?” Calamity shrank back to the cabin.  “I thought this trail hard as a climb to Paradise.  Now, I know it was,” and the gentleman wheezed a bow to Eleanor that sent his neck creasing to his flowing collar and set his vest chortling.