to her saddle on Blackie, the tall, sober-faced horse, where she sat with a roll of blankets at her back and with the horn before her decorated with a miscellany of camp equipment—­a frying-pan, a short-handled axe in its sheath, an overcoat done into a compact bundle.  Here was another moment when thoughts were too slow processes to emphasize themselves; she was swayed by emotions provoked by the moment.  Where were the trunks and suitcases and hat-boxes to accompany the young bride?  In their stead, a coat tied into a tight bundle and a frying-pan before her.  King looked at her and marvelled; her cheeks were roses, her eyes were Gloria’s own, wonderful and big and deep beyond fathoming.  From his own saddle on the buckskin he nodded his approval of her.

“You are not afraid that I can’t take care of you, are you, Gloria?” he asked.

And Gloria laughed gaily, answering: 

“My dear Mr. Man, I am not the least little bit afraid of anything in all the world this morning!”

So with the glorious day brightening all about them they turned away from the log house and into the trail which straightway King dubbed “Adventure Trail.”  And as they went he sang out joyously: 

 “The Lord knows what we’ll find, dear heart, and the deuce knows what
      we’ll do. 
  But we’re back once more on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
  And Life runs large on the Long Trail—­the trail that is always new.”

Chapter XVII

The magnificent wilderness into which rode Mark and Gloria King seemed to prostrate its august self to do them honour upon this their wedding morning.  Succeeding the paler tints of the earlier hour came the rare blue day.  Last night’s clouds had vanished; the air was clear and crisp, with still a hint of frost.  On all hands had October in passing splashed the world with colour.  Along the creek the aspens danced and played and shivered in bright golden raiment; through the bushes there was a glimpse of vivid scarlet where the leaves of a dwarf maple were as bright as snow-plants.  A little grove of gracefully slender poplars trembled in yellow against the azure above.  The clear, thin sunlight pricked out colours until it made the woods a riot of them, greens dark and light, the grey of sage, the white of a granite seam, the black of a lava rock, and in the creek spray a brilliant vari-coloured rainbow sheen.  They two, riding side by side, while the broad trail permitted, passed over the ridge and out of sight of the house.  Immediately the solitudes shut down about them with titanic walls.  They rode down into a long, shadowy hollow, out through a tiny verdant meadow fringed with the rusty brown of sunflower leaves, and on up to the crest of the second ridge.  Already they were alone in the world, a man and his mate, with only infinity and its concrete symbols embracing them, ancient and ageless trees, limitless sky, mile after mile of ridge and precipice and barren peak.  And upon them and about them and within them the utter serene hush of the Sierra.