Where a jagged peak of rock thrust above the vast virgin forest, reclined a man and a woman. Beneath them, on the edge of the trees, were tethered two horses. Behind each saddle were a pair of small saddle-bags. The trees were monotonously huge. Towering hundreds of feet into the air, they ran from eight to ten and twelve feet in diameter. Many were much larger. All morning they had toiled up the divide through this unbroken forest, and this peak of rock had been the first spot where they could get out of the forest in order to see the forest.

Beneath them and away, far as they could see, lay range upon range of haze-empurpled [134]mountains. There was no end to these ranges. They rose one behind another to the dim, distant skyline, where they faded away with a vague promise of unending extension beyond. There were no clearings in the forest; north, south, east, and west, untouched, unbroken, it covered the land with its mighty growth.

They lay, feasting their eyes on the sight, her hand clasped in one of his; for this was their honeymoon, and these were the redwoods of Mendocino. Across from Shasta they had come, with horses and saddle-bags, and down through the wilds of the coast counties, and they had no plan except to continue until some other plan entered their heads. They were roughly dressed, she in travel-stained khaki, he in overalls and woolen shirt. The latter was open at the sunburned neck, and in his hugeness he [135]seemed a fit dweller among the forest giants, while for her, as a dweller with him, there were no signs of aught else but happiness.

“Well, Big Man,” she said, propping herself up on an elbow to gaze at him, “it is more wonderful than you promised. And we are going through it together.”

“And there’s a lot of the rest of the world we’ll go through together,” he answered, shifting his position so as to get her hand in both of his.

“But not till we’ve finished with this,” she urged. “I seem never to grow tired of the big woods … and of you.”

He slid effortlessly into a sitting posture and gathered her into his arms.

“Oh, you lover,” she whispered. “And I had given up hope of finding such a one.”

“And I never hoped at all. I must [136]just have known all the time that I was going to find you. Glad?”

Her answer was a soft pressure where her hand rested on his neck, and for long minutes they looked out over the great woods and dreamed.

“You remember I told you how I ran away from the red-haired school teacher? That was the first time I saw this country. I was on foot, but forty or fifty miles a day was play for me. I was a regular Indian. I wasn’t thinking about you then. Game was pretty scarce in the redwoods, but there was plenty of fine trout. That was when I camped on these rocks. I didn’t dream that some day I’d be back with you, YOU.”

“And be a champion of the ring, too,” she suggested.

“No; I didn’t think about that at all. Dad had always told me I was going to be, and I took it for granted. You see, [137]he was very wise. He was a great man.”

“But he didn’t see you leaving the ring.”

“I don’t know. He was so careful in hiding its crookedness from me, that I think he feared it. I’ve told you about the contract with Stubener. Dad put in that clause about crookedness. The first crooked thing my manager did was to break the cont............