They had reached the upper timber-line, and on three sides the basin was shut in by treeless and brush-naked walls of the mountains.

In the centre of the dip was a lake fed by a tiny stream that fell in a series of ribbonlike cataracts a sheer thousand feet from the snow-peaks that towered above them.

Small, parklike clumps of spruce dotted the miniature valley; over it hung a sky as blue as sapphire and under their feet was a carpet of soft grass sprayed with little blue forget-me-nots and wild asters.
"I have never seen anything a half so beautiful as this!" cried Joanne, as Aldous helped her from her horse.
As her feet touched the ground she gave a little cry and hung limply in his arms.
"I'm lame--lame for life!" she laughed in mock humour.

"John, I can't stand.

I really can't!" Old Donald was chuckling in his beard as he came up.
"You ain't nearly so lame as you'll be to-morrow," he comforted her.