It was ten o'clock before Jim could be persuaded to rise and get breakfast. She literally pulled him up the stairs to the observatory on the tower of the hotel.
“What's the game, Kiddo? What's the game?” he grumbled.
“Ask me no questions. But do just as I tell you; come on!”
Her face was radiant, her hair in a tangle of riotous beauty about her forehead and temples, her eyes sparkling.
“Don't look till I tell you!” she cried, as they emerged on the little minaret which crowns the tower.
“Now open and see the glory of the Lord!” she cried with joyous awe.
The day was one of matchless beauty. The clouds that swung low in the early morning had floated higher and higher till they hung now in shining billows above the highest balsam-crowned peaks in the distance.
In every direction, as far as the eye could reach, north, south, east, west, the dark ranges mounted in the azure skies until the farthest dim lines melted into the heavens.
“Oh, Jim dear, isn't it wonderful! We're lucky to get this view on our first day. It's such a good omen.”
Jim opened his eyes lazily and puffed his cigarette in a calm, patronizing way.
“Tough sledding we'd have had with an automobile over those hills,” he said. “We'll try it after lunch, though.”
“We'll go for a ride?” she cried joyfully.
“Yep. Got to hunt up the folks. The mountains near Asheville!” he said with disgust. “I should say they are near--and far, too. Holy smoke, I'll bet we get lost!”
“Where's the Black Mountains, I wonder?” he asked suddenly.
“Over there!” She pointed to the giant peaks projecting here and there in dim, blue waves beyond the Great Craggy Range in the foreground.
“Holy Moses! Do we have to climb those crags before we start?”
“Yes. That's where the lawyer said they lived, under Cat-tail Peak in the Black Mountain Range--wherever t'ell that is.”
“No, no! You don't climb the Great Craggy; you go around this end of it and follow the Swannanoa River right up to the foot of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak this side of the Rockies. The Cat-tail is just beyond Mount Mitchell.”
“You've been there?” he asked in surprise.
“Once, with a party from Asheville. We spent three days and slept in caves.”
“We couldn't miss it. We follow the bed of the Swannanoa to its source-----”