A Phyllis of the Sierras | Page 5

of its walls being
perpendicular they were made of successive ledges or terraces to the
valley below. Yet the air was so still, and the outlines so clearly cut,
that they might have been only the reflections of the mountains around
him cast upon the placid mirror of a lake. The spectacle arrested him, as
it arrested all men, by some occult power beyond the mere attraction of
beauty or magnitude; even the teamster never passed it without the
tribute of a stone or broken twig tossed into its immeasurable
profundity.
Reluctantly leaving the spot, the stranger turned with the trail that now
began to skirt its edge. This was no easy matter, as the undergrowth
was very thick, and the foliage dense to the perilous brink of the
precipice. He walked on, however, wondering why Bradley had chosen
so circuitous and dangerous a route to his house, which naturally would

be some distance back from the canyon. At the end of ten minutes'
struggling through the "brush," the trail became vague, and, to all
appearances, ended. Had he arrived? The thicket was as dense as before;
through the interstices of leaf and spray he could see the blue void of
the canyon at his side, and he even fancied that the foliage ahead of him
was more symmetrical and less irregular, and was touched here and
there with faint bits of color. To complete his utter mystification, a
woman's voice, very fresh, very youthful, and by no means unmusical,
rose apparently from the circumambient air. He looked hurriedly to the
right and left, and even hopelessly into the trees above him.
"Yes," said the voice, as if renewing a suspended conversation, "it was
too funny for anything. There were the two Missouri girls from
Skinner's, with their auburn hair ringleted, my dear, like the old 'Books
of Beauty'--in white frocks and sashes of an unripe greenish yellow,
that puckered up your mouth like persimmons. One of them was
speechless from good behavior, and the other--well! the other was so
energetic she called out the figures before the fiddler did, and shrieked
to my vis-a-vis to dance up to the entire stranger-- meaning ME, if you
please."
The voice appeared to come from the foliage that overhung the canyon,
and the stranger even fancied he could detect through the shimmering
leafy veil something that moved monotonously to and fro. Mystified
and impatient, he made a hurried stride forward, his foot struck a
wooden step, and the next moment the mystery was made clear. He had
almost stumbled upon the end of a long veranda that projected over the
abyss before a low, modern dwelling, till then invisible, nestling on its
very brink. The symmetrically-trimmed foliage he had noticed were the
luxuriant Madeira vines that hid the rude pillars of the veranda; the
moving object was a rocking- chair, with its back towards the intruder,
that disclosed only the brown hair above, and the white skirts and small
slippered feet below, of a seated female figure. In the mean time, a
second voice from the interior of the house had replied to the figure in
the chair, who was evidently the first speaker:--
"It must have been very funny; but as long as Jim is always bringing

somebody over from the mill, I don't see how I can go to those places.
You were lucky, my dear, to escape from the new Division
Superintendent last night; he was insufferable to Jim with his talk of his
friend the San Francisco millionaire, and to me with his cheap society
airs. I do hate a provincial fine gentleman."
The situation was becoming embarrassing to the intruder. At the
apparition of the woman, the unaffected and simple directness he had
previously shown in his equally abrupt contact with Bradley had fled
utterly; confused by the awkwardness of his arrival, and shocked at the
idea of overhearing a private conversation, he stepped hurriedly on the
veranda.
"Well? go on!" said the second voice impatiently. "Well, who else was
there? WHAT did you say? I don't hear you. What's the matter?"
The seated figure had risen from her chair, and turned a young and
pretty face somewhat superciliously towards the stranger, as she said in
a low tone to her unseen auditor, "Hush! there is somebody here."
The young man came forward with an awkwardness that was more
boyish than rustic. His embarrassment was not lessened by the
simultaneous entrance from the open door of a second woman,
apparently as young as and prettier than the first.
"I trust you'll excuse me for--for--being so wretchedly stupid," he
stammered, "but I really thought, you know, that--that--I was following
the trail to--to--the front of the house, when I stumbled in--in here."
Long before he had finished, both women, by some