"I have staked more at heavier odds," returned Glover, taking the storm
calmly, "and won. Have you made but one trip, when you first came, do
you say?"
"The very first day."
"Then you haven't seen Devil's Gap. To see it," he continued, "you
must see it at night."
"At night?"
"With the moon rising over the Spanish Sinks."
"Ah, how that sounds!" exclaimed Marie.
"To-night we have full moon," added Glover. "Don't say too lightly you
have seen Devil's Gap, for that is given to but few tourists."
"Do not call us tourists," objected Gertrude.
"And from where did you see Devil's Gap--The Pilot?"
"No, from across the Tarn."
If the expression of Glover's face, returning somewhat the ridicule
heaped on him, was intended to pique the interest of the sightseers it
was effective. He was restored, provisionally, to favor; his
suggestion that after dinner they take horses for the ride up Pilot
Mountain to where the Gap could be seen by moonlight was eagerly
adopted, and Mrs. Whitney's objection to dressing again was put down.
Marie, fearing the hardship, demurred, but Glover woke to so lively
interest, and promised the trip should be so easy that when she
consented to go he made it his affair to attend directly to her comfort
and safety.
He summoned one particular liveryman, not a favorite at the fashionable
hotel, and to him gave especial injunctions about the horses. The
girths Glover himself went over at starting, and in the riding he kept
near Marie.
Lighted by the stars, they left the hotel in the early evening. "How
are you to find your way, Mr. Glover?" asked Marie, as they threaded
the path He led her into after they had reached the mountain. "Is this
the road we came on?"
"I could climb Pilot blindfolded, I reckon. When we came in here I ran
surveys all around the old fellow, switchbacks and everything. The
line is a Chinese puzzle about here for ten miles. The path you're on
now is an old Indian trail out of Devil's Gap. The guides don't use it
because it is too long. The Gap is a ten-dollar trip, in any case, and
naturally they make it the shortest way."
For thirty minutes they rode in darkness, then leaving a sharp defile
they emerged on a plateau.
Across the Sinks the moon was rising full and into a clear sky. To the
right twinkled the lights of Glen Tarn, and below them yawned the
unspeakable wrench in the granite shoulders of the Pilot range called
Devil's Gap. Out of its appalling darkness projected miles of silvered
spurs tipped like grinning teeth by the light of the moon.
"There are a good many Devil's Gaps in the Rockies," said Glover, after
the silence had been broken; "but, I imagine, if the devil condescends
to acknowledge any he wouldn't disclaim this."