"Jim! Jim, dear!"

He made no response, and she rushed to his side and whispered:

"You must see this sunrise--get up quick, quick, dear. It's wonderful."

"What's the matter?" he muttered.

"The sunrise over the mountains--quick--it's glorious."

His heavy eyelids drooped and closed. He dropped on the pillow and buried his face out of sight.

"Ah, Jim dear, do come--just to please me."

"I'm dead, Kiddo--dead to the world," he sighed. "Don't like to see the sun rise. I never did. Come on back and let's sleep----"

His last words were barely audible. He was breathing heavily as his lips ceased to move.

She gave it up, returned to the window and watched the changing colors until the white light from the sun's face had touched with life the last shadows of the valleys and flashed its signals from the farthest towering peaks.

Her whole being quivered in response to the beauty of this glorious mountain world. The air was wine. She loved the sapphire skies and the warm, lazy, caressing touch of the sun of the South.

A sense of bitterness came, just for a moment, that the man she had chosen for her mate had no eye to see these wonders and no ear to hear their music. During the madness of his whirlwind courtship she had gotten the impression that his spirit was sensitive to beauty--to the waters of the bay, the sea and the wooded hills. She must face the facts. Their stay on the island had convinced her that he had eyes only for her. She must make the most of it.

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!"

"Nonsense----"

"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?"

"To go to Black Mountain?"

"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."

"Suppose you'd know the way now?"

"We couldn't miss it. We follow the bed of the Swannanoa to its source-----"

"Then that settles it. We'll go by ourselves. I don't want any mutt along to show us the way. We couldn't get lost nohow, could we?"

"Of course not--all the roads lead to Asheville. We can ask the way to the house you want, when we reach the little stopping place at the foot of Mount Mitchell."

"Gee, Kid, you're a wonder!" he exclaimed admiringly. "Couldn't get along without you, now could I?"

"I hope not, sir!"

"You bet I couldn't! We'll start right away. The roads will give us a jolt----"

He turned suddenly to go.

"Wait--wait a minute, dear," she pleaded. "You haven't seen this gorgeous view to the southwest, with Mount Pisgah looming in the center like some vast cathedral spire--look, isn't it glorious?"

"Fine! Fine!" he responded in quick, businesslike tones.

"You can look for days and weeks and not begin to realize the changing beauty of these mountains, clothed in eternal green! Just think, dear, Mount Pisgah, there, is forty miles away, and it looks as if you could stroll over to it in an hour's walk. And there are twenty-three magnificent peaks like that, all of them more than six thousand feet high----"

She paused with a frown. He was neither looking nor listening. He had fallen into a brown study; his mind was miles away.

"You're not listening, Jim--nor seeing anything," she said reproachfully.

"No--Kiddo, we must get ready for that trip. I've got a letter for a lawyer downtown. I'll find him and hire a car. I'll be back here for you in an hour. You'll be ready?"

"Right away, in half an hour----"

"Just pack a suit-case for us both. We'll stay one night. I'll take a bag, too, that I have in my trunk."