Chapter X: On the Edge of the World

“So you’re Lola, are you, and not some ephemeral wood-sprite that disappears with the advent of dawn? I feel disappointed that you cannot truthfully tell me your home is the trunk of the tree and that you sip the nectar from the flowers as your sole diet. Now that you’re really a human being we will have to make the best of it. I suppose you live near here?”

She pointed a slim brown finger southward where a column of smoke was curling high above the clump of evergreen pines and tall straight cedars beyond.

“I wonder,” she said, showing two rows of even white teeth, “if you gentlemen would take supper with us?” Manifestly, this was inclusive of all.

With all her feminine sweetness there was nothing coy about her nor her question. She spoke simply but with an amazing frankness, accentuated by the soft deep tones in her voice. A typical tomboy, Mr. Wilde thought.

Westy and Rip liked her at once and the fact that she included them as gentlemen had a marked effect upon this consideration.

“Now, that’s kind of you,” Mr. Wilde answered, “but we are all pretty tired to-night. We wouldn’t make very sociable guests I’m afraid. Besides, the hour is quite late now and for four men to presume upon your mother’s kind hospitality would be too much of a good thing.”

“Oh, no, not at all. I live alone with my grandmother, my father and mother are dead. It’s such a holiday when we have any visitors--it happens so very seldom.” She said it with a wistful sadness that touched them. “Are you camping here long?”

“Two weeks at the most. Perhaps we will take advantage of your invitation to-morrow evening if we are still welcome!”

“By all means, Mr. Wilde.” She moved away from the spot and extended her hand to each one in turn, acknowledging the introductions. “Our cabin is off the main trail; take the first path to the left. If you could make it in the afternoon I could show you some interesting views for your pictures. Good evening, gentlemen!”

They answered in chorus as she took the path through the trees, walking erect with long, graceful strides. Just before disappearing around the bend she turned and waved a hearty farewell.

“Gee, that’s what I call a regular girl,” Rip exploded. “Not pretty, but straight from the shoulder.”

“I’ll say,” Westy exclaimed. “She’d certainly knock the spots out of Bridgeboro’s dumb Doras.”

“Well, are you kids going to stand there gassing all night while I’m starving to death? Come on with the feed!” This was from Billy, who looked upon life as a continual unwinding of film, interrupted only by the process of eating and sleeping.

Late that night, under a moon not quite full, they sat outside talking over the events of the day.

“I say, Mr. Wilde, how did that girl know about your pictures?”

“I don’t know, Westy. It would seem uncanny--her knowing that, only I have a faint idea she saw us before we saw her. Probably when we were unloading our stuff. I hadn’t any idea of a human being living around here. Of course, it’s perfectly delightful, but inaccessible. I dare say it must be dreadfully lonely for such a spirited girl as she.”

About mid-afternoon of the next day they set out for Lola’s cabin. It was a longer hike than they thought, judging from the distance they had reckoned where the smoke was curling the previous evening.

Presently a clearing appeared just ahead and, reaching it, they beheld the “cabin” as she called it, but really a little cottage, painted white with green trimmings and embowered in flowers of variegated hue. Truly a veritable little paradise in the heart of the mountains.

So sequestered, so cool and peaceful it stood there, with the brook to one side bubbling its hurried way as its crystal waters glistened and sparkled in the sunlight.

Running back of the cottage to the south, the ground ended abruptly in a jagged ledge of rock that looked down into a deep ravine from its dizzy heights.

“I told Grandmother one time that at least we have the distinction of living on the edge of the world!” Lola had come out of the house quietly and noting their evident abstraction in the awe-inspiring depths of the ravine, she had spoken--their very thoughts.

Unconsciously, Westy had made that deduction. On the edge of the world! Indeed it was, for the formidable-looking chasm with the mountains rising ever higher to the south seemed to separate the little cottage in its realms of imagination from the world of reality beyond!