CHAPTER VI. 



A DAY WITH THE CHIEF. 



THE next day we took a motor in the morning and with the Chief 

 at the helm spun and swished and swung around the winding hill 

 road to another side of the forest. 



Of course you understand that to call it a "forest" is about as 

 sensible as to style it a lake. There is no forest. Of the whole 55,000 

 acres making up the Benmore deer forest there is not over ten acres 

 of trees. These are stunted little fellows, and only grow on the lower 

 ground. 



We descended from the motor and started up what proved to be 

 about a six-mile climb to the summit of a great rock dike. At first 

 the slope was extremely gradual. In fact we climbed two or three 

 foot hills and went down into valleys between. Then we had a rather 

 stiff contest with a fairish slope thickly set with soft heather. After 

 that a broken rocky slant to the top. 



Even so soon though, my muscles had commenced to do their work 

 better, and I found the climb finished with none of those acute symp- 

 toms of distress of the first day. The view from the top was worth 

 a dozen climbs yes, a hundred. 



So far away that it seemed in another world, as I gazed toward 

 the west, there swung, seemingly 'twixt earth and sky, a great tur- 

 quoise in which a little black center floated. It was the sea and an 

 island in it, off the west coast of Scotland. Proud peaks with bold 

 but handsome faces lifted their heads on three sides. Burns wound 

 silvering down through gorse-clad glens and by craggy faces. Little 

 lochs and large lay scattered about in the valleys' floors, like children's 

 beautiful toys cast carelessly there by a youngling giant. 



It seemed as though I had been upon these peaks before and loved 

 them. Had I cared less I could say more. What man can describe 

 the face of the Dearest Girl, though all may try? 



