o thousand
feet. And hills beyond. Big hills, with snows you couldn't melt
anyhow. Over there, too." One great hand waved in the direction of
the east. "Lesser hills. Lesser woods. But--man, it's fine! Then
ahead. Miles an' miles of this queer blue grass which sets fat on
cattle inches deep."

His words ceased, but his eyes continued to feast, flooding the simple
brain behind them with a joy which no words could describe. Presently
he went on:

"Makes you feel A'mighty God's a pretty big feller, don't it? Guess He
jest tumbles things around, an' sets up, an' levels down in a way that
wouldn't mean a thing to brains like ours--till He's finished it all,
and sort of swep' up tidy. Look at them colors, way up there to the
west. Queer? Sure. Every sort o' blamed color in a tangle no earthly
painter could set out. Ain't it a pictur'? It's jest a sort o'
pictur' a painter feller's li'ble to spend most of his wholesome nights
dreamin' about. An' when he wakes up, why, I don't guess he kin even
think like it, an' he sure ain't a hell of a chance to paint that way
anyhow. Say, d'you make it these things are, or is it jest something
He sets in us makes us see 'em that way? He's big--He surely is. I'm
glad I come along with you, Jeff, boy. Y' see, a feller sort o' sits
around home, an' sees the same grass, an' brands the same steers, an'
thinks the same thinks. Ther' ain't nothin' he don't know around home.
He gets so life don't seem a thing, an' he jest feels he's running
things so as he pleases. He sort o' fergets he's jest a part o' the
scenery around. He fergets he's set in that scenery by an A'mighty big
Hand, same as them all-fired m'squitters we just found, an' kind o'
guesses he is that A'mighty Hand." He turned his deeply smiling eyes
on his companion. "I don't often take on like this, Jeff," he
apologized, "but the sight o' this place makes me want to shout an' get
right out an' thank the good God He's seen fit to let me sit around an'
live."

But Jeff had no means of simple expression such as Bud. He could never
give verbal expression to the emotions locked away in his heart. Those
who knew him regarded it as reserve, even hardness. Perhaps it was
only that shyness which the strongest characters are often most prone
to.

He ignored the older man's quaintly expressed feelings, and fastened
upon the opening he had at last received, and which he had been seeking
ever since it had become