the end of a million years of pre-existence
waiting for this thing? Now, at last, Wayland realized that the quiet
fellowship, the common interests, the satisfaction of her presence, the
aptitude their minds had of always rushing to meet halfway on the same
subject, had somehow massed to a something within himself that set his
blood coursing with jubilant swiftness.

He looked at the rancher's daughter. What had happened? She was the
same, yet not the same. Her eyes were awaiting his. They did not
flinch. They were wells of light; a strange new light; depth of light.
Had the veil lifted at last? The welter of sullen anger subsided
within him. The wrapped mystery of the mountain twilight hushed
speech. What folly it all was--that far off clamor of greed in the
Outer World, that wolfish war of self-interest down in the Valley, that
clack of the wordsters darkening wisdom without knowledge! As if one
man, as if one generation of men, could stay the workings of the laws
of eternal righteousness by refusing to heed, any more than one man's
will could stop an avalanche by refusing to heed the law of the
snowflake!

Calamity, the little withered half-breed woman, slipped in and out of
the Forester's cabin tidying up bachelor confusion. The wind suffed
through the evergreens in dream voices, pansy-soft to the touch. The
slow-swaying evergreens rocked to a rhythm old as Eternity, Druid
priests standing guard over the sacrament of love and night. From the
purpling Valley came the sibilant hush of the River. Somewhere, from
the branches below the Ridge, a water thrush gurgled a last joyous note
that rippled liquid gold through the twilight.

Life might have become the tent of a night in an Eternity--a tent of
sky hung with stars; the after-glow a topaz gate ajar into some
infinite life. Then Love and Silence and Eternity had wrapped them
round as in a robe of prayer. He was standing above the dead
camp-fire. She was leaning forward from the slab seat, her face
between her hands. With a catch of breath, she withdrew her eyes from
his and watched the long shadows creep like ghosts across the Valley.

What he said aloud in the nonchalant voice of twentieth century youth
keeping hold of himself was--

"Not bad, is it?" nodding at the opal flame-winged peak. "Pretty good
show turned on free every night?"

A meadow lark went lifting above the Ridge dropping silver arrows of
song; and a little flutter of phanto