irit could fill the gaps where his memory failed.
The sense of power was on him; he told the swinging tale as though it
were in verity his own; and the hearers gazed intensely, feeling that he
sang of himself. It was no acting, but a king proclaiming himself a
king, when he told of the world won by the bronze sword bearer mounted
on the twelve-times-nourished stallion colt; and he finished with a
royal gesture and injunction:

"Ho! ye, ye seven tall sons of Aymal,
Comes there a time when face you many trails;
Hear this for wisdom now;
Twelve colts had I and all save one I slew.
The twelve-times-nourished charger grew
And round the world he bore me
And never failed; so all the world was mine
And all the world I ruled.
Ho, children of the bronze-hilt sword,
Take this for guiding creed:
Pick out your one great steed
And slay the rest and ride."

And when he smote the table with his fist the folk in that poor, simple
hall were hushed with awe. They had no words to clothe the thoughts that
came, no experience of their own to match them. There was a pauses--a
silence; a slow, uncertain sounding of applause. Carson glared half
hypnotized; then said to himself: "This is not Jim Hartigan; this is the
royal saga who sang."

What he clearly expressed, the others vaguely but deeply felt. As for
Belle, the passion and the power of it possessed her. She was deeply
moved--and puzzled, too. It was a side of Jim she had not known before.
Later, as they went home together hand on arm, she held on to him very
tightly and said softly: "Now I know that you are marked for big things
in the world."

CHAPTER XXXIV

Springtime

Have you seen the springtime dawn on the Black Hills? No? Then you have
never seen a real spring.

For long, dark, silent months the land has lain under a broad white
robe, the plains are levelled, hidden, and the whiteness of the high
spaces sweeps down to meet, on the lower hills, the sudden blackness of
the forest pine. And now you know why these are named Black Hills. Full
four white moons have waned; the blizzard wind has hissed and stung,
till the house-bound wonder if the days of spring will ever come. In
March, when the northward-heading crows appear, the sting-wind weakens,
halts; the sweet south wind springs up, the snow-robe of the plains
turns yellow here and there as the grass comes through, then lo! comes
forth a world of crocus bloom. Th