either side to lift the eastern and western horizons. The northern
prospect enabled Blount to place himself accurately, and the tide of
remembrance swept strongly in upon him. Some forty-odd miles away to the
northeast, just beyond the horizon-lifting lesser range, lay the
"short-grass" region in which he had spent the happy boyhood. An hour's
gallop through the hills to the westward the level rays of the setting
sun would be playing upon the little station of Painted Hat, the
one-time shipping-point for the home ranch. And half-way between Painted
Hat and the "Circle-Bar," nestling in the hollowed hands of the
mountains, were the horse-corrals of one Debbleby, a true hermit of the
hills, and the boy Evan's earliest school-master in the great book of
Nature.

Blount's one meliorating softness during the years of exile had
manifested itself in an effort to keep track of Debbleby. He knew that
the old horse-breeder was still alive, and that he was still herding his
brood mares at the ranch on the Pigskin. The young man, fresh from the
well-calculated East, threw up his head and sniffed the keen, cool
breeze sweeping down from the northern hills. He was not given to
impulsive plan-changing. On the contrary, he was slow to resolve and
proportionately tenacious of the determination once made. But the
stirring of boyish memories accounted for something; and in the sanest
brain there are sleeping cells of irresponsibility ready to spring alive
at the touch of suggestion. What if he should--

He sat down upon the edge of the station platform and thought it out
deliberately. Since it would be hours before the tracks could be cleared
and the rail journey resumed, what was to prevent him from taking an
immediate and delightful plunge into the region of the heart-stirring
recollections? Doubtless old Jason Debbleby was at this moment sitting
on the door-step of his lonely ranch-house in the Pigskin foot-hills,
smoking his corn-cob pipe and, quite possibly, wondering what had become
of the boy whom he had taught to "rope down" and saddle and ride. Blount
estimated the distance as he remembered it. With a hired horse he might
reach Debbleby's by late bedtime; and after a night spent with the old
ranchman he could ride on across the big mesa to the capital.

Another ineffectual attempt to find out how soon the relief train from
the capital might be expected decided Blount. Arranging with the Pullman
conductor to have his hand-lugga