.

Pronto was grazing near at hand. She caught him and mounted. It struck
her then that her hands were numb with cold. The wind had ceased
fluttering the aspens, but the yellow leaves were falling, rustling. Out
on the brow of the slope she faced home and the west.

A glorious Colorado sunset had just reached the wonderful height of its
color and transformation. The sage slopes below her seemed rosy velvet;
the golden aspens on the farther reaches were on fire at the tips; the
foothills rolled clear and mellow and rich in the light; the gulf of
distance on to the great black range was veiled in mountain purple; and
the dim peaks beyond the range stood up, sunset-flushed and grand. The
narrow belt of blue sky between crags and clouds was like a river full
of fleecy sails and wisps of silver. Above towered a pall of dark cloud,
full of the shades of approaching night.

"Oh, beautiful!" breathed the girl, with all her worship of nature. That
wild world of sunset grandeur and loneliness and beauty was hers. Over
there, under a peak of the black range, was the place where she had been
found, a baby, lost in the forest. She belonged to that, and so it
belonged to her. Strength came to her from the glory of light on
the hills.

Pronto shot up his ears and checked his trot.

"What is it, boy?" called Columbine. The trail was getting dark.
Shadows were creeping up the slope as she rode down to meet them. The
mustang had keen sight and scent. She reined him to a halt.

All was silent. The valley had begun to shade on the far side and the
rose and gold seemed fading from the nearer. Below, on the level floor
of the valley, lay the rambling old ranch-house, with the cabins
nestling around, and the corrals leading out to the soft hay-fields,
misty and gray in the twilight. A single light gleamed. It was like
a beacon.

The air was cold with a nip of frost. From far on the other side of the
ridge she had descended came the bawls of the last straggling cattle of
the round-up. But surely Pronto had not shot up his ears for them. As if
in answer a wild sound pealed down the slope, making the mustang jump.
Columbine had heard it before.

"Pronto, it's only a wolf," she soothed him.

The peal was loud, rather harsh at first, then softened to a mourn,
wild, lonely, haunting. A pack of coyotes barked in angry answer, a
sharp, staccato, yelping chorus, the more piercing notes biting on the
cold night air. These mountain mourns and