him no longer offers
delight, it is merely and simply because his eyes have grown accustomed
to what lies just before them and are wearied with it. For, after all,
one but requires a complete change of environment to quicken eye and
interest, to fill again the world with colour. Thus, put the man of
the sea in the heart of the mountains and he stares about him at a
thousand little things which pass unnoted under the calm eyes of the
mountaineer. Or take up the dweller of the heights and set him aboard
a wind-jammer bucking around the Horn and he will marvel at a sailor's
song or the wide arc of a dizzy mast. So Helen Longstreet now, lifted
from a college city of the East and set down upon the level floor of
the West; so, in the less nervous way of greater years, her father.

The three were full two hours in walking from the base of the hills to
Howard's ranch headquarters. Continuously the girl found fresh
interests leaping into her quick consciousness. They waded knee-deep
in lush grass of a meadow into which Howard had brought water from the
hills; among the grass were strange flowers, red and yellow and blue,
rising on tall stalks to lift their heads to the golden sun. From the
grass rose birds, startled by their approach, one whirring away
voicelessly from a hidden nest, another, a yellow and black-throated
lark, singing joyously. They crossed the meadow and came up the
swelling slope of a gentle hill; upon its flatfish top were oaks; in
the shade of the oaks three black-and-white cows looked with mild,
approving eyes upon their three tiny black-and-white calves. With the
pictured memory unfading, Helen's eyes were momentarily held by an
eagle balancing against the sky; the great bird, as though he were
conscious that he held briefly centre stage, folded his wings and
dropped like a falling stone; a ground squirrel shrilled its terror
through the still afternoon and went racing with jerking tail toward
safety; the great bird saw the frantic animal scuttle down a hole and
unfolded its wings; again it balanced briefly, close to the ground;
then in a wide spiral reascended the sky.

Came then wide fields with cattle browsing and drowsing; it was the
first time Helen had harkened to a bellowing bull, the first time she
had seen one of his breed with bent head pawing up grass and earth and
flinging them over the straight line of his perfect back; she sensed
his lusty challenge and listened breathlessly to the a