ght comes through a kind of notch in the
west. I thought he was tired of the motion of the car, so we stopped and
he lay back looking at the cliff. Pretty soon the sun shot a long ray
past us and it fairly splattered gold on the canon wall. Then the shaft
of sunlight went out. 'It will shine again,' he said, as if I didn't
know that. Collie's a pretty sick man."

Later Winthrop and Louise joined the others at the veranda. Louise
excused herself. She searched a long time before she found another rose.
This time it was a Colombe bud, full, red, and beautiful. She stepped to
Collie's window. "Boy!" she called softly.

White and trembling, he stood in the long window looking down at her.
"I'm glad you are home again," she said.

He nodded, and glanced away.

"Boy!" she called again. "Catch." And she tossed the rose. He caught it
and pressed it to his lips.

CHAPTER XXXI

NIGHT

Evening, placidly content with the warm silence, departed lingeringly.
Belated insects still buzzed in the wayside foliage. A bee, overtaken in
his busy pilfering by the obliterating dusk, hung on a nodding mountain
flower, unfearful above the canon's emptiness. An occasional bird
ventured a boldly questioning note that lingered unfinished in the
silence of indecision. Across the road hopped a young rabbit, a little
rounded shadow that melted into the blur of the sage. A cold white fire,
spreading behind the purple-edged ranges, enriched their somber panoply
with illusive enchantments, ever changing as the dim effulgence drifted
from peak to peak. Shadows grew luminous and were gone. In their stead
wooded valleys and wide canons unfolded to the magic of the moon. There
was no world but night and imagination.

With many rustlings the quail huddled in the live-oaks, complaining
querulously until the darkness silenced them.

The warm, acrid fragrance of the hills was drawn intermittently across
the cooler level of the shadowy road. A little owl, softly reiterating
his cadences of rue, made loneliness as a thing tangible, a thing
groping in the dusk with velvet hands.

Then came that hush of rest, that pause of preparation, as though night
hesitated to awaken her countless myrmidons. With the lisping of
invisible leaves the Great Master's music-book unfolded. That low,
orchestral "F"--the dominant note of all nature's melodies--sounded in
timorous unison--an experimental murmuring. Repeated in higher octaves,
it swelled to shrill con