distant divide a silver-gray
wreath of aspens lay against the tawny cheek of the mountain as daintily
as an otter-fur collarette on the neck of a girl. Even the darker girdle
of spruce and pine, lower down, lost its harsh individuality, merging
insensibly into the faded umbers, sepias, lavenders and tans of the
graduating background where the rocks and buckbrush fell away to the
open slopes beneath.

On the vega below, the alkaline scars, as yet uncalcined by the sun's
fires into glaring chalkiness, gave no offense in their moist
neutrality, and the coyote slinking dejectedly among the deserted
prairie-dog mounds was, in his ash-colored surtout, as inconspicuous as
the long wan shadows cast by the weak spring sun. In the hollow of the
foothill's arm lay a little lake, fed by a brook born in heights so
remote that its purl was deduced rather than heard, and over all lay
the soft glow of the fading twilight, accentuated by the subtle incense
of the young year's breath.

It was a symphony of tender half-tone in minor key, one of these
mystical, ethereal, God-painted Corots of the great West whose
enchantment outlives life itself, calling with an insistence which will
not be denied until the souls of its hearing yearn for its bondage again
and return to the rack of the cow-range, the torments of the desert, the
chain of the eternal hills.

The only discord was in the heart and speech of the man who swore
savagely at his over-ridden horse stumbling among the loose bowlders of
the half-effaced trail. The anathema and succeeding spur thrust were
alike cruel and undeserved, for the faithful beast had borne his rider
bravely throughout a long and weary day's work, and despite the
favorable temperature of the mild spring day, his chest was foam-flecked
and sweat-crusted and his gaunt flanks heaved pitiably. And yet there
was nothing particularly vicious in the face of the cowpuncher glaring
so disconsolately over the tender vista. It was a bit thin-lipped and
there was more than a suggestion of merciless hardness in the deep lines
about the mouth, but the blue-gray eyes were calm and steady and there
was a sturdy independence in the out-thrust of his prominent chin and
the bird-like poise of his head which, bespoke either a clear conscience
or the lethal indifference of an indomitable will. Bull-throated, yet
withal of a lean, rangy, muscular conformation, his every movement
betokened virility and force; an experienced frontie