For soon he
would have someone by his side with whom to appreciate them. In
that sharing be could see the reason for them, the reason for
their strange bitter-sweet effects on the human soul.
One evening he leaned on the corral fence, looking toward the
Dragoons. The sun had set behind them. Gigantic they loomed
against the western light. From their summits, like an aureola,
radiated the splendour of the dust-moted air, this evening a deep
umber. A faint reflection of it fell across the desert,
glorifying the reaches of its nothingness.
"I'll take her out on an evening like this," quoth Senor Johnson
to himself,"and I'll make her keep her eyes on the ground till we
get right up by Running Bear Knob, and then I'll let her look up
all to once. And she'll surely enjoy this life. I bet she never
saw a steer roped in her life. She can ride with me every day
out over the range and I'll show her the busting and the branding
and that band of antelope over by the Tall Windmill. I'll teach
her to shoot, too. And we can make little pack trips off in the
hills when she gets too hot--up there by Deerskin Meadows 'mongst
the high peaks."
He mused, turning over in his mind a new picture of his own life,
aims, and pursuits as modified by the sympathetic and
understanding companionship of a woman.
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