Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/111

 Young Beaudry followed the lead she had given him. "Yes, that is the most amazing thing in life—that no matter how poor the soil and how bad the conditions fine and lovely things grow up everywhere."

The sardonic smile on her dark face mocked him. "You find a sermon in it, do you?"

"Don't you?"

She plucked the wild flower out by the roots. "It struggles—and struggles—and blooms for a day—and withers. What's the use?" she demanded, almost savagely. Then, before he could answer, the girl closed the door she had opened for him. "We must be moving. The sun has already set in the valley."

His glances swept the park below. Heavily wooded gulches pushed down from the roots of the mountains that girt Huerfano to meet the fences of the ranchers. The cliffs rose sheer and bleak. The panorama was a wild and primitive one. It suggested to the troubled mind of the young man an eagle's nest built far up in the crags from which the great bird could swoop down upon its victims. He carried the figure farther. Were these hillmen eagles, hawks, and vultures? And was he beside them only a tomtit? He wished he knew.