Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/283

 meet Meldrum, we have to look for her up among the mountains of the Big Creek watershed," concluded Dingwell. "I believe we 'll find her safe and sound. Chances are Meldrum is n't within forty miles of her."

They were riding toward Lonesome Park, from which they intended to work up into the hills. Just before reaching the rim of the park, they circled around a young pine lying across the trail. Roy remembered the tree. It had stood on a little knoll, strong and graceful, reaching straight toward heaven with a kind of gallant uprightness. Now its trunk was snapped, its boughs crushed, its foliage turning sere. An envious wind had brought it low. Somehow that pine reminded Beaudry poignantly of the girl they were seeking. She, too, had always stood aloof, a fine and vital personality, before the eyes of men sufficient to herself. But as the evergreen had stretched its hundred arms toward light and sunshine, so Beulah Rutherford had cried dumbly to life for some vague good she could not formulate.

Were her pride and courage abased, too? Roy would not let himself believe it. The way of youth is to deny the truth of all signposts which point to the futility of beauty and strength. It