Page:Owen Wister - The Virginian.djvu/440

Rh two eroded and fantastic shapes of stone, like mushrooms, or misshapen heads on pikes. Banks of snow spread up here against the black rocks, but half an hour would see us descended to the green and the woods. I looked down, both of us looked down, but our forerunners were not there.

"They'll be camping somewhere in this basin, though," said the Virginian, staring at the dark pines. "They have not come this trail by accident."

A cold little wind blew down between our stone shapes, and upward again, eddying. And round a corner upward with it came fluttering a leaf of newspaper, and caught against an edge close to me.

"What's the latest?" inquired the Virginian from his horse. For I had dismounted, and had picked up the leaf.

"Seems to be inter-esting," I next heard him say. "Can't you tell a man what's making your eyes bug out so?"

"Yes," my voice replied to him, and it sounded like some stranger speaking lightly near by; "oh, yes! Decidedly interesting." My voice mimicked his pronunciation. "It's quite the latest, I imagine. You had better read it yourself." And I handed it to him with a smile, watching his countenance, while my brain felt as if clouds were rushing through it.

I saw his eyes quietly run the headings over. "Well?" he inquired, after scanning it on both sides. "I don't seem to catch the excitement. Fremont County is going to hold elections. I see they claim Jake—"