Page:Ralph Connor - The Sky Pilot.djvu/249

Rh "Still," she replied, "there's something in his face that would make his mother anxious." In spite of my repudiation of her suggestion, I found myself for the next few minutes thinking of how he would come exhausted and faint from his long rides, and I resolved that he must have a rest and change.

It was one of those early September days, the best of all in the western country, when the light falls less fiercely through a soft haze that seems to fill the air about you, and that grows into purple on the far hilltops. By the time we reached the canyon the sun was riding high and pouring its rays full into all the deep nooks where the shadows mostly lay.

There were no shadows to-day, except such as the trees cast upon the green moss beds and the black rocks. The tops of the tall elms were sere and rusty, but the leaves of the rugged oaks that fringed the canyon's lips shone a rich and glossy brown. All down the sides the poplars and delicate birches, pale yellow, but sometimes flushing into orange and red, stood shimmering in the golden light, while here and there the broad-spreading, feathery sumachs made great splashes of brilliant crimson upon the yellow and gold.