Page:Son of the wind.djvu/135

RV 123 "All times!" she threw the equivocal answer over her shoulder, and bringing the chestnut's head about, made an impetuous set at a white-grassed hillside.

Up they went, over a surface ashy blond and slippery as glass—bad footing for horses, and not a tree in sight; but she lifted the mare with firm touch, without a stumble, and went like one who has knowledge and purpose in her direction.

"She's sure of herself! she's got a lot of confidence," he thought, and secretly applauded that virtue. It was one of his own, and he understood it.

They came out on a summit much larger than the little peaks around it and broken into two levels. The one that had faced their ascent was rocky and high, with odd individual little bushes dodging here and there; but, as the ground dropped away, the rock grew scanter and the bushes thickened, grew taller, drew closer together, developed mature form, until, upon the farther edge of the hill appeared a small company of cedars. They looked older than the hills around them, so low a man could scarcely stand upright under them, contorted, rigid as if cut of stone. It seemed as though no wind blowing could move such branches.

At the entrance of this prophet's retreat the girl slid, panting and smiling, into Carron's hands. "The