Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/133

 kid, without any blowin', it takes a purty frisky horse to slam me. I can throw a rope with any man that ever rode between the Rio Grande and the Little Missouri, but it ain't in me to take an iron from the fire and hold it on a roped calf till the meat sizzles. I wouldn't do it for all the gold of Gopher!"

Sunset was over the valley that had called to Fred Grubb's heart through so many years with the appeal of home, when the two riders drew rein on the brow of the last hill to look down into its peace, all glorified as if nature had set a halo upon it. Behind it some five or six miles the mountains stood, green of deciduous forest trees in the canyons, dark green of pine and cedar on the slopes. Far away one tall peak, wrapped in a wimple of snow, flashed in the sun; on either hand the valley, green with sweet grasses, parked here and there with clumped trees, spread into the trailing blue which came down like fold on fold of impalpable soft curtains to deny the exploring eye.

Barrett gasped in astonishment, moved by the serene beauty of it as he never had felt his emotions stir when confronting some of the mightiest spectacles in nature that the world offers. There was the quality of appeal in this blue-curtained stage, mountains guarding it against the rigors of the north, that struck at once the desire to step upon it and begin the play.

The low-walled log house built by the unfortunate brothers on their claims stood in the foreground, its shadow reaching out toward the travelers. There stretched the lines of posts encircling the half section of rich meadow lands, the protected grass lush and tall.