“You take your Pappy’s gun,” she said at last. “I feel to tell you so. Th’ time has come.”
But the girl shook her head.
“I don’t care,” she said, “I can’t trust myself of late.” She kissed Sonny, ran a hand over Bud’s bronze hair, and went out to the stable where she saddled Buckskin and rode away.
Dirk, sitting gravely on the door-stone, begged to go with her, but she forbade him.
So she passed the bleak ruin of her cornfield, crossed the river, low in its summer ebb, and struck up among the buck-brush and manzanita that clothes the lower slopes.
It was a sweet blue day with the summer haze on slant and level, cool with the little winds that were ever drawing up between the hills, silent with the eternal hush of the far places.
All the wilderness smiled, the heavens, blue and flecked with sailing clouds, were soft as infants’ eyes.
Nature opened appealing arms to this child of her bosom and Nance, sad and apprehensive as she had never been in her life before, went into them and was comforted.
She raised her eyes to the distant rimrock, shining above Rainbow Cliff which was dark and sombre at this early hour, and felt its austere beauty. She watched the cloud-shadows drifting on the tapestried shoulders of the mountains and knew the sight for what it was of privilege and blessing.
So, as the little horse beneath her scrambled eagerly up the slants, the peace of the waiting hills fell upon her with healing and the sadness eased away.