er hair. Only Robert Jordan stood looking across the high mountain meadow with the trout brook running through it. There was heather growing where he stood. There were gray boulders rising from the yellow bracken that replaced the heather in the lower part of the meadow and below was the dark line of the pines.
"How far is it to El Sordo''s" he asked.
"Not far," the woman said. "It is across this open country, down into the next valley and above the timber at the head of the stream. Sit thee down and forget thy seriousness."
"I want to see him and get it over with."
"I want to bathe my feet," the woman said and, taking off her rope-soled shoes and pulling off a heavy wool stocking, she put her right foot into the stream. "My God, it''s cold."
"We should have taken horses," Robert Jordan told her.
"This is good for me," the woman said. "This is what I have been missing. What''s the matter with you"
"Nothing, except that I am in a hurry."
"Then calm yourself. There is much time. What a day it is and how I am contented not to be in pine trees. You cannot imagine how one can tire of pine trees. Aren''t you tired of the pines, _guapa_"
"I like them," the girl said.
"What can you like about them"
"I like the odor and the feel of the needles under foot. I like the wind in the high trees and the creaking they make against each other."