At last he tore himself away,retraced his steps as cautiously as he had conic,and flung himself upon the pony left waiting at a sheltered nook far from the cove.As he sped over the plains toward the distant herd,it came to him suddenly in a way not before experienced,that it was May,that the air was balmy and fragrant,and that the land,softly lighted in the clear twilight,was singularly beautiful.He seemed breathing the roses back home--which recalled another face,but not for long.The last time he had seen that eastern face,the dew had lain on the early morning roses--how could a face so different make him think of them?But imagination is sometimes a bold robber,and now it did not hesitate to steal those memories of sweet scents to encloud the picture of the mountain-girl.
The G-Bar headquarters was on the western bank of what was then known as Red River,but was really the North Fork of Red River.Old Man Walker,who was scarcely past middle age,had built his corral on the margin of the plain which extended to that point in an unbroken level from a great distance,and which,having reached that point,dropped without warning,a sheer precipice,to an extensive lake.The lake was fed by springs issuing from the bluffs;not far beyond it and not much lower,was the bed of the river,wide,very red and almost dry.Beyond the river rose the bold hills of the Kiowa country,a white line chiseled across the face of each,as if Time had entertained some thought of their destruction,but finding each a huge block of living rock,had passed on to torture and shift and alter the bed of the river.
The young man reached the corral after a ride of twelve or thirteen miles,most of the distance through a country of difficult sand.He galloped up to the rude enclosure,surrounded by a cloud of dust through which his keen gray eyes discovered Mizzoo on the eve of leaving camp.Mizzoo was one of the men whose duty it was to ride the line all night--the line that the young man had guarded all day--to keep Walker's cattle from drifting.