To-night they were different. He studied them.
Larger, whiter, more radiant they seemed; but that was not the
difference he meant. Gradually it came to him that the
distinction was not one he saw, but one he felt. In this he
divined as much of the baffling change as he thought would be
revealed to him then. And as he lay there, with the singing of
the cliff-winds in his ears, the white stars above the dark, bold
vent, the difference which he felt was that he was no longer
alone.
CHAPTER IX. SILVER SPRUCE AND ASPENS
The rest of that night seemed to Venters only a few moments of
starlight, a dark overcasting of sky, an hour or so of gray
gloom, and then the lighting of dawn.
When he had bestirred himself, feeding the hungry dogs and
breaking his long fast, and had repacked his saddle-bags, it was
clear daylight, though the sun had not tipped the yellow wall in
the east. He concluded to make the climb and descent into
Surprise Valley in one trip. To that end he tied his blanket upon
Ring and gave Whitie the extra lasso and the rabbit to carry.
Then, with the rifle and saddle-bags slung upon his back, he took
up the girl. She did not awaken from heavy slumber.
That climb up under the rugged, menacing brows of the broken
cliffs, in the face of a grim, leaning boulder that seemed to be
weary of its age-long wavering, was a tax on strength and nerve
that Venters felt equally with something sweet and strangely
exulting in its accomplishment.
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