The Mysterious Rider

Soft and fresh of color the gray old sage slopes came out from under their winter mantle ; the bleached tufts of grass waved in the wind and showed tiny blades of green at the roots ; the aspens and oaks, and the vines on fences and cliffs, and the round-clumped, brook bordering willows took on a hue of spring.
The mustangs and colts in the pastures snorted and ran and kicked and cavorted ; and on the hillsides the cows began to climb higher, searching for the tender greens, bawling for the new-born calves. Eagles shrieked the release of the snow-bound peaks, and the elks bugled their piercing calls. The grous-cocks spread their gorgeous brown plumage in parade before their twittering mates, and the jays screecked in the woods, and the sage-hens sailed along the bosom of the gray slopes.

For Wade, and for countless men like him, who for many years had roamed the West, this sleeping alon in wild places held both charm and peril. But the fascination of it was only a vague realization, and the danger was laughed at.

He had toiled, he had given, he had fought, he had sacrifieced, he had killed, he had endured for the human nature which in his savage youth he had betrayed.