“Bill, you’re an old hypocrite,” Madge accused.
“Yes’m, I guess ye’re right, Madge. But I know what a fella’s gotta do to become a character. I’m one—I oughta know. Well, so-long, folks! Ye gotta be goin’, I know. Drift ’round an’ see ye next time I ramble in. So-long, now—be good!”
As the wagons drove out of town Felix Wolfgang continued to lean against the front of The Silver Dollar and watch them from under his pulled-down peaked hat.
CHAPTER XXV
ON THE ROCKY ROAD TO RAGTOWN
FOR over two hours Joshua Cole and Shanty Madge drove their mules along the north shore of Stirrup Lake, then turned up through the unbroken sweep of sagebrush toward Spyglass Mountain. They saw several camps as they passed along, and it appeared that a colony of homesteaders had just come in from somewhere outside the country. Tents had been pitched and stock stood about and nibbled hay in the wagon beds.
The sage, though breast-high in places, broke easily before the passage of the mules, and the wagons crackled their way up the slope, breaking a trail which afterward was to become a road. Joshua drove to the sienega on Mrs. Mundy’s claim. Here they climbed down, hurriedly attended to their stock, and went at the pitching of tents and the arrangement of various articles necessary to a temporary camp.
Evening was coming on, for at an early hour the sun sank beyond Saddle Mountain, and somber shadows were even now stealing over the placid lake. Elizabeth Mundy ceased her work and watched the reflection of the sun-bathed clouds on the surface of the water. The lake lost its bluish tinge and took on a giddy yellow, which quickly changed it to a lake of fire so dazzling as to hurt the eyes. Darker tones crept in—orange, cerise and orange, then orange splotched with crimson, then crimson for a minute, which brought forth cries of delight from the women. Gradually the crimson deepened, and once more the natural blue came back to blend with the crimson and lend to the waters a bold violet tone. Then strident purple, then blue again, then deep indigo, then velvet black.
Far to the south and west loomed lofty mountains, timber-clad to the line of perpetual snow, dazzling white above. A soft, fresh breeze blew from the lake and told stories in the branches of the fragrant junipers. Red-breasted linnets, songful until now, went twitteringly to sleep in the juniper tops, and the water gurgled a chanty song to the pool below the spring. Back of them Spyglass Mountain upreared itself, its summit gilded with the sun, and at its base great grotesque rocks stood grimly silent, sentinels there since the days when the earth was young.
A long sigh escaped the lips of Elizabeth Mundy as she turned from the blue-black lake. “It will be home,” she said, “when you’ve built a fire, Joshua.”
And as the flames leaped up and licked at the black kettle hung over them to boil, the drunken laughter of two coyotes floated down from some haunted fastness of Spyglass Mountain.