He shook his head doubtfully. "I see everything that goes on around me," he returned. "Most of the time I can tell pretty near what sort a man is by lookin' at his face and watching the way he moves. But I reckon I'd never make a writer. Times when I look at this country—at a nice sunset, for instance, or think what a big place this country is—I feel like sayin' somethin' about it; somethin' inside of me seems kind of breathless-like—kind of scarin' me. But I couldn't write about it."
She had felt it, too, and more than once had sat down with her pencil to transcribe her thoughts. She thought that it was not exactly fear, but an overpowering realization of her own atomity; a sort of cringing of the soul away from the utter vastness of the world; a growing consciousness of the unlimited bigness of things; an insight of the infinite power of God—the yearning of the soul for understanding of the mysteries of life and existence.
She could sympathize with him, for she knew exactly how he had felt. She turned and looked toward the distant mountains, behind which the sun was just then swimming—a great ball of shimmering gold, which threw off an effulgent expanse of yellow light that was slowly turning into saffron and violet as it met the shadows below the hills.
"Whoever saw such colors?" she asked suddenly, her face transfixed with sheer delight.
"It's cert'nly pretty, ma'am."
She clapped her hands. "It is magnificent!" she declared enthusiastically. She came closer to him and stretched an arm toward the mountains. "Look at that saffron shade which is just now blending with the streak of pearl striking the cleft between those hills! See the violet tinge that has come into that sea of orange, and the purple haze touching the snow-caps of the mountains. And now the flaming red, the deep yellow, the slate blue; and now that gauzy veil of lilac, rose, and amethyst, fading and dulling as the darker shadows rise from the valleys!"
Her flashing eyes sought Ferguson's. Twilight had suddenly come.
"It is the most beautiful country in the world!" she said positively.
He was regarding her with gravely humorous eyes. "It cert'nly is pretty, ma'am," he returned. "But you can't make a whole book out of one sunset."
Her eyes flashed. "No," she returned. "Nor can I make a whole book out of only one character. But I am going to try and draw a word picture of the West by writing of the things that I see. And I am going to try and have some real characters in it. I shall try to have them talk and act naturally."