He glanced along the slope at the spot, visible now, where Moses flung the stone tables and they broke in twain. And there, standing beside them, was a man of great height, dressed in blue jeans, his broad-brimmed hat pushed from his brow, and his meditative dark eyes fixed upon the rocks; a deer, all gray and antlered, lay dead at his feet, and his rifle rested on the ground as he leaned on the muzzle.
A glance was interchanged between the others. Their intention, the promptings of curiosity, had flagged during the long tramp and the gradual waning of the influence of the jug. The coincidence of meeting Purdee here revived their interest. Grinnell, remembering the ancient feud, held back, being unlikely to elicit Purdee's views in the face of their contradiction. The blacksmith and the young fiddler took their way down toward him.
He looked up with a start, seeing them at some little distance. His full, contemplative eyes rested upon them for a moment almost devoid of questioning. It was not the face of a man who finds himself confronted with the discovery of his duplicity and his hypocrisy. There was a strange doubt stirring in the blacksmith's heart As he approached he looked upon the storied cocks with a sort of solemn awe, as if they had indeed been given by the hand of the Lord to his servant, who broke them here in his wrath. He knew that the step of the musician slackened as he followed. What holy mysteries were they not rushing in upon? He spoke in a bated voice.
“Roger,” he said, “we'uns hearn ye tell 'bout the scriptures graven on these hyar tables ez Moses flung down, an' we'uns 'lowed we'uns would kem an' read some fur ourselves.”
Purdee did not speak nor hesitate; he moved aside that the blacksmith might stand where he had been—as it were at the foot of the page.
But what transcendent glories thronged the heavens—what august splendors of dawn! Had the sun ever before risen like this, with the sky an emblazonment of red, of gold, of darting gleams of light; with the mountains most royally purple or most radiantly blue; with the prismatic mists in flight; with the slow climax of the dazzling sphere ascending to dominate it all?
The blacksmith knelt down to read. The musician, his silent violin under his chin, leaned over his comrade's shoulder. The hunter stood still, expectant.
Alas! the corrugations of time; the fissile results of the frost; the wavering line of ripple-marks of Seas that shall ebb no more; growth of lichen; an army of ants in full march; a passion-flower trailing from a crevice, its purple blooms lying upon the gray stone near where it is stamped with the fossil imprint of a sea-weed, faded long ago and forgotten. Or is it, alas! for the eyes that can see only this?