“Another day, Girl,” he said softly. “See, the dawn is breaking!”
For some moments they stood side by side in silence, the man thinking of the future, the woman serenely happy and lost in admiration of the calm beauty of the scene which, in one direction, at least, differed greatly from anything that she had ever beheld. Every night previous to the one just passed they had encamped in the great forests; but now they looked upon a vast expanse of level plain which, to the north and east, stretched trackless and unbroken by mountain or ravine to an infinitude—the boundless prairies soon to be mellowed and turned to a golden brown by the shafts of a burning sun already just below the edge of an horizon aglow with opaline tints.
The Girl had ever been a lover of nature. All her life the mystery and silences of the high mountains had appealed to her soul; but never until now had she realised the marvellous beauty and glory of the great plains. And yet, though her eyes shone with the wonder of it all, there was an unmistakably sad and reminiscent note in the voice that presently murmured:
“Another day.”
After a while, and as if under the spell of some unseen power, she slowly turned and faced the west where she gazed long and earnestly at the panorama of the snow-capped peaks, rising range after range, all tipped with dazzling light.
“Oh, Dick, look back!” she cried in distress. “The foothills are growin’ fainter.” She paused, but suddenly with a far-off look in her eyes she went on: “Every dawn—every dawn they’ll be farther away. Some night when I’m goin’ to sleep I’ll turn an’ they won’t be there—red an’ shinin’.” Again she paused as if almost overwhelmed with emotion, saying at length with a deep sigh: “Oh, that was indeed the promised land!”
Johnson was greatly moved. It was some time before he found his voice. At length he chided her softly:
“We must always look ahead, Girl—not backwards. The promised land is always ahead.”
It was perhaps strange that the Girl failed to see the new light—the light that reflected his desire for a cleaner life and an honoured place in another community with her ever at his side—the hope and faith in his eyes as he spoke; but still in that sad, reminiscent mood, with her eyes fixed on the dim distances, she failed to see it, though she replied in a voice of resignation:
“Always ahead—yes, it must be.” And then again with tears in her eyes: “But, Dick, all the people there in Cloudy, how far off they seem now—like shadows movin’ in a dream—like shadows I’ve dreamt of. Only a few days ago I clasped their hands—I seen their faces—their dear faces—I—” She broke off; then while the tears streamed down her cheeks: “An’ now they’re fadin’—in this little while I’ve lost ’em—lost ’em.”