As the sun dips behind the detached mountain spurs in the west the shadows grow slightly blue and the high lights intensify. By some optical necromancy the clouds seem massed in the west, the whole eastern sweep of sky being an unbroken wash of salmon pink, relieved by tinges of apple-green at its nethermost edges. Against this tender background the minutest details of the majestic Rockies stand out with such vivid distinctness that one gasps with the wonder of it. Long after the low lands have gloomed these heights glow with a glory indescribable, and when it has finally passed one feels as though a glimpse of Heaven itself had been vouchsafed to the soul torn with Life's torturing skepticism.
But what words can describe, what brush portray the awful grandeur of the western sky! Before that riot of color the eye falls abashed as did those of Moses on the mount. The sublimity of it shrivels man's pitiful egoism until he grovels in humility and awe. When God lays His hand upon the sky the dimmest eye sees and the most skeptical heart believes!
She was saying as much in substance to him as they rode homeward in the soft afterglow, her face transfigured by the reverence in her heart. He assented gravely, his eyes dwelling admiringly upon her rare beauty. In the hallowing light of the hour she was invested with a new charm to this appreciative Pantheist and from some pigeon-hole of his well-stocked and retentive memory called the almost-inspired voice of old Ossian:
"Fair was Colna-Dona, the daughter of kings,
Her soul was a pure beam of light!"
Unconsciously he put his thought into words and the voice was very gentle. She looked at him dubiously, almost apprehensively; it was hard to differentiate between this man's cynicism and sincerity. Then she dropped her eyes in rosy confusion, her heart leaping unaccountably.
"That was a false note the Psalmist struck," he went on quietly, "when he sang of the wrath of his God. It were better he had dwelt only on the sweeter quantity of His love. I am sorry for that devotion inspired only by fear. This is the manifestation best calculated to insure one's keeping in the right trail." He swept his hand comprehensively toward the western glory. "Men do not love the thing they fear—nor women either." His tone was quizzical and challenging.
She looked up in sudden relief; this was more familiar ground and she laughed with sudden audacity.
"How do you know?"
"About women? Well, I'll admit that was a bluff; but I know all about men; I am one of them! The divinity that shapes our ends must kiss, not kick!"
At this unconscious confirmation of old Abigail's sage conclusions her laugh pealed out merrily. "Feed 'em well, speak 'em kind, an' give 'em theah haids on a hawd pull er in a tight place," she quoted with inimitable mimicry, and he grinned with quick understanding.