Black shadows shifted. That which had been the high-arched entrance to a mighty fortress was now a shallow hollow in a hill. Here and there on the western slope of the mounds cattle grazed in the chill morning air. Enchantments of the dawn reshaped themselves to local landmarks.
From his window Lorry could discern the distant peak of Mount Baldy glimmering above the purple sea of forest. Not far below the peak lay the viewless level of the Blue Mesa. The trail ran just below that patch of quaking asp.
The hills had never seemed so beautiful, nor had the still mesas, carpeted with the brown stubble of the close-cropped bunch-grass.
Arizona was his country—his home. And yet he had heard folk say that Arizona was a desert, But then such folk had been interested chiefly in guide-posts of the highways or the Overland dining-car menu.
And he had been offered a fair holding in this land—twenty thousand acres under fence on a long-term lease; a half-interest in the cattle and their increase. He would be his own man, with a voice in the management and sale of the stock. A year or two and he could afford to marry—if Dorothy would have him. He thought she would. And to keep in good health she must always live in the West. What better land than Arizona, on the high mesa where the air was clean and clear; where the keen August rains refreshed the sunburned grasses; where the light snows of winter fell but to vanish in the retrieving sun? If Dorothy loved this land, why should she leave it? Surely health meant more to her than the streets and homes of the East?
And Lorry had asked nothing of fortune save a chance to make good. And fortune had been more than kind to him. He realized that it was through no deliberate effort of his own that he had acquired the opportunity which offered. Why not take advantage of it? It would give him prestige with Bronson. A good living, a good home for her. Such luck didn't come to a man's door every day.
He had slept soundly that night, despite his intent to reason with himself. It was morning, and he had made no decision—or so he thought. There was the question of enlisting. Many of his friends had already gone. Older men were now riding the ranges. Even the clerk in the general store at Stacey's had volunteered. And Lorry had considered him anything but physically competent to "make a fight." But it wasn't all in making a fight. It was setting an example of loyalty and unselfishness to those fellows who needed such an impulse to stir them to action. Lorry thought clearly. And because he thought clearly and for himself, he realized that he, as an individual soldier in the Great War, would amount to little; but he knew that his going would affect others; that the mere news of his having gone would react as a sort of endless chain reaching to no one knew what sequestered home.
And this, he argued, was his real value: the spirit ever more potent than the flesh. Why, he had heard men joke about this war! It was a long way from home. What difference did it make to them if those people over there were being starved, outraged, murdered? That was their own lookout. Friends of his had said that they were willing to fight to a finish if America were threatened with invasion, but that could never happen. America was the biggest and richest country in the world. She attended to her own business and asked nothing but that the other nations do likewise.
And those countries over there were attending to their own business. If our ships were blown up, it was our own fault. We had been warned. Anyway, the men who owned those ships were out to make money and willing to take a chance. It wasn't our business to mix in. We had troubles enough at home. As Lorry pondered the shallow truths a great light came to him. "Troubles enough at home," that was it! America had already been invaded, yet men slumbered in fancied security. He had been at Sterling—
Lorry could hear Ramon stirring about in the kitchen. The rhythmically muffled sound suggested the mixing of flapjacks. Lorry could smell the thin, appetizing fragrance of coffee.