“It must have been happy for them,” Sue said, “when the land was all their very own, I mean. Sometimes, I don’t blame them for fighting for it. After all, it had been theirs for so long. How would we like to be chased off, like a lot of stray cats, just because we didn’t want our country taken from us.”
Polly reined in her pony sharply.
“Look!” she cried. “Is that the bridge, Miss Jean?”
“That is it,” Jean answered, and they urged the ponies forward.
The path made a sharp turn to the left, and instead of the tall grass of the low ground, up here they found the earth rough, and strewn with jagged points of rock. They had come to the end of the trail, and could look down into the shadowy depths of Lost Chance Gulch. A bridge of logs spanned it, with hand rails on each side, and they rode over it in Indian file, the ponies picking their way daintily. All excepting Polly. Jinks hesitated at the bridge, and backed away.
“Now, what does ail him?” asked Polly, but before she could answer, something crashed through the underbrush beside her. All she saw was the haunches of a brown doe, but Jinks did not like it a bit, and he began to live up to his name. The rest had gone on. And all at once a figure came out from the gloom of the gulch, such a strange looking figure, that for the moment, as she looked at him, and he at her in equal astonishment, she thought it must be the ghost of old Zed himself.
CHAPTER XVII
THE SHEEP CAMP
He was very tall, this stranger who seemed to have risen out of the gulch as if by magic. He was broad of shoulder, and his curly gray hair grew fully three inches long. So did his gray imperial, and above it was a gray moustache, with curly ends. His corduroy trousers were tucked into the tops of high boots, and his shirt was open at the throat, with a dark blue silk handkerchief knotted around it. Over one shoulder he carried a pickaxe, and his other hand held a bunch of wild flowers.
He smiled down at Polly’s startled face, and shifted the wild flowers, so he could catch hold of Jinks’ bridle, and steady him.