Coveys of partridge and pheasants fluttered among the bush, peeked up with bright, inquiring eyes at the girl on horse, then hopped a few paces away, under the thick carpet of leaves.
In an open field, swiftly running horses raced to meet them. Like playful children, they ran around and in front and on all sides of Hilda’s mare, thrusting their noses against hers, and laying their faces across her slender back, utterly unafraid of the rider, yet timorous and moving at Hilda’s slightest affectionate slap or word of reproval when they pressed too closely.
She was off again. This time a race across a wide pasture and into the hills to the west, turning at the end of a long, wooded climb up an almost perpendicular slope, to come out upon the top of one hill, to climb still higher to another, into a wide, open space, and again to a higher hill, till, suddenly, she seemed to be on the very top of the world.
Below her, nestling like a small city, the white and green buildings of the ranch showed. Very near it seemed, and yet in fact a distance of two or three miles. From this highest point, the girl on horse paused to cast a long, lingering look over the surrounding country that lay spread below her.
To the north were dim woods, thick and dark. An eagle soaring overhead.
To the east, the wide-spreading pastures and the long, trailing road to Banff. Dim forms of cattle and horse observable in the still lingering light, moving specks upon the gracious meadows.
To the south, the lower chain of hills and the sheep lands. A coyote’s wild moaning call. A hawk circling toward the ranch house.
Shining like a jewel in the mellow glow, the long, sinuous body of the Bow River, rushing swiftly to make its junction with the more leisurely flowing Ghost, upon whose surface the logs from the Eaue Claire Lumber Camp were being borne by the hundreds upon the first lap of their journey to Calgary.
In the West, hill upon hill and still farther hill upon hill, and beyond all, the snow crowned, inescapable immortal range of Rocky Mountains, a dream, a miracle, emblematic of eternity and peace.
It was hard indeed to tear her gaze from the last lingering gleams of that marvellous sunset. There was that about it that uplifted and comforted the aching heart. Hilda sighed and at last her long gaze was reluctantly withdrawn, dropped lower over the hill tops, the woods, and came to rest, alertly and still, upon a moving shadow that slipped in and out of the bush in a direct line with the barbed wire fencing.