"We'll make that way," he said, his deep eyes dwelling almost affectionately upon the wide stretch of blue-tinted grass. "Guess we'll take the high land an' camp fer food."
Then he turned back to his horse and remounted. Jeff silently followed his example and they rode on.
For many minutes no word passed between them. Each was busy with his own particular thoughts. The deep look of friendly affection was still in Bud's eyes. Jeff was far less concerned with the wonderful scene slowly unfolding itself as they proceeded than with the purpose of his journey. He knew they had reached the central point from which they were to radiate their search of the labyrinth of hills. His mind was upon the wealth of possibility before them. The difficulties. Bud, for the time at least, was concerned only with that which his eyes beheld, and the memories of other days far, far back when he had possessed no greater responsibility than the quest of adventure, and his own safe delivery from the fruits of his unwisdom.
It was he who first broke the silence between them.
"Gee!" he exclaimed, with that curious note of appreciation which that ejaculation can assume. "It's big. Say, Jeff, it's big an' good to look on. Sort of makes you think, too, don't it? Jest get a peek that way. Them slopes." He indicated the western boundary of the valley rising up, up to great pine-crested heights. "A thousand—two thousand feet. And hills beyond. Big hills, with snows you couldn't melt anyhow. Over there, too." One great hand waved in the direction of the east. "Lesser hills. Lesser woods. But—man, it's fine! Then ahead. Miles an' miles of this queer blue grass which sets fat on cattle inches deep."
His words ceased, but his eyes continued to feast, flooding the simple brain behind them with a joy which no words could describe. Presently he went on:
"Makes you feel A'mighty God's a pretty big feller, don't it? Guess He jest tumbles things around, an' sets up, an' levels down in a way that wouldn't mean a thing to brains like ours—till He's finished it all, and sort of swep' up tidy. Look at them colors, way up there to the west. Queer? Sure. Every sort o' blamed color in a tangle no earthly painter could set out. Ain't it a pictur'? It's jest a sort o' pictur' a painter feller's li'ble to spend most of his wholesome nights dreamin' about. An' when he wakes up, why, I don't guess he kin even think like it, an' he sure ain't a hell of a chance to paint that way anyhow. Say, d'you make it these things are, or is it jest something He sets in us makes us see 'em that way? He's big—He surely is. I'm glad I come along with you, Jeff, boy. Y' see, a feller sort o' sits around home, an' sees the same grass, an' brands the same steers, an' thinks the same thinks. Ther' ain't nothin' he don't know around home. He gets so life don't seem a thing, an' he jest feels he's running things so as he pleases. He sort o' fergets he's jest a part o' the scenery around. He fergets he's set in that scenery by an A'mighty big Hand, same as them all-fired m'squitters we just found, an' kind o' guesses he is that A'mighty Hand." He turned his deeply smiling eyes on his companion. "I don't often take on like this, Jeff," he apologized, "but the sight o' this place makes me want to shout an' get right out an' thank the good God He's seen fit to let me sit around an' live."
But Jeff had no means of simple expression such as Bud. He could never give verbal expression to the emotions locked away in his heart. Those who knew him regarded it as reserve, even hardness. Perhaps it was only that shyness which the strongest characters are often most prone to.
He ignored the older man's quaintly expressed feelings, and fastened upon the opening he had at last received, and which he had been seeking ever since it had become obvious that Bud's knowledge of the great Cathill range was almost phenomenal.
"You know these parts a heap," he observed.