I took Boy up into the pine copse back of the house this afternoon. We were there, you and I and he, and we had such a lovely time.
Isn’t it strange, dear, that the things we care about become so infinitely a part of all life that touches us? There is no beautiful thing of sound or vision or colour—no poignancy of thought or feeling—that does not become a sign, somehow, for the special gladness—as though, at bottom, all beauty and dearness rested on the same foundation. To-day the wind has blown swift and gray and strong, so that the hills are purple with it, and the marching pines are touched to a low, tremendous murmur. It is magnificent, as though something too vast and solemn for sight passed by and one could hear only the sweeping of its wings. And the thrill of it is one and the same with the gladness of your letter of yesterday. There is in the heart of them both something finer and bigger than I once could have conceived.
While I was putting Rowan, junior, to bed I showed him your picture—the one the Denver Times photographer took just after you won the championship last year—and he reached out his dimpled fingers for it and spluttered, “Da-da-da-da-da.” I believe he knows you belong to him. Before I put his nightie on I kissed his dear little pink body for you.
Do you know that we are about to entertain distinguished visitors at the Circle Diamond? Louise McDowell and the governor are going to stay with us a day on their way to Yellowstone Park. I can’t help feeling that it is a good omen. Last year when I went to Cheyenne he would not give me any hope—said he could not possibly do anything for me. But there has been a great change of sentiment here. Tim Flanders talked with the governor not long since, and urged a parole for you. I feel sure the governor would not visit me unless he was at least in doubt.
So I’m eager to try again, with Rowan, junior, to plead for me. He’s going to make love to the governor, innocently and shamelessly, in a hundred darling little ways he has. Oh, you don’t know how hard I’m going to try to win the governor this time, dear.
CHAPTER XXVIII
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
GOVERNOR McDOWELL was a cattleman himself. His sympathies were much engaged in behalf of the Bald Knob raiders. All the evidence at the trial tended to show that Tait had forced the trouble and had refused all compromise. From his talk with the prisoners the governor had learned that the tragedy had flared out unexpectedly. Personally he liked Rowan McCoy very much. But he could not get away from the fact that murder had been done. As a private citizen, McDowell would have worked hard to get his friend a parole; as governor of the State of Wyoming he could not move in the matter without a legitimate excuse.
It was his hope of finding such an excuse that led him to diverge from the direct road to Yellowstone for a stop at the Circle Diamond Ranch. On the way he called at the ranches of several old-timers whom he had long known.