“Oh, Bern, isn't it good that Black Star remembered her—that she'll have him—something left of her old home?” asked Bess, wistfully.
“Indeed it is good. But, Bess, Jane Withersteen will find a new spirit and new happiness here.”
Jane came toward them, leading both horses. “Dear friends, I am happy. To-day I bury all regrets. Of the past I shall remember only—my riders of the purple sage.”
Venters smiled his gladness. “And you—Lassiter—what shall you remember?” he queried.
The old gun-man looked at Jane and then at his clawlike hands and then at Fay. His eyes lost their shadow and began to twinkle.
“Wal, I rolled a stone once, but I reckon now thet time Wrangle—”
“Lassiter, I said you dreamed that race. Wrangle never beat the blacks,” interrupted Venters.... “And you, Fay, what shall you remember?”
“Surprise Valley,” replied Fay, dreamily.
“And you—Shefford?”
Shefford shook his head. For him there could never be one memory only. In his heart there would never change or die memories of the wild uplands, of the great towers and walls, of the golden sunsets on the canyon ramparts, of the silent, fragrant valleys where the cedars and the sago-lilies grew, of those starlit nights when his love and faith awoke, of grand and lonely Nonnezoshe, of that red, sullen, thundering, mysterious Colorado River, of a wonderful Indian and a noble Mormon—of all that was embodied for him in the meaning of the rainbow trail.