EPILOGUE
On the outskirts of a little town in Illinois there was a farm ofrolling pasture-land. And here a beautiful meadow, green and red inclover, merged upon an orchard in the midst of which a brown-tiled roofshowed above the trees.
One afternoon in May a group of people, strangely agitated, walked downa shady lane toward the meadow.
"Wal, Jane, I always knew we'd get a look at them hosses again--I shoreknew," Lassiter was saying in the same old, cool, careless drawl. Buthis clawlike hands shook a little.
"Oh! will they know me?" asked Jane Withersteen, turning to a stalwartman--no other than the dark-faced Venters, her rider of other days.
"Know you? I'll bet they will," replied Venters. "What do you say,Bess?"
The shadow brightened in Bess's somber blue eyes, as if his words hadrecalled her from a sad and memorable past.
"Black Star will know her, surely," replied Bess. "Sometimes he pointshis nose toward the west and watches as if he saw the purple slopes andsmelt the sage of Utah! He has never forgotten. But Night has grown deafand partly blind of late. I doubt if he'd remember."
Shefford and Fay walked arm in arm in the background.
Out in the meadow two horses were grazing. They were sleek, shiny,long-maned, long-tailed, black as coal, and, though old, still splendidin every line.
"Do you remember them?" whispered Shefford.
"Oh, I only needed to see Black Star," murmured Fay, her voicequivering. "I can remember being lifted on his back.... How strange! Itseems so long ago.... Look! Mother Jane is going out to them."
Jane Withersteen advanced alone through the clover, and it was withunsteady steps. Presently she halted. What glorious and bitter memorieswere expressed in her strange, poignant call!
Black Star started and swept up his noble head and looked. But Nightwent on calmly grazing. Then Jane called again--the same strange call,only louder, and this time broken. Black Star raised his head higherand he whistled a piercing blast. He saw Jane; he knew her as he hadremembered the call; and he came pounding toward her. She met him,encircled his neck with her arms, and buried her face in his mane.
"Shore I reckon I'd better never say any more about Wrangle runnin' theblacks off their legs thet time," muttered Lassiter, as if to himself.
"Lassiter, you only dreamed that race," replied Venters, with a smile.
"Oh, Bern, isn't it good that Black Star remembered her--that she'llhave him--something left of her old home?" asked Bess, wistfully.
"Indeed it is good. But, Bess, Jane Withersteen will find a new spiritand 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 ridersof the purple sage."
Venters smiled his gladness. "And you--Lassiter--what shall youremember?" he queried.
The old gun-man looked at Jane and then at his clawlike hands and thenat 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 wilduplands, of the great towers and walls, of the golden sunsets on thecanyon ramparts, of the silent, fragrant valleys where the cedars andthe sago-lilies grew, of those starlit nights when his love and faithawoke, of grand and lonely Nonnezoshe, of that red, sullen, thundering,mysterious Colorado River, of a wonderful Indian and a noble Mormon--ofall that was embodied for him in the meaning of the rainbow trail.
THE END
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