The Song of the Wolf

Excerpt

A RIFT IN THE LUTE

Everything else was in harmony. If the sky turquoise was a shade or two paler than the prescribed robin's-egg, it blended perfectly with the unpronounced greens of the sprouting grass and the uncertain olive of the budding sagebrush. On the crest of the distant divide a silver-gray wreath of aspens lay against the tawny cheek of the mountain as daintily as an otter-fur collarette on the neck of a girl. Even the darker girdle of spruce and pine, lower down, lost its harsh individuality, merging insensibly into the faded umbers, sepias, lavenders and tans of the graduating background where the rocks and buckbrush fell away to the open slopes beneath.

On the vega below, the alkaline scars, as yet uncalcined by the sun's fires into glaring chalkiness, gave no offense in their moist neutrality, and the coyote slinking dejectedly among the deserted prairie-dog mounds was, in his ash-colored surtout, as inconspicuous as the long wan shadows cast by the weak spring sun. In the hollow of the foothill's arm lay a little lake, fed by a brook born in heights so remote that its purl was deduced rather than heard, and over all lay the soft glow of the fading twilight, accentuated by the subtle incense of the young year's breath.

It was a symphony of tender half-tone in minor key, one of these mystical, ethereal, God-painted Corots of the great West whose enchantment outlives life itself, calling with an insistence which will not be denied until the souls of its hearing yearn for its bondage again and return to the rack of the cow-range, the torments of the desert, the chain of the eternal hills.

The only discord was in the heart and speech of the man who swore savagely at his over-ridden horse stumbling among the loose bowlders of the half-effaced trail. The anathema and succeeding spur thrust were alike cruel and undeserved, for the faithful beast had borne his rider bravely throughout a long and weary day's work, and despite the favorable temperature of the mild spring day, his chest was foam-flecked and sweat-crusted and his gaunt flanks heaved pitiably. And yet there was nothing particularly vicious in the face of the cowpuncher glaring so disconsolately over the tender vista. It was a bit thin-lipped and there was more than a suggestion of merciless hardness in the deep lines about the mouth, but the blue-gray eyes were calm and steady and there was a sturdy independence in the out-thrust of his prominent chin and the bird-like poise of his head which, bespoke either a clear conscience or the lethal indifference of an indomitable will. Bull-throated, yet withal of a lean, rangy, muscular conformation, his every movement betokened virility and force; an experienced frontiersman would have glanced approvingly at his well-ordered equipment, the wicked blue Colts in its Mexican holster sagging at just the proper angle for quick work on a cartridge belt filled to the last becket, the pliable reata hanging in unkinked coils with chafed honda evincing long usage....