"
CHAPTER XIV
ON ANTELOPE BUTTE
After the departure of Bat it was a very silent little cavalcade that
made its way down the valley. Tex, with the lead-horse in tow, rode
ahead, his attention fixed on the trail, and the others followed,
single file.
Alice's eyes strayed from the backs of her two companions to the
mountains that rolled upward from the little valley, their massive
peaks and buttresses converted by the wizardry of moonlight into a
fairyland of wondrous grandeur. The cool night air was fragrant with
the breath of growing things, and the feel of her horse beneath her
caused the red blood to surge through her veins.
"Oh, it's grand!" she whispered, "the mountains, and the moonlight, and
the spring. I love it all--and yet--" She frowned at the jarring note
that crept in, to mar the fulness of her joy. "It's the most wonderful
adventure I ever had--and romantic. And it's _real_, and I ought to be
enjoying it more than I ever enjoyed anything in all my life. But, I'm
not, and it's all because--I don't see why he had to go and drink!"
The soft sound of the horses' feet in the mud changed to a series of
sharp clicks as their iron shoes encountered the bare rocks of the
floor of the canyon whose precipitous rock walls towered far above,
shutting off the flood of moonlight and plunging the trail into
darkness.
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