to acknowledge, even to herself.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CORRAL IN THE CANYON

Where the creek trail crossed the Big Hill and then swung to the left
that it might follow the easy slopes of Cedar Creek, Blue turned off to
the right of his own accord, as if he took it for granted that his lady
would return the way she had come. His lady had not thought anything
about it, but after a brief hesitation she decided that Blue should
have his way; after all, it would simplify her explanations of the long
ride if she came home by way of the canyon. She could say that she had
ridden farther out into the hills than usual, which was true enough.

Billy Louise did not own such a breeder of blues as a lazy liver, her
nerves were in fine working order, and her digestion was perfect; and
it is a well-known fact that a trouble must be born of reality rather
than imagination, if it would ride far behind the cantle. Billy Louise
was late, and already the shadows lay like long draperies upon the
hills she faced: long, purple cloaks ruffed with golden yellow and
patterned with indigo patches, which were the pines, and splotches of
dark green, which were the thickets of alder and quaking aspens. She
couldn't feel depressed for very long, and before she had climbed over
the first rugged ridge that reached out like a crooked finger into the
narrow valley, she was humming under her breath and riding with the
reins dropped loose upon Blue's neck, so that he went where the way
pleased him best. Before she was down that ridge and beginning to
climb the next, she was singing softly a song her mother had taught her
long ago, when she was seven or so:

"The years creep slowly by, Lorena,
The snow is on the grass again;
The sun's low down the sky, Lorena--"

Blue gathered himself together and jumped a washout three feet across
and goodness knows how deep and jarred that melancholy melody quite out
of Billy Louise's mind. When she had settled herself again to the slow
climb, she broke out with what she called Ward's Come-all-ye, and with
a twinkle of eye and both dimples showing deep, went on with a very
slight interruption in her singing.

"'Oh, a ten-dollar hoss and a forty-dollar saddle'--that's you Blue.
You don't amount to nothing nohow, doing jackrabbit stunts like that
when I'm not looking! 'Coma ti yi youpy, youpy-a.'" She watched a
cloud shadow sweep like a great bird over a sunny slope and murmured
while she watched: