been
Marthy, discovering that place and taming it, little by little, in
solitary achievement the sweeter because it had been hard.

"It's a bigger thing," said Billy Louise aloud to her horse, "to make a
home here in this wilderness, than to write the greatest poem in the
world or paint the greatest picture or--anything. I wish..."

Blue was climbing steadily out of the gorge, twitching an ear backward
with flattering attention when his lady spoke. He held it so for a
minute, waiting for that sentence to be finished, perhaps; for he was
wise beyond his kind--was Blue. But his lady was staring at the rock
wall they were passing then, where the winds and the cold and heat had
carved jutting ledges into the crude form of cabbages; though Billy
Louise preferred to call them roses. Always they struck her with a new
wonder, as if she saw them for the first time. Blue went on, calmly
stepping over this rock and, around that as if it were the simplest
thing in the world to find sure footing and carry his lady smoothly up
that trail. He threw up his head so suddenly that Billy Louise was
startled out of her aimless dreamings, and pointed nose and ears toward
the little creek-bottom above, where Marthy had lighted her camp-fire
long and long ago.

A few steps farther, and Blue stopped short in the trail to look and
listen. Billy Louise could see the nervous twitchings of his muscles
under the skin of neck and shoulders, and she smiled to herself.
Nothing could ever come upon her unaware when she rode alone, so long
as she rode Blue. A hunting dog was not more keenly alive to his
surroundings.

"Go on, Blue," she commanded after a minute. "If it's a bear or
anything like that, you can make a run for it; if it's a wolf, I'll
shoot it. You needn't stand here all night, anyway."

Blue went on, out from behind the willow growth that hid the open. He
returned to his calm, picking a smooth trail through the scattered
rocks and tiny washouts. It was the girl's turn to stare and
speculate. She did not know this horseman who sat negligently in the
saddle and looked up at the cedar-grown bluff beyond, while his horse
stood knee-deep in the little stream. She did not know him; and there
were not so many travelers in the land that strangers were a matter of
indifference.

Blue welcomed the horse with a democratic nicker and went forward
briskly. And the rider turned his head, eyed the girl sharply as she
came up, and no