thirty-six years of age. But since
the first day the two had met, the shepherd's face and bearing had, to
his eyes, remained the same. At this moment, Presley was looking into
the same face he had first seen many, many years ago. It was a face
stamped with an unspeakable sadness, a deathless grief, the permanent
imprint of a tragedy long past, but yet a living issue. Presley told
himself that it was impossible to look long into Vanamee's eyes without
knowing that here was a man whose whole being had been at one time
shattered and riven to its lowest depths, whose life had suddenly
stopped at a certain moment of its development.

The two friends sat down upon the ledge of the watering-trough, their
eyes wandering incessantly toward the slow moving herd, grazing on the
wheat stubble, moving southward as they grazed.

"Where have you come from this time?" Presley had asked. "Where have you
kept yourself?"

The other swept the horizon to the south and east with a vague gesture.

"Off there, down to the south, very far off. So many places that I can't
remember. I went the Long Trail this time; a long, long ways. Arizona,
The Mexicos, and, then, afterwards, Utah and Nevada, following the
horizon, travelling at hazard. Into Arizona first, going in by Monument
Pass, and then on to the south, through the country of the Navajos, down
by the Aga Thia Needle--a great blade of red rock jutting from out the
desert, like a knife thrust. Then on and on through The Mexicos, all
through the Southwest, then back again in a great circle by Chihuahua
and Aldama to Laredo, to Torreon, and Albuquerque. From there across
the Uncompahgre plateau into the Uintah country; then at last due west
through Nevada to California and to the valley of the San Joaquin." His
voice lapsed to a monotone, his eyes becoming fixed; he continued to
speak as though half awake, his thoughts elsewhere, seeing again in the
eye of his mind the reach of desert and red hill, the purple mountain,
the level stretch of alkali, leper white, all the savage, gorgeous
desolation of the Long Trail.

He ignored Presley for the moment, but, on the other hand, Presley
himself gave him but half his attention. The return of Vanamee had
stimulated the poet's memory. He recalled the incidents of Vanamee's
life, reviewing again that terrible drama which had uprooted his soul,
which had driven him forth a wanderer, a shunner of men, a sojourner in
waste places. He was, strangely en