loud looming in the sky. All day snowy thunderheads
had been emerging into view near the horizon, blooming like gigantic
roses out of the deep purple of the sky, but this particular cloud had
not changed its sharp, clean-cut outline for an hour, and, as he looked,
a veil of vapor suddenly drifted away from it, and Mose's heart leaped
with exultation, as though a woman's hand had been laid on his shoulder.
That cloud-like form was a mountain! It could be nothing else, for while
all around it other domes shifted line and mass, this one remained
constant, riding through the mist as the moon endures in the midst of
the flying vapor of the night.

Thereafter he rode with his eyes on that sunlit mass. The land grew
wilder. Sharp hills broke the smooth expanses, and on these hills groves
of dwarf pine appeared in irregular clumps like herds of cattle. He
began to look for a camping place, for he was very tired. For an hour he
led his spent horse, still moving toward the far-off shining peak, which
glowed long after darkness had fallen on the plains. At last it grew too
dim to guide him farther, and slipping the saddle from his horse, he
turned him loose to feed upon the bunch grass.

As the light faded from the sky so the exultation and sense of freedom
went out of the boy's heart. His mind went back to the struggle in the
street. He felt no remorse, no pity for the drunken fools, but he was
angry and discouraged and disgusted with himself. He had ended in
failure and in flight where he should have won success and respect. He
did not directly accuse himself; he had done as well as he could; he
blamed "things," and said to himself, "it's my luck," by which he meant
to express a profound feeling of dejection and weakness as of one in the
grasp of inimical powers. By the working of unfriendly forces he was
lying there under the pines, hungry, tired, chilled, and lone as a wolf.
Jack was far away, Mary lost forever to him, and the officers of the law
again on his trail. It was a time to make a boy a man, a bitter and
revengeful man.

The night grew chill, and he was forced to walk up and down, wrapped in
his saddle blanket to keep warm. Fuel was scarce, and his small fire
sufficed only to warm him in minute sections, and hunger had thinned his
blood. He was tired and sleepy, too, but dared not lie down for fear of
being chilled. It would not do to be ill here alone in this land.

It was the loneliest night he had ever known in