She had
surrendered into the sheriff's hands the little leather-case which
contained her emergency bottles and instruments; they had left San Juan
a couple of hundred yards behind, their horses were galloping; her
stirrup struck now and then against Norton's boot. John Engle had not
been unduly extravagant in praise of the mare Persis; Virginia sensed
rather than saw clearly the perfect, beautiful creature which carried
her, delighted in the swinging gallop, drew into her soul something of
the serene glory of a starlit night on the desert. The soft thud of
shod hoofs upon yielding soil was music to her, mingled as it came with
the creak of saddle leather, the jingle of bridle and spur-chains. She
wondered if there had ever been so perfect a night, if she had ever
mounted so finely bred a saddle animal.
Far ahead the San Juan mountains lifted their serrated ridge of ebony.
On all other sides the flat-lands stretched out seeming to have no end,
suggesting to the fancy that they were kin in vastitude to the clear
expanse of the sky. On all hands little wind-shaped ridges were like
crests of long waves in an ocean which had just now been stilled,
brooded over by the desert silence and the desert stars.
"I suppose," said Norton at last, "that it's up to me to explain.
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