This time it was a Colombe bud, full, red, and beautiful. She stepped to
Collie's window. "Boy!" she called softly.
White and trembling, he stood in the long window looking down at her.
"I'm glad you are home again," she said.
He nodded, and glanced away.
"Boy!" she called again. "Catch." And she tossed the rose. He caught it
and pressed it to his lips.
CHAPTER XXXI
NIGHT
Evening, placidly content with the warm silence, departed lingeringly.
Belated insects still buzzed in the wayside foliage. A bee, overtaken in
his busy pilfering by the obliterating dusk, hung on a nodding mountain
flower, unfearful above the canon's emptiness. An occasional bird
ventured a boldly questioning note that lingered unfinished in the
silence of indecision. Across the road hopped a young rabbit, a little
rounded shadow that melted into the blur of the sage. A cold white fire,
spreading behind the purple-edged ranges, enriched their somber panoply
with illusive enchantments, ever changing as the dim effulgence drifted
from peak to peak. Shadows grew luminous and were gone. In their stead
wooded valleys and wide canons unfolded to the magic of the moon. There
was no world but night and imagination.
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