the vicinity of this mountain, and once he was sure he espied an
Indian watching him from a bold ridge-top.

The day was bright and warm, with air so clear it magnified objects he
knew to be far away. The ascent was gradual; there were many narrow
flats connected by steps; and the grass grew thicker and longer. At
noon Shefford halted under the first cedar-tree, a lonely, dwarfed
shrub that seemed to have had a hard life. From this point the rise
of ground was more perceptible, and straggling cedars led the eye on
to a purple slope that merged into green of pinyon and pine. Could
that purple be the sage Venters had so feelingly described, or was it
merely the purple of deceiving distance? Whatever it might be, it
gave Shefford a thrill and made him think of the strange, shy, and
lovely woman Venters had won out here in this purple-sage country.

He calculated that he had ridden thirty miles the day before and had
already traveled ten miles today, and therefore could hope to be in
the pass before night. Shefford resumed his journey with too much
energy and enthusiasm to think of being tired. And he discovered
presently that the straggling cedars and the slope beyond were much
closer than he had judged them to be. He reached the sage to find it
gray instead of purple. Yet it was always purple a little way ahead,
and if he half shut his eyes it was purple near at hand. He was
surprised to find that he could not breathe freely, or it seemed so,
and soon made the discovery that the sweet, pungent, penetrating
fragrance of sage and cedar had this strange effect upon him. This
was an exceedingly dry and odorous forest, where every open space
between the clumps of cedars was choked with luxuriant sage. The
pinyons were higher up on the mesa, and the pines still higher.
Shefford appeared to lose himself. There were no trails; the black