He knew his own mettle, and that he could hold them if he would,
but the pale, cold face of a woman rose up in judgment against him, and
he also knew that because of the love of her, that was casting its
toils about him, he must give them up.
Far back on the prairie a lonely coyote howled, and a faint wind, that
was now like snow-cooled wine, brought the sighing of limitless grasses
out of the silence. There was no cloud in the crystalline ether, and
something in the vastness and stillness that spoke of infinity, brought
a curious sense of peace to him. Impostor though he was, he would
leave Silverdale better than he found it, and afterwards it would be of
no great moment what became of him. Countless generations of toiling
men had borne their petty sorrows before him, and gone back to the dust
they sprang from, but still, in due succession, harvest followed
seed-time, and the world whirled on. Then, remembering that, in the
meanwhile, he had much to do which would commence with the sun on the
morrow, he went back into the house and shook the fancies from him.
CHAPTER XIII
MASTERY RECOGNIZED
There was, considering the latest price of wheat, a somewhat
astonishing attendance in the long room of the hotel at the railroad
settlement one Saturday evening. A big stove in the midst of it
diffused a stuffy and almost unnecessary heat, gaudy nickeled lamps an
uncertain brilliancy, and the place was filled with the drifting smoke
of indifferent tobacco.
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