"We're on our land now," he said, as they left the hayfield
behind. "It runs right across country over the roughest parts.
Just you wait and see."
As on the first day, he turned aside from the clay-pit and worked
through the woods to the left, passing the first spring and
jumping the horses over the ruined remnants of the
stake-and-rider fence. From here on, Dede was in an unending
ecstasy. By the spring that gurgled among the redwoods grew
another great wild lily, bearing on its slender stalk the
prodigious outburst of white waxen bells. This time he did not
dismount, but led the way to the deep canon where the stream had
cut a passage among the knolls. He had been at work here, and a
steep and slippery horse trail now crossed the creek, so they
rode up beyond, through the somber redwood twilight, and, farther
on, through a tangled wood of oak and madrono. They came to a
small clearing of several acres, where the grain stood waist
high.
"Ours," Daylight said.
She bent in her saddle, plucked a stalk of the ripe grain, and
nibbled it between her teeth.
"Sweet mountain hay," she cried. "The kind Mab likes."
And throughout the ride she continued to utter cries and
ejaculations of surprise and delight.
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