They rose
sheer up in wave upon frozen wave like water piled ragged by some
terrific gale, with the tops of the waters torn and tossed and then
frozen forever in that position, like a fantastic and gargantuan mask
of dreaming terror. It overawed the heart of Mary Brown to look up to
them, but there was growing in her a new impulse of friendly
understanding with all this scalped, bald region of rocks, as if in
entering the valley she had passed through the gate which closes out
the gentler world, and now she was admitted as a denizen of the
mountain-desert, that scarred and ugly asylum for crime and fear
and grandeur.
Feeling this new emotion, the old horizons of her mind gave way and
widened; her gentle nature, which had known nothing but smiles,
admitted the meaning of a frown. Did she not ride under the very
shadow of that frown with her two horses? Was she not armed? She
touched the holster at her hip, and smiled. To be sure, she could
never hit a mark with that ponderous weapon, but at least the pistol
gave the feeling of a dangerous lone rider, familiar with the wilds.
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