Behind
us, Thunder Knob lifted its rocky head, hiding from us the valley of
our troubles. Before us, miles away, all capped with clouds of gold
and red was the sunset country, but still beyond the mountains. The
gray colt halted to catch his breath, and with the whip I pointed to
the west, glowing with the warm evening fires.
"Yonder's Happy Valley, Tip," I said, "miles away still. It will take
us another day to reach it."
"It will take you forever to reach it," was the half-growled retort.
"I ain't chasin' sunsets. Here's Happy Walley--my Happy Walley, right
below us, and the smoke you see curlin' up th'oo the trees is from the
John Shadrack clearin'."
A great wall, hardly a mile away, as the crow flies, the third mountain
rose, bare and forbidding. Below us, a narrow strip of evergreen wound
away to the south as far as our eyes could reach, and at wide intervals
thin columns of smoke sifting through the trees marked the abodes of
the dwellers of Tip's Elysium. Peace must be there, if peace dwells in
a land where all that breaks the stillness seems the drifting of the
smoke through the pine boughs.
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