They liked the place well enough. There were plenty of shady
places to lie and smoke in when the mercury went sizzling up its
tiny tube. Sometimes, when there was a dance, they would choose
the best of Phoebe's roses to decorate their horses' bridles; and
perhaps their hatbands, also. Peaceful would then suck harder
than ever at his pipe, and his faded blue eyes would wander
pathetically about the little paradise of his making, as if he
wondered whether, after all, it had been worth while.
A tight picket fence, built in three unswerving lines from the
post planted solidly in a cairn of rocks against a bowlder on the
eastern rim of the pond, to the road which cut straight through
the ranch, down that to the farthest tree of the grove, then back
to the bluff again, shut in that tribute to the sentimental side
of Peaceful's nature. Outside the fence dwelt sturdier, Western
realities.
Once the gate swung shut upon the grove one blinked in the garish
sunlight of the plains.
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