On the brow of the hill, just where the faint footpath dipped
into a narrow gully at the very edge, almost, of the bluff, he
stopped, and lifted his head for an unconsciously haughty stare
at his surroundings.
Beneath him and half a mile or so up the river valley, the mellow
green of Peaceful's orchard was already taking to itself the
vagueness of evening shadows. Nearer, the meadow of alfalfa and
clover lay like a soft, green carpet of velvet, lined here and
there with the irrigation ditches which kept it so. And in the
center of the meadow, a small inclosure marked grimly the spot
where lay the bones of old John Imsen. All around the man-made
oasis of orchards and meadows, the sage and the sand, pushed from
the river by the jumble of placer pits, emphasized by sharp
contrast what man may do with the most unpromising parts of the
earth's surface, once he sets himself heart and muscle to the
task.
With the deliberation of his race, Peppajee stood long minutes
motionless, gazing into the valley before ho turned with a true
Indian shrug and went down into the gully, up the steep slope
beyond, and then, after picking his way through a jumble of great
bowlders, came out eventually into the dust-ridden trail of the
white man.
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