Farther along toward evening the great range, which had been visible for
hours in the westward vista, began to define itself in peaks and high,
bald shoulderings of wind-swept mesas. Here was something definite and
tangible for the stirring underman to lay hold upon. Blount, the
sober-minded, the self-contained, found a curious transformation working
itself out in quickened pulses and exhilarating nerve-tinglings. Boston,
the Law School, the East of the narrow walk-ways and the still narrower
rut of custom and convention, were fading into a past which already
seemed age-old and half forgotten. He threw open the window at his elbow
and drank in deep inspirations of the hill-sweeping blast. It was sweet
in his nostrils, and the keen crispness of it was as fine wine in his
blood. After all, he had been but a sojourner in the other world, and
this was his homeland.
At the dining-car dinner, which was served while the higher peaks of the
main range were as vast islands floating in a sea of crimson and gold,
Blount missed the man of many troubles. The dining-car was well filled,
and, though the faces of the diners were all unfamiliar, the hum of
talk, the hurrying of the waiters, and the subdued clamor drowning
itself in the under-drone of the drumming wheels answered well enough
for companionship. There are times when even the voice of a friend is an
intrusion, and the returning exile had happed upon one of them.
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