North of the town the valley broke away into a region of bare mesas
dotted with rounded, butte-like hills, with the buttressing ranges on
either side to lift the eastern and western horizons. The northern
prospect enabled Blount to place himself accurately, and the tide of
remembrance swept strongly in upon him. Some forty-odd miles away to the
northeast, just beyond the horizon-lifting lesser range, lay the
"short-grass" region in which he had spent the happy boyhood. An hour's
gallop through the hills to the westward the level rays of the setting
sun would be playing upon the little station of Painted Hat, the
one-time shipping-point for the home ranch. And half-way between Painted
Hat and the "Circle-Bar," nestling in the hollowed hands of the
mountains, were the horse-corrals of one Debbleby, a true hermit of the
hills, and the boy Evan's earliest school-master in the great book of
Nature.
Blount's one meliorating softness during the years of exile had
manifested itself in an effort to keep track of Debbleby. He knew that
the old horse-breeder was still alive, and that he was still herding his
brood mares at the ranch on the Pigskin. The young man, fresh from the
well-calculated East, threw up his head and sniffed the keen, cool
breeze sweeping down from the northern hills. He was not given to
impulsive plan-changing.
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