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Updated: June 24, 2025
He had laughed at the Deputy's fear to move with fifty dragoons to back him. There was some excuse for it. Back of those piercing points of steel-blue light were one hundred and fifty armed followers. What would happen if he should turn to these men and tell them to fight the cavalry of the United States? It was an open question. The old man walked toward his men with wiry, springing step.
The cardinal's steel-blue eyes took a new expression, and one which Arthur could in no wise interpret. "Like to die!" He spoke somewhat more abruptly than had hitherto been the case. "You are sure of that?" "I am sure of it," answered Arthur; "and Dr. Higdon, the dean, will tell you the same, if your Eminence will ask him of it.
One moment the crystal air had been so still that the click of the iron hoofs of their horses seemed to be the only sound in the world. The next minute the roar of breaking trees and falling rocks echoed like an earthquake and a white cloud of misty snow and flying icicles hid the steel-blue heavens. It was done in such a fragment and flash of time that Broussard hardly knew what had happened.
Presently, at the foot of the steep ascent, Stillwell got out and walked, leading the team. During this long climb fatigue claimed Madeline, and she drowsily closed her eyes, to find when she opened them again that the glaring white sky had changed to a steel-blue. The sun had sunk behind the foothills and the air was growing chilly.
The next dawn showed the mountain peaks limned like clean-cut ivory against the steel-blue sky, and as they crept up through the defiles the air was so motionless that the smoke of their pipes hung about their heads, while the creak of their soles upon the dry surface of the snow roused echoes from the walls on either side.
Outside there was a melting snow on the higher hills; the clouds over them grew steel-blue. We were going through a valley in a fir-forest. Bowls of hot coffee and milk, with white rolls of bread to dip in them, refreshed us at a forest inn. For some minutes after the meal Temple and I talked like interchangeing puffs of steam, but soon subsided to our staring fit. The pipes were lit again.
We had a wild road over hills, covered with pine forests, through the breaks in which we now and then caught a glimpse of a long lake to the westward, shining with a steel-blue gleam in the morning sun. There were but few clearings along the road, and miles frequently intervened without a sign of human habitation.
Such is a faint idea of the mighty scenery of the Vosges, boundless forests, silver lakes, dazzling crests, ridges, and peaks projecting their clear outlines upon the steel-blue of the valleys clothed in snow. Beyond this, infinite space! Could any enthusiasm of poet or skill of painter attain the sublime elevation of such a scene as that? I stood mute with admiration.
Bees swept by with a humming, slumberous sound; and among the sedges at the sides, where the golden irises displayed their lovely blossoms, the thin-bodied dragon-flies, steel-blue or green, darted on transparent wing, pairs every now and then encountering fiercely with a faint rustling of wings, and battling for a few seconds, when one would dart away with the other in pursuit.
The weather was favorable, the scenery grand and varied with almost every feature that could give it interest. The finest of roads wound in and out around the mountain headlands, so that alternately I was walking upon a lofty esplanade overlooking the still expanse of the steel-blue sea, then facing inward to the gorges of the grand and solemn hills.
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