Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 9, 2025
Soon the great valley lay below us, running out in a golden haze to the far blue mountains. "Ah!" she sighed, like one who comes from a winter night into a firelit room. She was silent, while her eyes drank in its spacious comfort. "That is your heritage, Elspeth. That is the birthday gift to which old Studd's powder-flask is the key." "Nay, yours," she said, "for you won it."
Meantime I and my friends, looking for Studd's powder-horn, with a mind to confirm your birthday gift to Miss Elspeth Blair, will push on to the hills and learn what is to be learned there." "You will never come back," he said tartly. "An Indian stake and a bloody head will be the end of all of you." "Maybe," I said, "though I have men with me that can play the Indian game.
From the stockade we had no prospect save the reddening western sky, but I liked to think that in a little walk I could see old Studd's Promised Land. That was a joy I reserved for myself on the morrow, I look back on that late afternoon with delight as a curious interlude of peace.
But, though we got no news, that journey brought to me a revelation, for I had my glimpse of Studd's Promised Land. It came to me early in the day, as we halted in a little glade, gay with willowherb and goldenrod, which hung on a shelf of the hills looking westwards.
Like a child playing at making house, she ordered the men about on divers errands. She was a fine sight, with the wind ruffling her hair and her cheeks reddened from the rain. Ringan came up to me. "There are three Hours of daylight in front of us. What say you to make for the top of the hills and find Studd's cairn? I need some effort to keep my blood running."
He climbed the highest mountain in those parts, and built a cairn on the summit, in which he hid a powder-horn with a writing within. He was the first to make the journey, and none have followed him. The man is dead now, but he told me the tale, and I will pledge my honour that it is true. It is for Dulcinea to choose a champion to follow Studd's path and bring back his powder-horn.
They looked infinitely high and rugged, far higher than any hills I had ever seen before, for my own Tinto or Cairntable would to these have been no more than a footstool. I made out a clear breach in the range, which I took to be old Studd's Clearwater Gap. The whole sight intoxicated me.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking