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Updated: August 13, 2024
But the way ahead was still long, the brown blotch at the ridge-top was still only a blotch. And the team was fast tiring. When Murphy's Throat was reached, Dallas drove out to the left, watered the thirsty pair at a slough, and ate with Marylyn the long-deferred breakfast. After that they went at a better pace for a time. Soon, however, the road became steeper, and Betty slacked up.
This crest, in front of the lane of enemy guns, made it possible for the enemy batteries to drop shells upon our front line trenches before all the men were out of them at the instant of the great attack. The old English line runs along the Hawthorn Ridge-top for some hundreds of yards, and then crosses a dip or valley, which is the broad, fanshaped, southern end of a fork of Y Ravine.
When I closed my eyes to the noisome street and the clamor, when I saw the pines on the ridge-top clear cut against the moonlit sky, when I heard the whippoorwill calling from the elm and the sheep bleating in the meadow, I believed that I was marching to barren conquests and fighting for worthless booty. But I dared not turn back.
Into the coulée slid the wagon, its long tongue in the air, the loose tugs hitting the mules in the hock. When the team had scrambled up the farther side, Dallas put them to a trot by a flick of the black-snake. Then she bent forward over the dashboard, her eyes fixed eagerly on that distant brown blotch at the eastern ridge-top.
I was flattering myself that the puppy was choosing my company to the hunt, for I always value the approval of a dog. Now I found myself hoping that with a little coddling the young hound would forget the great doings down in the hollow and would stay with me on the ridge-top. But I should have known better. There is an end even to a dog's patience.
Full and strong the bay of the hounds was ringing along the ridges. Nearer and nearer they were coming. Now I could hear old Captain's deep tones, and the shorter, sharper tongue of Betsy, Mike, and Major. The fox was keeping to the ridge-top and in a few moments he would be sweeping by us. I pointed through the woods to a bit of clearing made by a charcoal burner.
This was comforting, because half the sky was barred with leaden cloud and the parched grass gleamed beneath it lividly white, while the light that struck a ridge-top here and there had a sinister luridness. It was getting cold and the wind was dropping, which was not a favourable sign.
On arriving at the place we took the trail, and soon ran it to a ridge-top, covered with piñon-trees, on the nuts of which the turkeys had been feeding.
Frozen rills began to flow, the marmots came out of their nests in boulder-piles and climbed sunny rocks to bask, and the dun-headed sparrows were flitting about seeking their breakfasts. The lakes seen from every ridge-top were brilliantly rippled and spangled, shimmering like the thickets of the low Dwarf Pines.
But this morning, when the far-borne freshness of the woods and fields was in the air, and I longed to feel the soft earth beneath my feet, to break from the enclosing walls and to stride over the open fields, I recalled days like this when the wine of spring was in my veins and I had run through the meadows in a wasteful riot of energy; and then a particular day like this when Penelope and I had ridden out of the woods, had come to the ridge-top and looked over the smiling valley.
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