The Professor's House
unhitch and ride back to Tarpin and get another.
Everything took an unreasonably long time, and the
afternoon was half gone when he put me and my
trunk down at the foot of the Black Canyon trail.
Every inch of that trail was dear to me, every
delicate curve about the old piñon roots, every
chancy track along the face of the cliffs, and the deep
windings back into shrubbery and safety. The
wild-currant bushes were in bloom, and where the
path climbed the side of a narrow ravine, the scent
of them in the sun was so heavy that it made me
soft, made me want to lie down and sleep. I wanted
to see and touch everything, like home-sick children when they come home.
When I pulled out on top of the mesa, the rays of sunlight fell slantingly through the little twisted piñons,—the light was all in between them, as red as a daylight fire, they fairly swam in it. Once again I had that glorious feeling that I've never had anywhere else, the feeling of being on the mesa, in a world above the world. And the air, my God, what air—Soft, tingling, gold, hot with an edge of chill on it, full of the smell of piñons—it was like breathing the sun, breathing the colour of the sky. Down there behind me was the plain, already streaked with shadow, violet and purple and burnt orange until it met the horizon. Before me was the flat mesa top, thinly sprinkled with old cedars that were not much taller than I, though their twisted
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