Behind them the still, heavy reach of
water stretched, reflecting in mirrored clearness the mountains
crowding on its southern rim. Before them the sage reached out to dim
infinities of distance. The Humboldt ran nearby, sunk in a stony bed,
its banks matted with growths of alder and willow. The afternoon was
drawing to the magical sunset hour. Susan, lying by the door of her
tent, could see below the growing western blaze the bowl of the earth
filling with the first, liquid oozings of twilight.
A week ago they had left the Fort. To her it had been a blank space of
time, upon which no outer interest had intruded. She had presented an
invulnerable surface to all that went on about her, the men's care, the
day's incidents, the setting of the way. Cold-eyed and dumb she had
moved with them, an inanimate idol, unresponsive to the observances of
their worship, aloof from them in somber uncommunicated musings.
The men respected her sorrow, did her work for her, and let her alone.
To them she was set apart in the sanctuary of her mourning, and that
her grief should express itself by hours of drooping silence was a
thing they accepted without striving to understand.
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