With a new lonesomeness he drew his eyes
down to the mountains.
Ordinarily, strange fancies never entered the hard head of Gregg, but today
it seemed to him that the mountains found a solemn companionship in each
other.
Out of the horizon, where the snowy forms glimmered in the blue, they
marched in loose order down to the valley of the Asper, where some of them
halted in place, huge cliffs, and others stumbled out into foothills, but
the main range swerved to the east beside the valley, eastward out of his
vision, though he knew that they went on to the town of Alder.
Alder was Vic Gregg's Athens and Rome in one, its schoolhouse his
Acropolis, and Captain Lorrimer's saloon his Forum. Other people talked of
larger cities, but Alder satisfied the imagination of Vic; besides, Grey
Molly was even now in the blacksmith's pasture, and Betty Neal was teaching
in the school. Following the march of the mountains and the drift of the
clouds, he turned towards Alder. The piled water shook the dam, topped it,
burst it into fragments, and rushed into freedom; he must go to Alder, have
a drink, shake hands with a friend, kiss Betty Neal, and come back again.
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