He recalled, too, with startling vividness, the times that he
had climbed to that spot with Sibyl, or, reaching it from either way on
the pipe-line, had gone with her down the zigzag path to the road in the
canyon below. Had she, last night, alone, or with some unwelcome
companions, paused a moment under those oaks? Had she remembered the hours
that she had spent there with him?
As he followed the Ranger over the ground that he had walked with her,
that day of their last climb together, it seemed to him that every step
of the way was haunted by her sweet personality. The objects along the
trail--a point of rock, a pine, the barrel where they had filled their
canteen, a broken section of the concrete pipe left by the workmen, the
very rocks and cliffs, the flowers--dry and withered now--that grew along
the little path--a thousand things that met his eyes--recalled her to his
mind until he felt her presence so vividly that he almost expected to find
her waiting, with smiling, winsome face, just around the next turn. The
officer, who, moving ahead, scanned with careful eyes every foot of the
way, seemed to the artist, now, to be playing some fantastic game. He
could not, for the moment, believe that the girl he loved was--God! where
was she? Why did Brian Oakley move so slowly, on foot, while his horse,
leisurely cropping the grass, followed? He should be in the saddle! They
should be riding, riding riding--as he had ridden last night.
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