"On what occasion, and why?" was a question I
kept to myself. We were ascending the long, rocky flank of the
divide; the narrowness of the trail obliged us to proceed slowly,
and in file, so that there was little chance for conversation, had
he been disposed to satisfy my curiosity.
We toiled on in silence, the buckeye giving way to chimisal, the
westering sun, reflected again from the blank walls beside us,
blinding our eyes with its glare. The pines in the canyon below
were olive gulfs of heat, over which a hawk here and there drifted
lazily, or, rising to our level, cast a weird and gigantic shadow
of slowly moving wings on the mountain side. The superiority of
the stranger's horse led him often far in advance, and made me hope
that he might forget me entirely, or push on, growing weary of
waiting. But regularly he would halt by a bowlder, or reappear
from some chimisal, where he had patiently halted. I was beginning
to hate him mildly, when at one of those reappearances he drew up
to my side, and asked me how I liked Dickens!
Had he asked my opinion of Huxley or Darwin, I could not have been
more astonished.
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