He was not the least cross-grained, and, having had his little spurt,
he settled down into easy going.
In an hour Lucy was ten miles or more from home, and farther down in the
valley than she had ever been. In fact, she had never before been down the
long slope to the valley floor. How changed the horizon became! The monuments
loomed up now, dark, sentinel-like, and strange. The first one, a great red
rock, seemed to her some five miles away. It was lofty, straight-sided, with a
green slope at its base. And beyond that the other monuments stretched out
down the valley. Lucy decided to ride as far as the first one before turning
back. Always these monuments had fascinated her, and this was her opportunity
to ride near one. How lofty they were, how wonderfully colored, and how
comely!
Presently, over the left, where the monuments were thicker, and gradually
merged their slopes and lines and bulk into the yellow walls, she saw low,
drifting clouds of smoke.
"Well, what's that, I wonder?" she mused. To see smoke on the horizon in that
direction was unusual, though out toward Durango the grassy benches would
often burn over.
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