Down the Bear Creek¹ road Terence Hollis rode as he had never ridden before. To be sure, it was not the first time that El Sangre had stretched to the full his mighty² strength, but on those other occasions he had fought the burst of speed, straining back in groaning³ stirrup leathers, with his full weight wresting⁴ at the bit. Now he let the rein⁵ play to such a point that he was barely keeping the power of the stallion in touch. He lightened his weight as only a fine horseman can do, shifting a few vital inches forward, and with the burden falling more over his withers⁶, El Sangre fled like a racer down the valley. Not that he was fully⁷ extended. His head was not stretched out as a cow-pony's head is stretched when he runs; he held it rather high, as though he carried in his big heart a reserve strength ready to be called on for any emergency. For all that, it was running such as Terry had never known.  
The wind became a blast, jerking the brim of his sombrero up and whistling in his hair. He was letting the shame, the grief, the thousand regrets of that parting with Aunt Elizabeth be blown out of his soul. His mind was a whirl; the thoughts became blurs⁸. As a matter of fact, Terry was being reborn.
 
He had lived a life perfectly⁹ sheltered. The care of Elizabeth Cornish had surrounded him as the Blue Mountains and Sleep Mountain surrounded Bear Valley and fenced off the full power of the storm winds. The reality of life had never reached him. Now, all in a day, the burden was placed on his back, and he felt the spur driven home to the quick. No wonder that he winced¹⁰, that his heart contracted.
 
But now that he was awakening¹¹, everything was new. Uncle Vance, whom he had always secretly despised, now seemed a fine character, gentle, cultured, thoughtful of others. Aunt Elizabeth Cornish he had accepted as a sort of natural fact, as though there were a blood tie between them. Now he was suddenly aware of twenty-four years of patient love. The sorrow of it, that only the loss of that love should have brought him realization¹² of it. Vague thoughts and aspirations¹³ formed in his mind. He yearned¹⁴ toward some large and heroic deed which should re-establish himself in her respect. He wished to find her in need, in great trouble, free her from some crushing burden with one perilous¹⁵ effort, lay his homage¹⁶ at her feet.
 
All of which meant that Terry Hollis was a boy—a bewildered, heart- stricken boy. Not that he would have undone¹⁷ what he had done. It seemed to him inevitable¹⁸ that he should resent the story of the sheriff and shoot him down or be shot down himself. All that he regretted was that he had remained mute before Aunt Elizabeth, unable to explain to her a thing which he felt so keenly. And for the first time he realized the flinty basis of her nature. The same thing that enabled her to give half a lifetime to the cherishing of a theory, also enabled her to cast all the result of that labor¹⁹ out of her life. It stung him again to the quick every time he thought of it. There was something wrong. He felt that a hundred hands of affection gave him hold on her. And yet all those grips were brushed away.
 
The torment²⁰ was setting him on fire. And the fire was burning away the smug complacency which had come to him during his long life in the valley.
 
When El Sangre pulled out of his racing²¹ gallop²² and struck out up a slope at his natural gait, the ground-devouring pace, Terry Hollis was panting and twisting in the saddle as though the labor of the gallop had been his. They climbed and climbed, and still his mind was involved in a haze²³ of thought. It cleared when he found that there were no longer high mountains before him. He drew El Sangre to a halt with a word. The great stallion turned his head as he paused and looked back to his master with a confiding²⁴ eye as though waiting willingly for directions. And all at once the heart of Terence went out to the blood-bay as it had never gone before to any creature, dumb or human. For El Sangre had known such pain as he himself was learning at this moment. El Sangre was giving him true trust, true love, and asking him for no return.
 
The stallion, following his own will, had branched off from the Bear Creek trail and climbed through the lower range of the Blue Peaks. They were standing²⁶ now on a mountain-top. The red of the sunset filled the west and brought the sky close to them with the lower drifts of stained clouds. Eastward²⁷ the winding²⁸ length of Bear Creek was turning pink and purple. The Cornish ranch²⁵ had never seemed so beautiful to Terry as it was at this moment. It was a kingdom, and he was leaving, the disinherited heir.
 
He turned west to the blare of the sunset. Blue Mountains tumbled away in lessening²⁹ ranges—beyond was Craterville, and he must go there today. That was the world to him just then. And something new passed through Terry. The world was below him; it lay at his feet with its hopes and its battles. And he was strong for the test. He had been ............