She stopped on the edge of the bluff that broke abruptly there, and sat down and stared at the soft purple of the hills and the soft green of the nearer slopes, and at the peaceful blue of the sky arched over it all.

Her eyes cleared of their troubled look and grew dreamy.
Her mouth lost its tenseness and softened to a half smile.

She was not looking now into the past that was so full of heartbreak, but into the future as hope pictured it for her.
She was seeing the Lazy A alive again and all astir with the business of life; and her father saddling Sioux and riding out to look after the stock.

She was seeing herself riding with him,--or else cooking the things he liked best for his dinner when he came back hungry.

She sat there for a long, long while and never moved.
A sparrow hawk swooped down quite close to Jean and then shot upward with a little brown bird in its claws, and startled her out of her castle building.