Sally loved a horse; she loved a race; she loved to win.
My good fortune had given me more than one ride alone with Sally.

Miss Sampson enjoyed riding, too; but she was not a madcap, and when she accompanied us there was never any race.
When Sally got out alone with me she made me ride to keep her from disappearing somewhere on the horizon.

This morning I wanted her to enjoy to the fullest her utter freedom and to feel that for once I could not catch her.
Perhaps my declaration to Miss Sampson had liberated my strongest emotions.
However that might be, the fact was that no ride before had ever been like this one--no sky so blue, no scene so open, free, and enchanting as that beautiful gray-green range, no wind so sweet.

The breeze that rushed at me might have been laden with the perfume of Sally Langdon's hair.
I sailed along on what seemed a strange ride.

Grazing horses pranced and whistled as I went by; jack-rabbits bounded away to hide in the longer clumps of grass; a prowling wolf trotted from his covert near a herd of cattle.
Far to the west rose the low, dark lines of bleak mountains.