"Now, Miss Lucy, hold him tight till he wears off thet edge.

He needs work." Sage King would not kneel for Lucy as Sarchedon did, and he was too high for her to mount from the ground, so she mounted from a rock.

She took to the road, and then the first trail into the sage, intending to trot him ten or fifteen miles down into the valley, and give him some fast, warm work on the return.
The day was early in May and promised to grow hot.

There was not a cloud in the blue sky.

The wind, laden with the breath of sage, blew briskly from the west.