Then the pressure of dry wind, the thick odor of pine, the flashes of brown and green and gold and blue, the soft, rhythmic thuds of hoofs, the feel of the powerful horse under her, the whip of spruce branches on her muscles contracting and expanding in hard action--all these sensations seemed to quell for the time the mounting cataclysm in her heart.
The oak swales, the maple thickets, the aspen groves, the pine-shaded aisles, and the miles of silver spruce all sped by her, as if she had ridden the wind; and through the forest ahead shone the vast open of the Basin, gloomed by purple and silver cloud, shadowed by gray storm, and in the west brightened by golden sky.
Straight to the Rim she had ridden, and to the point where she had watched Jean Isbel that unforgetable day.

She rode to the promontory behind the pine thicket and beheld a scene which stayed her restless hands upon her heaving breast.
The world of sky and cloud and earthly abyss seemed one of storm-sundered grandeur.

The air was sultry and still, and smelled of the peculiar burnt-wood odor caused by lightning striking trees.

A few heavy drops of rain were pattering down from the thin, gray edge of clouds overhead.

To the east hung the storm--a black cloud lodged against the Rim, from which long, misty veils of rain streamed down into the gulf.