The expression of Calumet's face was as hard and inscrutable as the
desert itself; the latter's filmy haze did not more surely shut out the
mysteries behind it than did Calumet's expression veil the emotions of
his heart. He turned from the desert to face the plateau, from whose
edge dropped a wide, tawny valley, luxuriant with bunch grass--a golden
brown sweep that nestled between some hills, inviting, alluring. So
sharp was the contrast between the desert and the valley, and so potent
was its appeal to him, that the hard calm of his face threatened to
soften. It was as though he had ridden out of a desolate, ages-old
world where death mocked at life, into a new one in which life reigned
supreme.
There was no change in Calumet's expression, however, though below him,
spreading and dipping away into the interminable distance, slumbering
in the glare of the afternoon sun, lay the land of his youth. He
remembered it well and he sat for a long time looking at it, searching
out familiar spots, reviving incidents with which those spots had been
connected. During the days of his exile he had forgotten, but now it
all came back to him; his brain was illumined and memories moved in it
in orderly array--like a vast army passing in review. And he sat there
on his pony, singling out the more important personages of the
army--the officers, the guiding spirits of the invisible columns.
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