But there were other times when he was given hours of lazy ease, when he could lie with the faithful dog on the cool grass and look up into the cool sky; could listen to the foaming plunge of the mountain stream, to the fluttered whisperings of the aspens and the meanings of the pines, and could watch the flirting flight of the magpies, or the gambolings of playful deer. So Justin had much opportunity for thought; and his thoughts and imaginings ran wide and far, with Lucy Davison and Doctor Clayton not very far from both center and periphery wherever they ran or flew. That he had been forced to come away without a parting word with Lucy troubled him sorely. He had his mother’s little Bible with him, containing the wisp of brown hair, and the written flyleaf: “Justin, my baby-boy, is now six months old. May God bless and preserve him and may he become a good man.” He read in it much, in his leisure; and studied that writing many, many times, thinking of his mother, and wondering about his father. And he questioned as to what his life probably would have been if his mother had lived, or if he had known of his father. Yet he was very well satisfied to have it as it had been ordered. It had brought to him Lucy Davison; and he might have missed her, if fate had not led him to Paradise Valley and kept him there. He was quite sure that no father could have done more for him than Clayton, nor loved him with a more unselfish love. To the missionary preacher, Peter Wingate, and to Curtis Clayton, he acknowledged that he owed all he was or could ever be. He thought very lovingly of Clayton, as he lay on the cool slopes looking into the cool sky. And, indeed, the lonely doctor had been wondrously kind to the boy whose life and future had been so strangely committed to his keeping. Without intending anything in particular beyond the impartation of knowledge, he had rounded, on the foundation laid by Peter Wingate, a structure of character that combined singular sweetness with great nobility and strength, for Justin had inherited from his mother certain qualities of sturdy resolution which Clayton himself lacked. The one great blemish, or fault, was a quick and inflammable temper, that almost resisted control. Utterly unaware of the fact himself, as he lay thus among his sheep, while his thoughts ranged far and wide, Justin was like that ruddy David, youthful son of Jesse, with whose life story, told in his mother’s little Bible, he was so familiar, or like Saul in his boyhood days. His lusty youth, his length of limb, his shapely head covered with its heavy masses of hair, his tanned strong face with its kindly, clear-cut profile, and his steady unwinking eyes that looked into the blue skies with color as blue, all spoke of unrecognized power.