Often there came to Justin under the night sky rare glimpses of the wild life of the mountains. Playful antelopes gamboled by, all unconscious of his presence, frisking and leaping in the light of early morning, or scampering in wild rushes of fright when they discovered his presence or the dog gave tongue; bucks clattered at each other with antlered horns, or called across the empty spaces; wild cat and cougar leaped the rocks with padded footfalls and occasionally pierced the still air with screams as startling in their suddenness as the staccato, Indian-like clamor of the coyotes. Always wild cat, cougar and coyote brought Justin from beneath his blankets with every sense alert, and sent the dog scurrying into the gloom in the direction of the sound. Clayton’s habits of study and writing had not been lost on Justin, and now and then he tried to set down in his little note book some description of the things that moved him. He composed letters, too, to Lucy, many letters which he never meant to send. In them he told her of his life with the sheep, and of how much he loved her. Often these letters were composed, but not written at all. In one of those letters to Lucy which were not intended to be sent he incorporated some of his thoughts concerning the farmers of the valley, together with a bit of verse. The old hope of Peter Wingate had come back to him for the moment, and he saw the valley as Wingate saw it in his dream of the future: “The crooking plumes of the rice-corn, The sorghum’s emerald spear, The rustle of blue alfalfa, Out on this wild frontier, Whisper of coming thousands, Whose hurrying, eager tread Shall change this mould into kerneled gold And give to the millions bread. “Tis now but a dream prophetic; The plover tilts by the stream, The coyote calls from the hilltop, And the——” Justin got no further. The impossibility of the fulfillment of that dream had come to him as he sought to picture the present. When the driver of the “grub wagon” came with supplies and the news of the ranch, he brought a letter from Lucy; and he took away a letter for her, when he departed. The news from home was cheering. Outwardly at least matters had not changed there. No one had come, and no one had gone, and the usual work was going on. More than once the driver came, and each time Justin saw him depart with unspoken longing. He would have given much to be privileged to go back with him. Yet Justin was not and had not been lonely in the ordinary meaning of that word; he was lonely for the companionship of Lucy Davison, for the glance of her brown eyes, for the music of her words; but, possessing that inner light of the mind in which Clayton believed, it brightened his isolation as with a sacred fire, filled the wooded slopes and craggy heights with life and beauty, and suggested deep thoughts and deeper imaginings.