And home to them means right
here--Jones' Ranch!"
Doyle's story affected me profoundly. What a theme for a novel! I
walked away from the camp-fire into the dark, lonely, melancholy
Arizona night. The ruined cabins, the broken-down corrals, the stone
fence, the wash where water ran at wet season--all had subtly changed
for me. Leaning in the doorway of the one-room cabin that had been
home for these Joneses I was stirred to my depths. Their spirits
abided in that lonely hut. At least I felt something there--something
strange, great, simple, inevitable, tragic as life itself. Yet what
could have been more beautiful, more splendid than the life of Jones,
and his wife, and daughter, and sons, especially Abe? Abe Jones! The
name haunted me. In one clear divining flash I saw the life of the
lad. I yearned with tremendous passion for the power to tell the
simplicity, the ruggedness, the pathos and the glory of his story.
The moan of wind in the pines seemed a requiem for the boy who had
prattled and romped and played under them, who had chopped and shot
and rode under them. Into his manhood had gone something of their
strength and nature.
We sought our beds early. The night down in that deep, open canyon was
the coldest we had experienced. I slept but little. At dawn all was
hoar-white with frost. It crackled under foot. The air had a stinging
bite.
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