He knew that from its crest he would be able to
distinguish the figures of his companions, as they crossed the valley
near the cabin, in the growing moonlight. Thus he could avoid
encountering them on his way to the highroad, and yet see them,
perhaps, for the last time. Even in his sense of injury there was a
strange satisfaction in the thought.
The ascent was toilsome, but familiar. All along the dim trail he was
accompanied by gentler memories of the past, that seemed, like the
faint odor of spiced leaves and fragrant grasses wet with the rain and
crushed beneath his ascending tread, to exhale the sweeter perfume in
his effort to subdue or rise above them. There was the thicket of
manzanita, where they had broken noonday bread together; here was the
rock beside their maiden shafts, where they had poured a wild libation
in boyish enthusiasm of success; and here the ledge where their first
flag, a red shirt heroically sacrificed, was displayed from a
long-handled shovel to the gaze of admirers below. When he at last
reached the summit, the mysterious hush was still in the air, as if in
breathless sympathy with his expedition.
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