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To The Last Man Zane Grey 7940K 2023-09-02

The ride, the action, the thrill, the sensations of violence were not all she needed Solitude, the empty aisles of the forest, the far miles of lonely wilderness--were these the added all? Spades took a swinging, rhyth trail The wind fanned her hot face The sting of whipping aspen branches was pleasant A deep rureen slope of the canyondarker and darker Spades loped on the levels, leaped the washes, trotted over the rocky ground, and took to a walk up the long slope Ellen dropped the reins over the po They pressed her breast and flew out to caress the white aspens and to tear at the ather the lavender juniper berries, and ca to burst or break! As it had swelled, so now it labored It could not keep pace with her needs All that was physical, all that was living in her had to be unleashed

Spades gained the level forest How the great, brown-green pines seemed to bend their lofty branches over her, protectively, understandingly Patches of azure-blue sky flashed between the trees The great white clouds sailed along with her, and shafts of golden sunlight, flecked with gleah the canopy overhead Away in front of her, up the slow heave of forest land, boo the battle to escape fro hard and fast through the glades Then the pressure of dry wind, the thick odor of pine, the flashes of brown and green and gold and blue, the soft, rhythmic thuds of hoofs, the feel of the powerful horse under her, the whip of spruce branches on herin hard action--all these sensations see cataclysm in her heart

The oak swales, the roves, the pine-shaded aisles, and the miles of silver spruce all sped by her, as if she had ridden the wind; and through the forest ahead shone the vast open of the Basin, glooray storht to the Rim she had ridden, and to the point where she had watched Jean Isbel that unforgetable day She rode to the promontory behind the pine thicket and beheld a scene which stayed her restless hands upon her heaving breast