In the Garden of the Gods

Excerpt: 'When one is in the Garden of the Gods one should be, I suppose, in Elysian humor. My mood, to the contrary, for private reasons of my own, was thunderous. I lay on my elbow among the kinni-kinic where I had flung myself down in the shade of a silver spruce. But the sun was higher now, and its rare, untempered beat was on me. Naturally I used the shifting orb as a text on the futility of life. What was the use of arranging things comfortably when they always disarranged themselves as promptly as possible? Now, there was Katherine —. The sound of a revolver cracked into my sombre discontent. Hard on its echoes came the slap of running feet, and, as I guessed, the swish of petticoats. A raucous command to stop brought me to my feet instantly. It also brought the runner to a halt just out of my sight beyond the shoulder of the hill.'