The motion of all things was a drifting in the heart of the canyon.  Sunshine and butterflies drifted in and out among the trees.  The hum of the bees and the whisper of the stream were a drifting of sound.  And the drifting sound and drifting color seemed to weave together in the making of a delicate and intangible fabric which was the spirit of the place.  It was a spirit of peace that was not of death, but of smooth-pulsing life, of quietude that was not silence, of movement that was not action, of repose that was quick with existence without being violent with struggle and travail.  The spirit of the place was the spirit of the peace of the living, somnolent with the easement and content of prosperity, and undisturbed by rumors of far wars.

The red-coated, many-antlered buck acknowledged the lordship of the spirit of the place and dozed knee-deep in the cool, shaded pool.  There seemed no flies to vex him and he was languid with rest.  Sometimes his ears moved when the stream awoke and whispered; but they moved lazily, with foreknowledge that it was merely the stream grown garrulous at discovery that it had slept.

But there came a time when the buck’s ears lifted and tensed with swift eagerness for sound.  His head was turned down the canyon.  His sensitive, quivering nostrils scented the air.  His eyes could not pierce the green screen through which the stream rippled away, but to his ears came the voice of a man.  It was a steady, monotonous, singsong voice.  Once the buck heard the harsh clash of metal upon rock.  At the sound he snorted with a sudden start that jerked him through the air from water to meadow, and his feet sank into the young velvet, while he pricked his ears and again scented the air.  Then he stole across the tiny meadow, pausing once and again to listen, and faded away out of the canyon like a wraith, soft-footed and without sound.

The clash of steel-shod soles against the rocks began to be heard, and the man’s voice grew louder.  It was raised in a sort of chant and became distinct with nearness, so that the words could be heard: 

   “Tu’n around an’ tu’n yo’ face
   Untoe them sweet hills of grace
     (D’ pow’rs of sin yo’ am scornin’!). 
   Look about an’ look aroun’
   Fling yo’ sin-pack on d’ groun’
     (Yo’ will meet wid d’ Lord in d’ mornin’!).”

’A sound of scrambling accompanied the song, and the spirit of the place fled away on the heels of the red-coated buck.  The green screen was burst asunder, and a man peered out at the meadow and the pool and the sloping side-hill.  He was a deliberate sort of man.  He took in the scene with one embracing glance, then ran his eyes over the details to verify the general impression.  Then, and not until then, did he open his mouth in vivid and solemn approval: 

“Smoke of life an’ snakes of purgatory!  Will you just look at that!  Wood an’ water an’ grass an’ a side-hill!  A pocket-hunter’s delight an’ a cayuse’s paradise!  Cool green for tired eyes!  Pink pills for pale people ain’t in it.  A secret pasture for prospectors and a resting-place for tired burros.  It’s just booful!”