Dressed in full deer-skin as was I, she rode her horse astride with a
grace as perfect as it was unstudied and unconscious, neither affecting
the slothful carriage of our Southern saddle-masters nor the dragoons'
rigid seat, but sat at ease, hollow-backed, loose-thighed, free-reined
and free-stirruped.
Her hair, gathered into a golden club at the nape of the neck, glittered
in the sun, her eyes deepened like the violet depths of mid-heaven.
Already the sun had lent her a delicate, creamy mask, golden on her
temples where the hair grew paler; and I thought I had never seen such
wholesome sweetness and beauty in any living being.
We now rode through a vast flat land of willows, headed due north once
more, and I saw a little river which twisted a hundred times upon itself
like a stricken snake, winding its shimmering coils out and in through
woodland, willow-flat, and reedy marsh.
"The Kennyetto," said Dorothy, "flowing out of the great Vlaie to empty
its waters close to its source after a circle of half a hundred miles.
Yonder lies the Vlaie--it is that immense flat country of lake and marsh
and forest which is wedged in just south of the mountain-gap where the
last of the Adirondacks split into the Mayfield hills and the long, low
spurs rolling away to the southeast.
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