, 1923-08-29
Book One: The Two-Bar
Brand
CHAPTER I
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Joan Reads by freight.

There is no silence so fearful, SO
GREATNESS, SO searching as the night
silence Of a wild country buried FIVE
feet deep in snow. For thirty miles
or so. north, south, east and west of
the small, half smothered speck of
gold in Pierre Landis' cabin window,
there lay. on a certain December
night, this silence, bathed in MOON
light. The cold was intense: below
) the bench where Pierre's homestead
lay there rose from the twisted, rapid
river a cloud of steam above which
the hoar-frosted tops of cottonwood
trees were perfectly distinct, trunk.
branch and twig, against a sky the
color of iris petals. The stars flared
brilliantly. hardly dimmed by the full
moon, and over the vast surface of the
snow minute crystals kept up a steady
shining of their own. The range of
sharp, wind-scraped mountains, up
lifted fourteen thousand feet, rode
across the country, northeast, south
west, dazzling in white armor, spears
up to the sky, a sight, seen suddenly.
to take the breath, like the crashing
march Of archangels militant.
In the center of this ring of silent
crystal Pierre Landis' logs shut in a
little square of warm and rudy hui
man darkness. Joan, his wife, made
the heart of this defiant space-Joan,
the one mind living in this ghostly
area of night. She had put out the
lamp, for Pierre. starting downward
two days before, had warned her with
a certain threatening sharpness not
to waste oil. and she lay on the
hearth. her rough head almost in the
ashes, reading n book by the unsteady
light of the flames. She followed the
printed lines with n strong. dark fore
4 finger and her lips framed the words
I with slow. whispering motions. 1t
WINS n long, strong woman's body
stretched there cross the floor, heav-
fly II not sluggishly built, dressed
/. rudely in warm stuffs and clumsy
boots, and 1t was a heavy face, too,
unlit from within. but built on lines
of perfect animal beauty. The head
and throat had the massive look OF n
marble fragment stained to n even
tone and dug up from Attic earth. And
she was reading thus heavily and
slowly. by freight In the midst OF
this tremendous northern night, Keats
version Of Boccaccio's Tale Of Isa-
bella and the Pot of Basil"
The story for some reason interest
ed her. She felt hat she could I'M
derstand the love of young Lorenzo
and OF Isabella, the hatred Of those
two brothers and Isabella's horrible
tenderness for that young murdered
head. There were V en things In her
own life that she compared with
these; in fact. Mt every phrase she
stopped, and, staring ahead. crudely
and Ignornntly visualized. after her
own experience. what h had JUST
read; and. In doing so. she pictured
her own life.
Her love and PIerre's-her life be-
fore Pierre came-to put herself In
Isabella's place. she felt back to the
days before her love, when she had
lived in a dissolution of bleak poverty,
up and away along Lone river in her
fathers shack. This log house of
Pierre's was n castle by contrast.
John Carver and his daughter had
shared one room between them loans
bed curtained on with gunny-sacking
In n corner. She slept on hides and
rolled herself up In old dingy patch
work quilts and worn blankets. Or
winter mornings she would wake COW
cred with the snow that had sifted In
between the Unmatched logs. There
had been n stove. one leg gone and
substituted for by n huge cobble-
l-l-- ..