| OCR Text |
Show 23 Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, modesty is in the mind of the practitioner. Most of the ranger cabins have only one room, but privacy is easy to maintain as long as people don't get overanxious about it. When the gas lantern vient out, its bright flame diminishing little by little until the cabin was in total darkness, Janey was under the blankets changing into her pajamas, draping her clothes over a chair next tohthe bed. Since the fire in the wood stove had burned down, it vias too cold to undress anywhere except under the covers anyway. And vihen she awakened at 5«3° in the morning, the cabin vias really frigid. She shivered back into her clothes before she got out of bed, then hurried outside viith Jerry to care for the horses. The half-mile hike to the spot vihere the horses had been picketed seemed spectral - hardly a glimmer of dawn lightened the sky. In the morning chill they could feel the vapor from their breaths but couldn't see it. Janey pried up the picket stake and untied the rope from her horse Eli, then climbed on him to ride bareback to the cabin. She'd never ridden bareback before, and she was holding the picket ropes in one hand. The forest vias still dark as Eli crashed through the trees, hungry and anxious to get back to the cabin where he knevi he'd be fed. Suddenly Janey made out the shape of a large fallen log directly in their path. Certain she vias going to be throvin, she gripped with her knees, gritted her teeth and clutched the halter rope as Eli soared over the log like a steeplechase racer. By some miracle, she stayed on. Back at the cabin, Janey grained the horses - animals are always fed first in the wilderness, people later. After breakfast and several |
