The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: tree-tops, glinted along the stony bluffs, and chased away the gloom of night
from the valley. Its warm gleams penetrated the portholes of the Fort and cast
long bright shadows on the walls; but it brought little cheer to the sleepless
and almost exhausted defenders. If brought to many of the settlers the
familiar old sailor's maxim: "Redness 'a the morning, sailor's warning."
Rising in its crimson glory the sun flooded the valley, dyeing the river, the
leaves, the grass, the stones, tingeing everything with that awful color which
stained the stairs, the benches, the floor, even the portholes of the
block-house.
Historians call this the time that tried men's souls. If it tried the men
think what it must have been to those grand, heroic women. Though they had
 Betty Zane |