column with its simple tribute

  At the top of the hollowed trail, just where the trees began, the horse came to a halt so suddenly that Mahon jerked against the pommel and lifted his eyes in surprise.   Not thirty yards ahead stood the granite column with its simple tribute, "Greater Love." But Mahon did not notice it. All he saw was a man slouched on its pedestal. He was smiling at him--a twisted, awkward smile of embarrassed affection.   Mahon's lips parted, but he could not speak. With unsteady hand he quieted the impatient horse--blinking incredulously. There were the high cheek bones, the bluish tinge--darker now--the pleading smile, the leather chaps and dirty Stetson and polka dot neckerchief and huge spurs, there the coarse brown hands hanging limply over the leather-clad knees. Two changes had come--one shoulder hung lower than its mate, and the stiff black hair was tidier. The first, he knew, was the result of the old wound; the last the outward token of a woman's care.   "Pete!"   He breathed the beloved name without knowing that he spoke.   The grin on the dusky face widened, the big hands rubbed each other in confusion. For several seconds they faced each other thus. Suddenly the half breed whistled twice, and out from the trees trotted an ugly little pinto. Its right ear turned forward for Mahon's familiar welcome, the left, struggling to follow, fell away grotesquely in its upper half. But the weirdly coloured blotches that made it a pinto were unlike any colour of living hide; and the pinto seemed to feel it.