Through the marvelously clear air the smoke of the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose miles away.

Mother Shipton saw it, and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky fastness hurled in that direction a final malediction.

It was her last vituperative attempt, and perhaps for that reason was invested with a certain degree of sublimity.
It did her good, she privately informed the Duchess.

"Just you go out there and cuss, and see." She then set herself to the task of amusing "the child," as she and the Duchess were pleased to call Piney.

Piney was no chicken, but it was a soothing and original theory of the pair thus to account for the fact that she didn't swear and wasn't improper.
When night crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of the accordion rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the flickering campfire.