UT a week before the desert had been seared and bare, brown and dull gray. Now green life crept up from the roots of the gray grama. The first July rains were over and all the clean-washed world lay glistening in the sun, fresh and sweet and pure. Blue-black, wave-edged, clear against the fathomless turquoise sky, far, radiant ranges rimmed out the mesas east and west; the nearer ranges, saw-toothed and broken, gleamed white from bare wet rocks, sparkled where quartz and crystal and mica shone. From the terraced ridge where they rode Don pointed out to Lena Mallory a dim silhouette far to the southwest, on the remotest verge of the broad expanse—a faint, low outline, the mountain that marks the meeting corners of four states.
The mystery and charm of tremendous distances thralled her, the splendor of nearer lights. Everywhere they glittered and sparkled, these warm reflected lights, spangles on the desert's new robe of delicate gray-green; white light thrown back in varying tints from cliffs of limestone, lava, granite, basalt, syenite, porphyry, obsidian; from red sandhills, from leprous bare blotches on the wide plains, from weather-beaten yellowish benches, from pebbles of ruddy-glinting burnished agate on the low slopes, from the white town itself, from the near new quarry, from "gyp" cuts, chalk-white and glaring, where the railroad plunged recklessly from level to lower level, from gleaming tins of abandoned construction camps, from glittering steel of rails, from white, wind-swept roads. Scattered along the central valley of the Jornada, a flashing quick silver chain of new-born shallow lakes lay along the shining flats of sacaton, lake after dazzling lake, till the broad valley bent behind low, lonely hills and was lost beyond their purple cones and pyramids.
But were these lights all indeed of land or sea? If, as is said upon authority, a jest's prosperity lies in the listening ear, it is like that some or much of this bewildering beauty lay in the beholder's eyes. The air was heavy with fragrance of flower and shrub and trampled herb. Lena Mallory flung her arm wide in joyous exaltation; her eye kindled with delight. In such hour and place and mood was reared the stone where "lies buried the soul of the licentiate Lucius." The line gives an added charm to the green pleasant Spanish hill; ages ago, the brain that shaped it, the hand that graved it, are alike crumbled to dust. Old pagan earth-lover, how are your deeds and daring and hopes, your loves and hates and wars and works and sins, lost now in the trackless dark! Yet this one idle fancy outlives them and thee and the forgotten king who was then great—lives and will live while warm flesh glows with the pride of life, while water flows to the sea, and grass grows green to the rain, and young blood thrills to its mate.
The ride had been long; they were on the homeward way, following the long mesquit-grass benches below Fra Christobal. Don had beguiled the hour with tales of Apache warriors: Victoria, Juh and Nana. Then, to her questioning, he had explained at some length the theory and practice of "working" cattle on the free range. Under theory his discourse treated of the drive, the round-up, the night-guard, the wranglers, "floating," "moonshining" and range-riding. He purposely omitted mention of life "on the trail." For a herd was just before them; Lena was to have a notable chance to observe that phase at first hand. Under practice he made clear the cause and effect of mavericking, "sleepering," "changelings" and yet subtler assimilative methods in vogue—called of the wise by the prudent, non-commital term, conveyance—quoting, as summary of the ethics involved, that excellent and pithy apothegm of the short-grass countries: "Never steal cattle; but if you must—then keep what you steal!"
"But it's a great business, all the same. Railroads and fortunes are built on the difference between steer and steak. Let's turn down this tip. I saw a passing herd from up in the foothills. I'll show you a glimpse of the old cattle-trail days before the railroads, when steers went to market afoot."
The old Santa Fe trail, here paralleling the railway, lay below them, skirting the base of the bench. The herd was strung out and scattered, barely grazing toward Dundee; the sleepy herders lounged sidewise in their saddles. "They go as slowly as they can, just so they reach a watering place," said Don. "Tomorrow night they'll stay at McRae and next day they'll cross the river."
"And they stand watch every night?"