Waiting only long enough to hear their pleased acceptance, he dashed off down the road again. Ever since her arrival in Arizona Lloyd had wanted to see the famous hole in the rock. It lay several miles across the desert, in a great red butte. There was a picture of it in the ranch parlour, and nearly every tourist who passed through Phoenix made a pilgrimage to the spot, and took snap shots of this curious freak of nature.
Climbing up the butte toward it, one seemed to be going into a mighty cave, but when he had passed up into the opening, and down over a ledge of rock, he saw that the cave led straight through the butte, like an enormous tunnel, and at the farther end opened out on the other side of the mountain, giving a wide outlook over the surrounding desert. It was a favourite spot for picnic parties, but of all ever gathered there, none had had so many preparations made for the comfort of the guests. Phil rode over several times; once to be sure that the wood he had ordered for the camp-fire had been delivered, and again to take a load of canvas chairs, rubber blankets, rugs, and cushions, so that even the invalids on the ranch could enjoy the outing.
It was the first of March. Where the irrigating ditches ran, almond and peach orchards were pink with bloom. California poppies, golden as the sunshine, nodded on the edges of the waving green wheat. Even the dry, hard desert was sweet in its miracle of blossoming. A carpet of bloom covered it. Stems so short that they could scarcely raise the buds they bore above the sand bravely pierced the hard-baked crust. Great masses of yellow and blue, white, lavender, and scarlet transformed the bleak solitary places for a little while into a glory of colour and perfume. An odour, sweet as if blown across acres of narcissus, made Mrs. Ware turn her head with a little cry of pleasure as they drove along toward the butte the afternoon of the picnic.
"It's the desert mistletoe," explained Phil, who was following on horseback with Lloyd and Joyce the surrey which Jack was driving.
"It is in blossom now, hanging in bunches from all those high bushes over yonder. Mrs. Lee says it isn't like ours. The berries, instead of being little white wax ones like pearls, shade from a deep red to the palest rose-pink."