e vast silences, too, of
brooding, treeless wastes, sun-baked river-beds, shadowless brown
squares standing for miles at a brief height above the shadowless brown
floor of the plain--silences amidst which only the wind finds a
voice--these, too, insist drearily on the nothingness of man.

But Wilfred and Lahoma were not thus affected. The somethingness of
man had never to them been so thrillingly evident. They saw and heard
that which was not, except for those having eyes and ears to
apprehend--roses in the sand, bird-song in the desert. And when the
rude cabins and hasty tents of the last stage-station in Greer County
showed dark and white against the horizon of a spring-like morning,
Wilfred cried exultantly:

"The end of the journey!"

And Lahoma, suddenly showing in her cheeks all the roses that had
opened in her dreams, repeated gaily, yet a little brokenly:

"The end of the journey!"

The end of the journey meant a wedding. The plains blossom with
endless flower-gardens and the mountains sing together when the end of
the journey means a wedding.

Leaving Lahoma at the small new hotel from whose boards the sun began
boiling out resin as soon as it was well aloft, Wilfred hurried after a
fresh horse to carry him at once to the cove, ten miles away. Warning
must be given to Brick Willock first of all. Lahoma even had a wild
hope that Brick might devise some means whereby he could attend the
wedding without danger of arrest, but to Wilfred this seemed impossible.

He had gone but a few steps from the hotel when he came face to face
with the sheriff of Greer County. Cutting short his old friend's
outburst of pleasure:

"Look here, Mizzoo," said Wilfred, drawing him aside from the curious
throng on the sidewalk, "have you got a warrant against Brick Willock?"

Mizzoo tapped his breast. "Here!", he said; "know where he is?"

Wilfred sighed with relief: "At any rate, YOU don't!" he cried.

"No--'rat him! Where're you going, Bill?"

"I want a horse..."

"No use riding over to the cove," remarked his friend, with a grin.
"That is, unless you want to call on some friends of mine--deputies;
they're living in the dugout, just laying for Brick to show himself."

"But, MIZZOO!" expostulated Wilfred, "why are you taking so much
trouble against my best friend? The warrant ought to be enough; and if
you can't get a chance to serve it on him, that's not your fault. Your
deputies haven't any right in that