ngst the high peaks."

He mused, turning over in his mind a new picture of his own life, aims,
and pursuits as modified by the sympathetic and understanding
companionship of a woman. He pictured himself as he must seem to her
in his different pursuits. The picturesqueness pleased him. The
simple, direct vanity of the man--the wholesome vanity of a
straightforward nature--awakened to preen its feathers before the idea
of the mate.

The shadows fell. Over the Chiricahuas flared the evening star. The
plain, self-luminous with the weird lucence of the arid lands, showed
ghostly. Jed Parker, coming out from the lamp-lit adobe, leaned his
elbows on the rail in silent company with his chief. He, too, looked
abroad. His mind's eye saw what his body's eye had always told him
were the insistent notes--the alkali, the cactus, the sage, the
mesquite, the lava, the choking dust, the blinding beat, the burning
thirst. He sighed in the dim half recollection of past days.

"I wonder if she'll like the country?" he hazarded.

But Senor Johnson turned on him his steady eyes, filled with the great
glory of the desert.

"Like the country!" he marvelled slowly. "Of course! Why shouldn't
she?"

CHAPTER FIVE

THE ARRIVAL

The Overland drew into Willets, coated from engine to observation with
white dust. A porter, in strange contrast of neatness, flung open the
vestibule, dropped his little carpeted step, and turned to assist
someone. A few idle passengers gazed out on the uninteresting, flat
frontier town.

Senor Johnson caught his breath in amazement. "God! Ain't she just
like her picture!" he exclaimed. He seemed to find this astonishing.

For a moment he did not step forward to claim her, so she stood looking
about her uncertainly, her leather suit-case at her feet.

She was indeed like the photograph. The same full-curved, compact
little figure, the same round face, the same cupid's bow mouth, the
same appealing, large eyes, the same haze of doll's hair. In a moment
she caught sight of Senor Johnson and took two steps toward him, then
stopped. The Senor at once came forward.

"You're Mr. Johnson, ain't you?" she inquired, thrusting her little
pointed chin forward, and so elevating her baby-blue eyes to his.

"Yes, ma'am," he acknowledged formally. Then, after a moment's pause:
"I hope you're well."

"Yes, thank you."

The station loungers, augmented by all the ranchmen and cowboys in
town, we