urged him to get
out of the town and into the mountains, but he hated to go alone and
lacked the initiative to start. He had a friend in the capital named
Curtis, who was half Mexican and half Irish. This young man was a dealer
in mules and horses, and he had a herd of some twenty head to take across
the mountains about sixty miles. Badly in need of a helper and unable to
hire one, he asked Ramon to go with him. The proposition was accepted with
relief but without enthusiasm.

Trouble started immediately. The horses were only half broken, and the one
they chose for a pack animal rebelled ten miles from town and bucked the
pack off, scattering tin dishes, sides of bacon, loaves of bread and cans
of condensed milk all over a quarter of a mile of rough country. They
rounded up the recalcitrant in a pouring rain, and made a wet and
miserable camp, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion in sodden blankets. The
next morning the pack horse opened the exercises by rolling down a steep
bank into the creek, plastering himself on the way from head to tail with
a half gallon of high grade sorghum syrup which had been on top of the
load. At this Ramon's tortured nerves exploded and he jumped into the
water after the floundering animal, belabouring it with a quirt, and
cursing it richly in two languages.

He then put a slip noose around its upper lip and led it unmercifully,
while Curtis encouraged it from behind with a rope-end. Like all Mexicans,
they had little sympathy for horseflesh.

These labours and hardships were Ramon's salvation. The exercise and air
restored his health and in fighting the difficulties of unlucky travel he
relieved in some degree the rage against life that embittered him.

When he got back to his room in the hotel he felt measurably at peace,
though weary in mind and body. He came across Julia's letter, and the
sight and scent of it struck him a sharp painful blow, but he did not
pause now to savour his pain; he tore the letter into small pieces and
threw it away. Then he got out his car and started for home.

He went back beaten over the same road that he had followed in the moment
of his highest hope, when life had seemed about to keep all the wonderful
promises it whispers in the ear of youth. But strangely this trip was not
the sad and sentimental affair it should have been. His rugged health had
largely recovered from the shock of disappointment and dissipation, an
excellent breakfast was digesting with