ou live? What do you do?"

"Well, now, I hadn't ever thought of that. But now you mention it, I
can't say I really know. The fellers all seem to get along, somehow."

"But yourself?"

"Me? I drive a freight wagon between Las Vegas and Heart's Desire.
There is stores, you know, at Heart's Desire, and a saloon. We held a
co'te there, onct. You see, along of cattle wars and killings, for a
good many years back, folks has been kind of shy of that part of the
country. Most of the men easy scared, they went back home to the
States. Some stayed. And it's--why, I can't rightly explain it to
you, ma'am--but it's--it's Heart's Desire."

The face of the woman before him softened. "It's a beautiful name,"
said she. "Heart's Desire!" She said it over and over again,
wistfully. The cadence of her tone was the measure of an irrevocable
loss. "Heart's Desire!" she whispered--"I wonder--

"Tell me," she cried at length, arising and pacing restlessly, "what do
you do at Heart's Desire?"

"Nothing," said Tom Osby. "I just told you, I reckon."

"Do you have any amusements? Are there ever any entertainments?"

"Why, law! no, ma'am!"

She threw back her head and laughed. There rose before her the picture
of a primitive world, whose swift appeal clutched at her heart,
saturated and sated with unreal things grown banal.

"Besides," went on Tom Osby, "if we had an op'ry house, it wouldn't do
no good. Why--I don't want to be imperlite, but I've heard that op'ry
singers cost as high as ten dollars a night, or maybe more. We
couldn't afford it. Onct we had a singin'-school teacher. Fellow by
the name of Dawes come in there from Kansas, and he taught music. He
used to sing a song called the 'Sword of Bunker Hill.' Used to have a
daughter, and she sung, too. Her favoright song was 'Rosalie, the
Prairie Flower.' They made quite a lot of money holdin'
singin'-school. The gal, she got married and moved to Tularosa, and
that broke up the singin'-school. There ain't been any kind of show at
Heart's Desire for five years. But say, ma'am," he interrupted, "about
that feller that had hold of you when I come in. Did he hurt you any?"

"That's our leading tenor, Signer Peruchini! He's a great artist."
She laughed, a ripple of soft, delicious laughter. "No, don't bother
him. We'll need him out on the Coast. Don't you know, we are just
here in the mountains for a little while."

"Don't you like these mountings, ma'