d giving
forth but an indolent glitter as it flowed past the town. The day was
hot and it was the hour of the siesta, therefore everything
slept--everything, man, beast and fowl, from Menocal, who was snoring
in his hammock on the vine-clad veranda of his big stuccoed house just
beyond the store at the head of the street, to the goats at the foot
of it by the silent saloon.

Bryant, descending from the mesa into the river bottom and riding into
the street, had he not known otherwise, might have supposed the
population vanished in a body. But he was aware that it only slept;
and he had no consideration for a siesta that retarded his affairs. He
dismounted before the courthouse and entered the building, whose
corridor and chambers appeared as silent, as lifeless, as forsaken as
the street itself. Coming into the Recorder's office, he halted for a
look about, then pushed through the wicket of the counter and stepped
into an inner room, where he stirred by a thumb in the ribs a thin,
dusky-skinned youth reclining in a swivel chair with feet in repose on
a window-sill, who slept with head fallen back, arms hanging, and
mouth open.

"Come, _amigo_, your dinner's settled by this time," the engineer
stated. "Grab a pen and record this deed."

The clerk sleepily shifted his feet into a more comfortable position.

"We're behind in our work," said he. "Just leave your deed, and the
fee, and we'll get around to it in a few days."

"So you're too busy now, eh?"

"Yes. We've had a good many papers to record this month."

"Where's the Recorder?"

"Not back from dinner yet," was the answer.

The speaker once again prepared to rest. From the outer office the
slow ticking of a clock sounded with lulling effect, while the grassy
yard beyond the window, shaded by the boughs of the cottonwoods,
diffused peace and drowsiness. The clerk closed his eyes.

"Just leave the deed and fee on the desk here," he murmured.

"And tip-toe out, too, I suppose."

"If you feel like it," the young Mexican remarked, with a faint
insolence in his voice, the insolence of a subordinate who believes
himself protected by his place.

Bryant's hand shot swiftly out to the speaker's shoulder. With a snap
that brought him up standing the clerk was jerked from his seat, and
before his startled wits gathered what was happening he was propelled
into the outer office.

"Record this deed, you forty-dollar-a-month penpusher, before I grow
peevish and rea