he long, slow rise of sand from the
water's edge, rose five blunt heights like craters long extinct; while
above these, arching across the heavens in spotless sheen, curved the
turquoise dome of a southwestern midday sky, flooding the dust and dunes
below in throbbing heat-rays. It was God's own section of earth, and not
the least beautiful of its vistas, looming now steadily ahead on their
right, was the place belonging to Judge Richards. House and outhouses
white, and just now aglint in the white light of the sun, the whole
ranch presented the appearance of diamonds nestling in a bed of
emerald-green velvet. Turning off at this ranch, the Judge tossed the
reins to a waiting Mexican.

Helen was out of the phaeton like a flash. Carefully guiding the colt
around the house and across a _patio_, she turned him loose into a
spacious corral. Then she fell to watching him, and she continued to
watch him until a voice from the house, that of an aged Mexican woman
who presided over the kitchen, warned her that dinner was waiting.
Reluctantly hugging the colt--hugging him almost savagely in her sudden
affection for him--she then turned to leave, but not without a word of
explanation.

"I must leave you now, honey!" she said, much as a child would take
leave of her doll. "But I sha'n't be away from you long, and when I come
back I'll see what I can do about feeding you!"

The colt stood for a time, peering between the corral boards after her.
Then he set out upon a round of investigation. He moved slowly along the
inside of the fence, seeming to approve its whitewashed cleanliness,
until, turning in a corner, he stood before the stable door. Here he
paused a moment, gazing into the semi-gloom, then sprang up the one
step. Inside, he stood another moment, sweeping eyes down past the
stalls, and finally set out and made his way to the far end. In the
stall next the last stood a brown saddle-horse, and in the last stall
the matronly horse he had followed out from town. But he showed no
interest in these, bestowing upon each merely a passing glance. Then,
discovering that the flies bothered him here more than in the corral, he
walked back to the door and out into the sunlight again. In the corral
he took up his motionless stand in the corner nearest the house.

He did not stand thus for long. He soon revealed grave uneasiness. It
was due to a familiar gnawing inside. He knew the relief for this, and
promptly set out in search of