ised
settlement!

Who is she? Where has she come from? Whither is she conducting him?

To the last question he will soon have an answer; for as they advance
she now and then speaks words of encouragement, telling him they are
soon to reach a place of rest.

"Yonder!" she at length exclaims, pointing to two mound-shaped
elevations that rise twin-like above the level of the plain. "Between
those runs our road. Once there, we shall not have much farther to go;
the rancho will be in sight."

The young prairie merchant makes no reply. He only thinks how strange
it all is--the beautiful being by his side--her dash--her wonderful
knowledge exhibited with such an air of _naivete_--her generous
behaviour--the picturesqueness of her dress--her hunter equipment--the
great dogs trotting at her heels--the dead game on the croup behind--the
animal he bestrides--all are before his mind and mingling in his
thoughts like the unreal phantasmagoria of a dream.

And not any more like reality is the scene disclosed to his view when,
after passing around the nearest of the twin mound-shaped hills, and
entering a gate-like gorge that opens between them, he sees before him
and below--hundreds of feet below--a valley of elliptical form like a
vast basin scooped out of the plain. But for its oval shape he might
deem it the crater of some extinct volcano. But then, where is the lava
that should have been projected from it? With the exception of the two
hillocks on each hand, all the country around, far as the eye can reach,
is level as the bosom of a placid lake. And otherwise unlike a volcanic
crater is the concavity itself. No gloom down there, no black scoriae,
no returning streams of lava, nor _debris_ of pumice-stone; but, on the
contrary, a smiling vegetation--trees with foliage of different shades,
among which can be distinguished the dark-green frondage of the live-oak
and pecan, the more brilliant verdure of cottonwoods, and the
flower-loaded branches of the wild China-tree. In their midst a glassy
disc that speaks of standing water, with here and there a fleck of
white, which tells of a stream with foaming cascades and cataracts.
Near the lakelet, in the centre, a tiny column of blue smoke ascends
over the tree-tops. This indicates the presence of a dwelling; and as
they advance a little further into the gorge, the house itself can be
descried.

In contrast with the dreary plain over which he has been so long
toiling