nspecting the pigs,
shooing the chickens to their coop, and finally making a short
pilgrimage to where Gentle Annie was grazing. After he had saddled
"Pill," he returned to the house and reappeared with a piece of
wrapping-paper on which he had printed:--

Help yourself to grub--but no fighting on thees premisus.

SUNDOWN, Propriter.

"It's all right trustin' folks," he remarked as he gazed proudly at the
sign and still more proudly at the signature. "And I sure hate to put
up anything that looks kind of religious, but these days I don't trust
nobody but meself, and I sure have a hard time doin' that, knowin' how
crooked I could be if I tried."

He gathered up the reins and mounted Pill. "Come on, Chance!" he
called. "We don't need any rooster-police to-day. Jimmy's in there
talkin' to his hens, and like as not cussin' because I shet him up.
And he sure ought to be glad he ain't goin' on crutches."

He rode out to the mesa and, turning from the trail, took as direct a
course as he could approximate for the home of Chico Miguel, and
incidentally Anita. His mission would have been obvious to an utter
stranger. He shone and glistened from head to heel--his face with the
inner light of anticipation and his boots with the effulgence of
hastily applied stove-polish.

He rode slowly, for he wished to collect himself, that his errand might
have all the grace of a chance visit and yet not lack the most
essential significance. He did not stop to reason that Anita's father
and mother were anything but blind.

The day was exceptionally hot. The sun burned steadily on the ripening
bunch-grass. His pony's feet swept aside bright flowers that tilted
their faces eagerly like the faces of questioning children. He glanced
at his watch. "Got to move along, Pill. Reckon we'll risk havin'
somethin' to say when we get there--and not cook her up goin' along.
It sure is hot. Huh! That there butte over there looks jest like a
city athletic club with muscles all on its front of fellas wrastlin'
and throwin' things at themselves. Wisht I had a big lookin'-glass so
I could see meself comin'. Gee Gosh, but she's hot!"

He put the horse to a lope, and with the subdued rhythm of the pony's
feet came Euterpe with a song. Recitation of verse at a lope is apt to
be punctuated according to the physical contour of the ground:--

"In the Pull--man _car_ with turnin' _fans_,
The desert _looks_ like a lovely p--_lace_.