aken
belief. From San Benito, under the shadow of abrupt mountains, over to
San Quentin where ragged chaparral grew as it might on the blood-red
hills, and where cottonwoods and willows throve rank on the moisture of
hidden streams, he had pitched his tent for the night and had folded it
in the morning. What mattered it to him that the scattered ranchers
looked approvingly upon his fair-haired wife, and, moved with pity for
her, cursed him as a heartless idiot; or that uncouth vaqueros shrugged
their shoulders and softly named him a locoed gringo?

The few dollars which he had brought with him from the East, had long
since been spent in his wanderings. The goodly sum which had come to him
on the death of his father, was no longer what it had been; yet he had
no thought of despair. The limit of his wanderings was narrowing in
concentric circles, and at length its centre was fixed. With almost his
last dollar, he had bought a wide ranch from a dreamy Mexican who had
then gone his way. Already the land around his was heaving and swelling
in undulating rolls that warn the mariner of a coming storm. Bearded
ranchers laughed in scorn, and mild-eyed Mexicans spoke even more
softly. What were a few seeping springs on the hillsides? What were the
hillsides themselves beside the rolling plains at their feet, where
herds of cattle fed and drank and mired themselves in green-fringed
cienagas? Elijah was disturbed no more than was Noah when he closed the
doors of his ark against the gibes of the unbelievers. His mission was
being disclosed, point by point and line by line, to his waiting eye.

Elijah deepened his springs and hoarded the water they gave. Between
rows of dark-green leaves, shrubs that faded not in summer's drouth nor
in winter's rains, he guided trickling streams, apportioning to each its
proper share. Through the day he toiled with increasing energy. Towards
each night, with Amy by his side, he rested by the door of his cottage
and looked below, over reddening hills, across the rolling plains,
beyond where the half-buried disc of the sun spread wide the golden
mantle of its light upon the wrinkling waters of the Pacific. Behind the
cottage, from the rock-strewn wash of the Rio Sangre de Cristo, the
lowest foot-hills rose to wooded slopes, grew to timbered mountains, up
and up till the forests gave way to the snow-capped peaks of the San
Bernardinos. "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills whence cometh my
help." In