clock these days."

"See you in the mornin'," said Lorry, giving his hand. "Good-night,
dad."

"Good-night, boy."

CHAPTER XXXV

_The High Trail_

Black-edged against the silvery light of early dawn the rim of the world
lay dotted with far buttes and faint ranges fading into the spaces of
the north and south. The light deepened and spread to a great crimson
pool, tideless round the bases of magic citadels and mighty towers.
Golden minarets thrust their slender, fiery shafts athwart the wide
pathway of the ascending sun. The ruddy glow palpitated like a live
ember naked to the wind. The nearer buttes grew boldly beautiful. Slowly
their molten outlines hardened to rigid bronze. Like ancient castles of
some forgotten land, isolated in the vast mesa, empty of life, they
seemed to await the coming of a host that would reshape their fallen
arches and their wind-worn towers to old-time splendor, and perfect
their imageries.

But the marching sun knew no such sentiment. Pitilessly he pierced their
enchanted walls, discovering their pretense, burning away their shadowy
glory, baring them for what they were--masses of jumbled rock and
splintered spires; rain-gutted wraiths of clay, volcanic rock, the
tumbled malpais and the tufa of the land.

Black shadows shifted. That which had been the high-arched entrance to
a mighty fortress was now a shallow hollow in a hill. Here and there on
the western slope of the mounds cattle grazed in the chill morning air.
Enchantments of the dawn reshaped themselves to local landmarks.

From his window Lorry could discern the distant peak of Mount Baldy
glimmering above the purple sea of forest. Not far below the peak lay
the viewless level of the Blue Mesa. The trail ran just below that patch
of quaking asp.

The hills had never seemed so beautiful, nor had the still mesas,
carpeted with the brown stubble of the close-cropped bunch-grass.

Arizona was his country--his home. And yet he had heard folk say that
Arizona was a desert, But then such folk had been interested chiefly in
guide-posts of the highways or the Overland dining-car menu.

And he had been offered a fair holding in this land--twenty thousand
acres under fence on a long-term lease; a half-interest in the cattle
and their increase. He would be his own man, with a voice in the
management and sale of the stock. A year or two and he could afford to
marry--if Dorothy would have him. He thought she would. And to k