oice held no evidence of rancor. "Tell me something
quick, before he reaches us. Tell me true, and I'll be good friends,
honest, I will."

"You know I'll tell you anything I can."

"Then--then--is she--that woman in Colina--pretty? As pretty as I am?"

He smiled bitterly. "No one's as pretty as you, Pearl. No, she ain't
pretty."

"Well, what does she look like?" impatiently.

"Nothing much. Why, I don't know, just looks like most every other woman
you see."

"Oh, Bob, quick! Is she little or big? Is she kind of saucy and quick,
or is she quiet and slow? Quick, now, Hughie's almost here."

"Why--why," he rubbed his hand across his brow, "she's kind of--kind of
motherly."

Pearl threw back her head and laughed, then she took a few dancing steps
up and down the road.

"It's Pearl and Bob," called Hughie. "I knew it a while back when I
stopped to listen, and then I heard a bird note down yonder," with a
wave of his hand toward the direction in which he had come, "and I
wanted to hear it closer, so I didn't wait for you. I can always tell
you two by the sound of your footsteps. Pearl walks in better rhythm
than you do, Bob."

"Of course. What do you expect?" It was Flick who spoke. "What are you
doing so far away from home, anyway, Hughie?"

The boy's wistful, delicate face clouded. "I had to go somewhere," he
said. "That Hanson has been there all morning, and mother has been
sitting with her head so close to his, talking, talking."

Pearl laughed a single note, like her father's. "Poor Rudolf!" she
muttered, "the men are all jealous of him, even Hugh."

Fortunately, the boy did not hear her, although Bob Flick did, as she
intended he should.

"I do love mother," Hugh added plaintively, "but I can't love the people
she mostly likes, so I came as far away as I could, and here," his face
was irradiated in one of its quick changes, "I've been walking up and
down and hearing and seeing things; listening to the quail and the
doves; and a while ago there was a humming-bird; and did you ever smell
the desert as sweet as it is this morning?" He lifted his head and
sniffed ecstatically. "I've been turning the whole morning into music.
It's all gold and green and gay with little silver trumpets through it,
and now and again the moan of the doves. I'm going to work it out as
soon as we get home. That is," he shrugged his shoulders impatiently,
"if that Hanson has gone. He stops all the music and the color." This
was