t him to "gentling" a beautiful little
sorrel. A sidesaddle had arrived from El Paso. It was "centre fire,"
which is to say it had but the single horsehair cinch, broad,
tasselled, very genteel in its suggestion of pleasure use only. Brent
could be seen at all times of day, cantering here and there on the
sorrel, a blanket tied around his waist to simulate the long riding
skirt. He carried also a sulky and evil gleam in his eye, warning
against undue levity.

Jed Parker watched these various proceedings sardonically.

Once, the baby light of innocence blue in his eye, he inquired if he
would be required to dress for dinner.

"If so," he went on, "I'll have my man brush up my low-necked clothes."

But Senor Johnson refused to be baited.

"Go on, Jed," said he; "you know you ain't got clothes enough to dust a
fiddle."

The Senor was happy these days. He showed it by an unwonted joviality
of spirit, by a slight but evident unbending of his Spanish dignity.
No longer did the splendour of the desert fill him with a vague
yearning and uneasiness. He looked upon it confidently, noting its
various phases with care, rejoicing in each new development of colour
and light, of form and illusion, storing them away in his memory so
that their recurrence should find him prepared to recognise and explain
them. For soon he would have someone by his side with whom to
appreciate them. In that sharing he could see the reason for them, the
reason for their strange bitter-sweet effects on the human soul.

One evening he leaned on the corral fence, looking toward the Dragoons.
The sun had set behind them. Gigantic they loomed against the western
light. From their summits, like an aureola, radiated the splendour of
the dust-moted air, this evening a deep umber. A faint reflection of
it fell across the desert, glorifying the reaches of its nothingness.

"I'll take her out on an evening like this," quoth Senor Johnson to
himself, "and I'll make her keep her eyes on the ground till we get
right up by Running Bear Knob, and then I'll let her look up all to
once. And she'll surely enjoy this life. I bet she never saw a steer
roped in her life. She can ride with me every day out over the range
and I'll show her the busting and the branding and that band of
antelope over by the Tall Windmill. I'll teach her to shoot, too. And
we can make little pack trips off in the hills when she gets too
hot--up there by Deerskin Meadows 'mo