The teamsters viewed the unfolding expanse
phlegmatically. They called it the Red Basin. But to me, fresh for the
sight, it beckoned with fantastic issues. Even the name breathed magic.
Wizard spells hovered there; the railroad had not broken them--the cars
and locomotives, entering, did not disturb the brooding vastness. A man
might still ride errant into those slumberous spaces and discover for
himself; might boldly awaken the realm and rule with a princess by his
side.

But romance seemed to have no other sponsor in this plodding,
whip-cracking, complaining caravan. So I lacked, woefully lacked, kindred
companionship.

Free to say, I did miss My Lady, perched upon the stoic mule while like
an Arab chief I convoyed her. The steady miles, I admitted, were going to
be as disappointing as tepid water, when not aerated by her counsel and
piquant allusions, by her sprightly readiness and the essential elements
of her blue eyes, her facile lips, and that bright hair which no dust
could dim.

After all she was distinctly feminine--bravely feminine; and if she wished
to flirt as a relief from the cock-sure Daniel and the calm methods of her
Mormon guardians, why, let us beguile the way. I should second with eyes
open. That was accepted.

Moreover, something about her weighed upon me. A consciousness of failing
her, a woman, in emergency, stung my self-respect. She had twitted me with
being "afraid"; afraid of her, she probably meant. That I could pass
warily. But she had said that she, too, was afraid: "horribly afraid," and
an honest shudder had attended upon the words as if a real danger hedged.
She had an intuition. The settled convictions of my Gentile friends
coincided. "With Daniel in the Lion's den"--that phrase repeated itself
persistent. She had uttered it in a fear accentuated by a mirthless laugh.
Could such a left-handed wooer prove too much for her? Well, if she was
afraid of Daniel I was not and she should not think so.

I could see her now and then, on before. She rode upon the wagon seat of
her self-appointed executor. And I might see him and his paraded
impertinences.

Except for the blowing of the animals and the mechanical noises of the
equipment the train subsided into a dogged patience, while parched by the
dust and the thin dry air and mocked by the speeding construction crews
upon the iron rails it lurched westward at two and a half miles an hour,
for long hours outfaced by the blinding sun.

N