canons, flinty peaks and ridges, and dropped down into a long crooked
valley floored with dry sand ankle deep and grown over with a gray
shrub plainly akin to California sage brush. Here was some scant
evidence of animal life, a dusty jack rabbit, a circling buzzard, a
thin spotted snake, a wild pony with up-flung head staring at them from
the further ridge, gone whisking away as they drew on. And they came
to trees whose shade was grateful, oaks and, later, a few dusty
straggling pinons. Wisps of dry grass, an occasional patch of
flowering weeds or taller plants, a flock of bewildered-looking birds
that had the appearance of having strayed hitherward by mistake. No
water, no sign of water; no man-owned herds, no sign of man. The open
valley under the high, hot sun was a drearier place than the mountain
slopes.

Then came the up-hill climb as they passed out of the western edge of
the sandy flats, a steep spur of the Cordillera, a region silent and
saturnine and unthinkably hot. Three times, though they guarded
against profligacy with their water, they unstoppered their canteens
and rested in the shade on the way up. At last they came to the crest
of the barrier of the blistering hills, having been on foot for a full
five hours. And now, for the first time, looking forward, down the
steep slopes and across the miles, they saw the Valley of Las Flores,
the place of flowers. At first it was hard for them to believe that
their eyes, which the desert lands befool so often and so readily, had
not tricked them. It was as though in a twinkling the world had
changed about them.

The long wide valley below was one sweep of green: fresh, colorful,
cool green. Across it wandered many cows and horses and donkeys,
browsing where the herbiage was lushest, dozing in the shade of the
wide-spread oaks, standing indolent in the golden sunshine. A bright
stream of water cut the emerald sward in two, coming from the bordering
mountains at one end, gone flashing into the mountain-guarded pass at
the other. From a distance Kendric heard a bird singing away like mad
and saw the sweep and flutter of a butterfly's wing.

"The earthly paradise!" he cried admiringly.

But already Barlow's fixed eyes were upon the mountainous country
across the valley.

"Come on," he said, slipping his pack-straps over his shoulders and
swinging up his rifle. "It would be three to five miles, easy going,
and we're there! There are our three p