cribe
Pecos; its only reason for existence was the fact that it owned and
operated a smelter.

This second train was the shortest that Polly had ever seen. It consisted
of an engine, two coal cars, a baggage car, and one passenger coach--this
last very dirty as to floor and windows and very creaky as to joints.
There were on this occasion but four passengers beside Polly; the two fat
ladies, who were, if she had only known it, members of the first families
of Conejo; an old man who sat in a corner and read a German paper; and a
young Mexican, well dressed and of a gentlemanly appearance, who sat
across the narrow aisle from Polly, smoking innumerable cigarettes and
glancing at her whenever he thought she was not looking.

Polly, however, was too much interested in the changes of scenery to
notice anything as ordinary as a good-looking young man. The country was
changing, gradually, but still unmistakably changing, from a desert, flat
and stifling, to a region of small hills and valleys; still brownish
yellow, but with the monotony of mesquite varied by live oaks, and in some
cases by shallow little streams along whose banks grew cottonwoods, their
green foliage restful to the eye weary of desert bareness.

Many of the cacti were in their beautiful bloom and gave to the country
the needed dash of color. Occasionally one saw small herds of cattle
feeding off the short stubby vegetation. They were drawing near the
mountains, whose gauntness seemed less when approached.

"They're like ugly people--grow better looking as you get to know them,"
mused Polly. "Oh, my gracious, what's the matter now?" The puffing little
engine had given up trying to make the steep grade it had been
negotiating, and had stopped with one last desperate wheeze. No one seemed
surprised. The fat ladies went on talking and the old man continued to
read his paper. The trainmen were outside, doing something, Polly couldn't
make out what, perhaps only talking about doing something. "Oh, dear, I
wonder what has happened!"

In her excitement she must have said it aloud, for the young man across
the way sprang to his feet and was at her side instantly. A keen observer
might have drawn the conclusion that he had been waiting for some such
opportunity.

"I beg pardon, senorita, but it is that the engine cannot make the grade,"
he volunteered, politely, in English almost without an accent--or perhaps
I should say with an intonation English rather than Am