with absolute fidelity, you
are certain. No, I hear nothing in the Mission garden. I see nothing,
nothing touches me, but I am CERTAIN for all that."

Presley hesitated for a moment, then he asked:

"Shall you go back to the garden again? Make the test again?" "I don't
know."

"Strange enough," commented Presley, wondering.

Vanamee sank back in his chair, his eyes growing vacant again:

"Strange enough," he murmured.

There was a long silence. Neither spoke nor moved. There, in that
moribund, ancient town, wrapped in its siesta, flagellated with heat,
deserted, ignored, baking in a noon-day silence, these two strange men,
the one a poet by nature, the other by training, both out of tune with
their world, dreamers, introspective, morbid, lost and unfamiliar at
that end-of-the-century time, searching for a sign, groping and baffled
amidst the perplexing obscurity of the Delusion, sat over empty wine
glasses, silent with the pervading silence that surrounded them, hearing
only the cooing of doves and the drone of bees, the quiet so profound,
that at length they could plainly distinguish at intervals the puffing
and coughing of a locomotive switching cars in the station yard of
Bonneville.

It was, no doubt, this jarring sound that at length roused Presley from
his lethargy. The two friends rose; Solotari very sleepily came forward;
they paid for the luncheon, and stepping out into the heat and glare of
the streets of the town, passed on through it and took the road that led
northward across a corner of Dyke's hop fields. They were bound for the
hills in the northeastern corner of Quien Sabe. It was the same walk
which Presley had taken on the previous occasion when he had first met
Vanamee herding the sheep. This encompassing detour around the whole
country-side was a favorite pastime of his and he was anxious that
Vanamee should share his pleasure in it.

But soon after leaving Guadalajara, they found themselves upon the land
that Dyke had bought and upon which he was to raise his famous crop of
hops. Dyke's house was close at hand, a very pleasant little cottage,
painted white, with green blinds and deep porches, while near it and yet
in process of construction, were two great storehouses and a drying and
curing house, where the hops were to be stored and treated. All about
were evidences that the former engineer had already been hard at
work. The ground had been put in readiness to receive the crop and a
bew