f what it might be like. For the first time she
fully understood the cryptic explanation that Mrs. Tellamantez had made
to Dr. Archie, long ago. There were the same shells along the walk; she
believed she could pick out the very one. There was the same moon up
yonder, and panting at her elbow was the same Johnny--fooled by the same
old things!

When they had finished, Famos, the barytone, murmured something to
Johnny; who replied, "Sure we can sing 'Trovatore.' We have no alto, but
all the girls can sing alto and make some noise."

The women laughed. Mexican women of the poorer class do not sing like
the men. Perhaps they are too indolent. In the evening, when the men are
singing their throats dry on the doorstep, or around the camp-fire
beside the work-train, the women usually sit and comb their hair.

While Johnny was gesticulating and telling everybody what to sing and
how to sing it, Thea put out her foot and touched the corpse of Silvo
with the toe of her slipper. "Aren't you going to sing, Silvo?" she
asked teasingly.

The boy turned on his side and raised himself on his elbow for a moment.
"Not this night, SENORITA," he pleaded softly, "not this night!" He
dropped back again, and lay with his cheek on his right arm, the hand
lying passive on the sand above his head.

"How does he flatten himself into the ground like that?" Thea asked
herself. "I wish I knew. It's very effective, somehow."

Across the gulch the Kohlers' little house slept among its trees, a dark
spot on the white face of the desert. The windows of their upstairs
bedroom were open, and Paulina had listened to the dance music for a
long while before she drowsed off. She was a light sleeper, and when she
woke again, after midnight, Johnny's concert was at its height. She lay
still until she could bear it no longer. Then she wakened Fritz and they
went over to the window and leaned out. They could hear clearly there.

"DIE THEA," whispered Mrs. Kohler; "it must be. ACH, WUNDERSCHON!"

Fritz was not so wide awake as his wife. He grunted and scratched on the
floor with his bare foot. They were listening to a Mexican part-song;
the tenor, then the soprano, then both together; the barytone joins
them, rages, is extinguished; the tenor expires in sobs, and the soprano
finishes alone. When the soprano's last note died away, Fritz nodded to
his wife. "JA," he said; "SCHON."

There was silence for a few moments. Then the guitar sounded fiercely,
and