n Anderson to himself, over and over again.
"I _must_ not go . . . But I'm going!"

CHAPTER XI

OPERA AT HEART'S DESIRE

_Telling how Two Innocent Travellers by mere Chance collided with a
Side-tracked Star_

Many miles of sand and silence lay between Heart's Desire and Sky Top,
by the winding trail over the high plateau and in among the foot-hills
of the Sacramentos. The silence was unbroken by any music from the
"heavenly maid," which lay disused beneath the wagon seat; nor did the
two occupants of Tom Osby's freight wagon often emerge from the
reticence habitual in a land where spaces were vast, men infrequent,
and mountains ever looking down. The team of gnarled gray horses kept
on their steady walk, hour after hour, and day after day; and bivouac
after bivouac lay behind them, marked by the rude heap of brush piled
up at night as an excuse for shelter against the wind or by the tiny
circle of ashes where had been a small but sufficient fire. At last
the line of the bivouacs ended, far up toward the crest of the heavily
timbered Sacramentos, after a weary climb through miles of mountain
canons.

"We'll stop at the lowest spring," said Tom Osby, who knew the country
of old. "That'll leave us a half mile or so from where they've built
their fool log hotel. It beats the dickens how these States folks,
that lives in cities, is always tryin' to imertate some other way of
livin'. Why didn't they build it out of boards? They've got a
saw-mill, blame 'em, and they're cuttin' off all the timber in these
mountings; but they got to have logs to build their house with. Folks
that builds real log houses, and not toys, does it because they ain't
got no boards. But these States folks always was singerler."

By this time Tom Osby was unhitching and feeding his team, and throwing
out the blanket rolls upon the ground. "Go easy on the 'Annie Laurie'
machine there," called out Dan Anderson, hearing a suspicious rattling
of brass against the wagon box. But his companion heeded him little,
casting the phonograph at the foot of a tree, where the great horn
swung wide, disconsolately.

"A imertation," said Tom, "is like I was just sayin'. It ain't the
real thing.

"Now look here, friend," he went on a moment later, "you've got to do
like you said you would. Of course, I know melons don't grow up here
in the pine mountains, even if they was ripe yet; but you said you was
comin' along to see fair play, and you