e budded, bloomed, and fell. But above the race of his hot
thoughts the certainty persisted that this girl was the lady of the
beckoning hand.

He had no desire to escape from these fevered fancies in sleep, as his
companion had put down his homely ambitions. Long he lay awake turning
them to view from every hopeful, alluring angle, hearing the small
noises of the town's small activities die away to silence and peace.

In the morning he should ride to see her, his quest happily ended,
indeed, even on the threshold of its beginning.

CHAPTER VIII

THE HOUSE ON THE MESA

Even more bleak than from a distance the house on the mesa appeared as
the riders approached it up the winding road. It stood solitary on its
desert promontory, the bright sky behind it, not a shrub to ease its
lines, not a barn or shed to make a rude background for its amazing
proportions. Native grass grew sparsely on the great table where it
stood; rains had guttered the soil near its door. There was about it the
air of an abandoned place, its long, gaunt porches open to wind and
storm.

As they drew nearer the house the scene opened in a more domestic
appearance. Beyond it in a little cup of the mesa the stable, cattle
sheds, and quarters for the men were located, so hidden in their shelter
that they could not be seen from any point in the valley below. To the
world that never scaled these crumbling heights, Philbrook's mansion
appeared as if it endured independent of those vulgar appendages
indeed.

"Looks like they've got the barn where the house ought to be," said
Taterleg. "I'll bet the wind takes the hide off of a feller up here in
the wintertime."

"It's about as bleak a place for a house as a man could pick," Lambert
agreed. He checked his horse a moment to look round on the vast sweep of
country presented to view from the height, the river lying as bright as
quicksilver in the dun land.

"Not even a wire fence to break it!" Taterleg drew his shoulders up and
shivered in the hot morning sun as he contemplated the untrammeled
roadway of the northern winds. "Well, sir, it looks to me like a cyclone
carried that house from somewheres and slammed it down. No man in his
right senses ever built it there."

"People take queer freaks sometimes, even in their senses. I guess we
can ride right around to the door."

But for the wide, weathered porch they could have ridden up to it and
knocked on its panels from the saddle. Taterleg