. I don't know, Elijah; I am
afraid." She buried her head on his shoulder. "I am afraid I shall not
always be everything to you. I am so happy with you now. If I should
ever be less happy, it would kill me."

"Nonsense. Don't make pictures to get scared at." He drew his watch from
his pocket. "I must go now. You know I promised to see Ralph at Ysleta
this morning. Goodbye, and don't scare yourself any more."

Elijah began to unclasp her arms. They were reluctant rather than
resisting. He kissed her with a show of affection which was not absent,
only obscured by other things; then he saddled his horse and rode away.

Amy stood watching him with hard, dry eyes; with the unconscious
superstition of the maiden who with trembling fingers plucks one by one
the petals from a prophetic flower. "He loves me, he loves me not." She
stood watching for a motion, a gesture which should assure her that her
husband's thoughts were of her, even as hers were of him, making herself
the wretched plaything of senseless Fate, instead of resting tranquil in
the surety that she was its master.

Elijah was absorbed in himself. He grew but a speck on the trail to
Amy's watching eyes. There was not a motion which she could distort into
a recognition of her existence. The last petal had fallen. "He loves me
not."

CHAPTER THREE

Ysleta was booming and was being boomed. Avenues of graded sand, cleared
of their desert growth, stretched in prim right angles far out into the
horizon. White posts with staring, black numerals heralded city lots and
bounded patches of cactus and chaparral which were thus protected from
further molestation, and gave asylum to gophers and prairie dogs who had
not lost their wits in the booming hubbub for the sole reason that
nature had given them none to lose. Straining teams dragged great
ploughs that tore through matted roots and turned furrows which slid
back behind the parting share. Other sweating horses pulled scrapers of
sand from dusty hummocks and plumped their loads in dustier hollows.
Rows of bedraggled palms trailed out behind gangs of burrowing men or
gathered in quincunx clumps where a glaring signboard proclaimed a city
park. Thumping hammers and clinking trowels were raising uncouth
buildings around the central plaza, adding other grotesque monstrosities
to those which had already attained perfection in every detail that
rebelled against a sense of beauty. Throngs of men and women trailed
ank