umbling,
cracking off into the pool if the hand hung or the foot weighed on them.
No safe way went to the water but at this lower side, where the riven,
tumbled white blocks shelved easily to the bottom; and Luis and Lolita
looked down these natural stairs at the portent in the well. In that
white formation shot up from the earth's bowels, arbitrary and
irrelevant amid the surrounding alien layers of slate, four black stones
were lodged as if built into the wall by some hand--four small stones
shaping a cross, back against the white, symmetrical and plain.

"It has come farther--more uncovered since yesterday," Lolita whispered.

"Can the Tinaja sink altogether?" repeated Luis. The arms of the cross
were a measurable space above the water-line, and he had always seen it
entirely submerged.

"How could it sink?" said Lolita, simply. "It will stop when the black
stones are wholly dry."

"You believe Father Rafael," Luis said, always in a low voice; "but it
was only Indians, after all, who told the mission fathers at the first."

"That was very long ago," said she, "and there has always been water in
the Tinaja Bonita."

Boy and girl had set the jar down, and forgotten it and why they had
come. Luis looked uneasily at the circular pool, and up from this
creviced middle of the canon to the small high tops of the mountains
rising in the free sky.

"This is an evil place," he said. "As for the water--no one, no three,
can live long enough to be sure."

But it was part of Lolita's religion. "I am sure," said she.

The young Mexican's eyes rested on the face of the girl beside him, more
beautiful just then with some wave of secret fear and faith.

"Come away with me, Lolita!" he pleaded, suddenly. "I can work. I can be
a man. It is fearful for you to live here alone."

"Alone, Luis?" His voice had called her from her reverie back to her
gay, alert self. "Do you consider Uncle Ramon nobody to live with?"

"Yes. Nobody--for you."

"Promise me never to tell that to uncle. He is so considerate that he
might make me marry somebody for company. And then, you know, my husband
would be certain to be stupid about your coming to see me, querido."

"Why do you always mock me, Lolita?"

"Mock you? What a fancy! Oh, see how the sun's going! If we do not get
our water, your terrible Tinaja will go dry before supper. Come, Luis, I
carried the olla. Must I do everything?"

He looked at her disconsolate. "Ah!" he vibrated, re