eals on a treeless "forty" just
beyond the limits of Aguilar. It was like herself in having nothing
about it calculated to win the eye.

Jane, with her rugged, middle-aged face, baggy blouse, hob-nailed shoes
and man's hat, was so unfeminine a figure as she plowed and planted her
little vega, that some village wag had once referred to her as "Annie
Laurie." Because of its happy absurdity the name long clung to Jane;
but despite such small jests every one respected her sterling
traits,--every one, that is, except Senora Vigil, who lived hard by in
a mud house like a bird's nest, and who cherished a grudge against her
neighbor.

For, years before, when Jane's "forty" was measured off by the
surveyor, it had been developed that the Vigil homestead was out of
bounds, and that a small strip of its back yard belonged in the Combs
tract. Jane would have waived her right, but the surveyor said that the
land office could not "muddle up" the records in any such way; she must
take her land. And Jane had taken it, knowing, however, that thereafter
even the youngest Vigil, aged about ten months, would regard her as an
enemy.

Just now, too, as Alejandro Vigil, a ragged lad with a scarlet cap on
his black head, went by, driving his goats to pasture, he had said
"rogue!" under his breath. Jane sighed at the word, and her eyes
followed him sadly up the road, little thinking her glance was to take
in something which should print itself forever in her memory, and make
this day different from all other days.

In the clear sun everything was sharply defined. From the Mexican end
of town,--the old "plaza,"--which antedated coal-mines and
Americanisms, gleamed the little gold cross of the adobe Church of San
Antonio. Around it were green, tall cottonwoods and the straggling
mud-houses and pungent goat-corrals of its people. Toward the canyon
rose the tipple and fans of the Dauntless colliery, banked in slack and
slate, and surrounded by paintless mine-houses, while to the right
swept the ugly shape of the company's store. The mine end of the town
was not pretty, nor was it quiet, like the plaza. Just at present the
whistle was blowing, and throngs of miners were gathering at the mouth
of the slope. From above clamored the first "trip" of cars. Day and its
work had begun.

Alejandro's red cap was a mere speck in the canyon, and his herd was
sprinkled, like bread-crumbs, over the slaty hills. But over in the
Vigil yard the numberless ot