nd they were empty. Others were full of
ranchers' implements and sacks of grain and bales of hay. Florence
called these last alfalfa. The house itself appeared strong and well
preserved, and it was very picturesque. But in the living-rooms were
only the barest necessities, and these were worn out and comfortless.

However, when Madeline went outdoors she forgot the cheerless, bare
interior. Florence led the way out on a porch and waved a hand at a
vast, colored void. "That's what Bill likes," she said.

At first Madeline could not tell what was sky and what was land. The
immensity of the scene stunned her faculties of conception. She sat down
in one of the old rocking-chairs and looked and looked, and knew that
she was not grasping the reality of what stretched wondrously before
her.

"We're up at the edge of the foothills," Florence said. "You remember we
rode around the northern end of the mountain range? Well, that's behind
us now, and you look down across the line into Arizona and Mexico. That
long slope of gray is the head of the San Bernardino Valley. Straight
across you see the black Chiricahua Mountains, and away down to the
south the Guadalupe Mountains. That awful red gulf between is the
desert, and far, far beyond the dim, blue peaks are the Sierra Madres in
Mexico."

Madeline listened and gazed with straining eyes, and wondered if this
was only a stupendous mirage, and why it seemed so different from all
else that she had seen, and so endless, so baffling, so grand.

"It'll sure take you a little while to get used to being up high and
seeing so much," explained Florence. "That's the secret--we're up high,
the air is clear, and there's the whole bare world beneath us. Don't
it somehow rest you? Well, it will. Now see those specks in the valley.
They are stations, little towns. The railroad goes down that way. The
largest speck is Chiricahua. It's over forty miles by trail. Here round
to the north you can see Don Carlos's rancho. He's fifteen miles off,
and I sure wish he were a thousand. That little green square about
half-way between here and Don Carlos--that's Al's ranch. Just below us
are the adobe houses of the Mexicans. There's a church, too. And here to
the left you see Stillwell's corrals and bunk-houses and his stables all
falling to pieces. The ranch has gone to ruin. All the ranches are going
to ruin. But most of them are little one-horse affairs. And here--see
that cloud of dust down in the va