owman in this country. I'd make them
prosper as I prospered myself. I'd buy all the good horses on the
ranges. I'd fence twenty thousand acres of the best grazin'. I'd drill
fer water in the valley. I'd pipe water down from the mountains. I'd dam
up that draw out there. A mile-long dam from hill to hill would give me
a big lake, an' hevin' an eye fer beauty, I'd plant cottonwoods around
it. I'd fill that lake full of fish. I'd put in the biggest field of
alfalfa in the South-west. I'd plant fruit-trees an' garden. I'd tear
down them old corrals an' barns an' bunk-houses to build new ones. I'd
make this old rancho some comfortable an' fine. I'd put in grass an'
flowers all around an' bring young pine-trees down from the mountains.
An' when all thet was done I'd sit in my chair an' smoke an' watch the
cattle stringin' in fer water an' stragglin' back into the valley. An'
I see the cowboys ridin' easy an' heah them singin' in their bunks. An'
thet red sun out there wouldn't set on a happier man in the world than
Bill Stillwell, last of the old cattlemen."

Madeline thanked the rancher, and then rather abruptly retired to her
room, where she felt no restraint to hide the force of that wonderful
idea, now full-grown and tenacious and alluring.

Upon the next day, late in the afternoon, she asked Alfred if it would
be safe for her to ride out to the mesa.

"I'll go with you," he said, gaily.

"Dear fellow, I want to go alone," she replied.

"Ah!" Alfred exclaimed, suddenly serious. He gave her just a quick
glance, then turned away. "Go ahead. I think it's safe. I'll make it
safe by sitting here with my glass and keeping an eye on you. Be careful
coming down the trail. Let the horse pick his way. That's all."

She rode Majesty across the wide flat, up the zigzag trail, across the
beautiful grassy level to the far rim of the mesa, and not till then did
she lift her eyes to face the southwest.

Madeline looked from the gray valley at her feet to the blue Sierra
Madres, gold-tipped in the setting sun. Her vision embraced in that
glance distance and depth and glory hitherto unrevealed to her. The gray
valley sloped and widened to the black sentinel Chiricahuas, and beyond
was lost in a vast corrugated sweep of earth, reddening down to the
west, where a golden blaze lifted the dark, rugged mountains into bold
relief. The scene had infinite beauty. But after Madeline's first swift,
all-embracing flash of enraptured eyes, thou