for a passive soul. I parted swiftly from the hammock and made over the
sun-scorched turf for the ranch house. There was shelter and surcease;
doors and windows might be closed. The unctuous whine of Jimmie Time
pursued me:

Each ow-wur a pur-rull, each pur-rull a prayer,
(Thud, thud!)
Tuh stu-hill a heart in absence wru-hung,
(Thud, thud!)

As I reached the hospitable door of the living-room I observed Lew Wee,
Chinese chef of the Arrowhead, engaged in cranking one of those devices
with a musical intention which I have somewhere seen advertised. It is
an important-looking device in a polished mahogany case, and I recall in
the advertisement I saw it was surrounded by a numerous
enthralled-looking family in a costly drawing-room, while the ghost of
Beethoven simpered above it in ineffable benignancy. Something now told
me the worst, even as Lew Wee adjusted the needle to the revolving disk.
I waited for no more than the opening orchestral strains. It is a
leisurely rhythmed cacophony, and I had time to be almost beyond range
ere the voice took up a tale I was hearing too often in one day. Even so
I distantly perceived it to be a fruity contralto voice with an expert
sob.

A hundred yards in front of the ranch house all was holy peace, peace in
the stilled air, peace dreaming along the neighbouring hills and lying
like a benediction over the wide river-flat below me, through which the
stream wove a shining course. I exulted in it, from the dangers passed.
Then appeared Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill from the fringe of
cottonwoods, jolting a tired horse toward me over the flat.