of Heart's Desire; nothing unless it were the royal purple of the
sunset, trailed like a robe across the shoulders of the grave unsmiling
hills, which guarded it round about. In Heart's Desire it was so calm,
so complete, so past and beyond all fret and worry and caring. Perhaps
the man who named it did so in grim jest, as was the manner of the
early bitter ones who swept across the Western lands. Perhaps again he
named it at sunset, and did so reverently. God knows he named it right.

There was no rush nor hurry, no bickering nor envying, no crowding nor
thieving there. Heart's Desire! It was well named, indeed; fit
capital for the malcontents who sought oblivion, dreaming, long as they
might, that Life can be left aside when one grows weary of it;
dreaming--ah! deep, foolish, golden dream--that somewhere there is on
earth an Eden with no Eve and without a flaming sword!

The town all lay along one deliberate, crooked street, because the
_arroyo_ along which it straggled was crooked. Its buildings were
mostly of adobe, with earthen roofs, so low that when one saw a
rainstorm coming in the rainy season (when it rained invariably once a
day), he went forth with a shovel and shingled his roof anew, standing
on the ground as he did so. There were a few cabins built of logs, but
very few. Only one or two stores had the high board front common in
Western villages. Lumber was very scarce and carpenters still scarcer.
How the family from Kansas had happened to drift into Heart's
Desire--how a man of McKinney's intelligence had come to settle
there--how Dan Anderson, a very good lawyer, happened to have tarried
there--how indeed any of us happened to be there, are questions which
may best be solved by those who have studied the West-bound, the
dream-bound, the malcontents. At any rate, here we were, and it was
Christmas-time. The very next morning would be that of Christmas Day.