sun-smitten desert. Only in the south was the unbroken flatness
relieved by a low-lying ridge of barren brown hills, their sides cut
as by erosion into steep, stratified cliffs. Even these bleak hills
looked to be twenty miles away, and were in reality fifty. Beyond
them, softened and blurred by the distance, was a blue-gray line where
the mountains were.

"Of all the wretched holes in the world!" fumed Hapgood.

But Conniston didn't hear him. The girl had stepped down from the
train, and, without casting a glance behind her, walked swiftly across
the wriggling thing which stood for a street in Indian Creek. There
was a saloon with a long hitching-pole in front of it, to which a
couple of saddle-horses were tied, and a buckboard with two fretting
two-year-olds in dust-covered harness. A man, a swarthy half-breed,
with hair and eyes and long, pointed mustaches of inky blackness, was
on the seat, handling the jerking reins. He called a soft "_Adios,
compadre_" to the man lounging in the doorway, and swung his colts out
into the road, making a sweeping half-circle, bringing them to a
restless halt, pawing and fighting their bits, at the girl's side.
While with one brown hand he held them back, with the other he swept
off his wide, black hat.

"How do, Mess!" he cried, softly, his teeth flashing a white greeting.

She answered him with a "Hello, Joe!" as she climbed to his side.

Joe loosened his reins a very little, called sharply to his horses,
and in a whirlwind of dust the buckboard made an amazingly sharp turn
and shot rattling down the road and out toward the mountains in the