as aliens, they looked upon him as a being with whom and whose class
they had nothing in common, no desire to have anything in common. For
a moment his good nature died down before a flash of anger that these
beings, with little, circumscribed existences, should feel and
manifest toward him the same degree of contempt that he, a visitor
from a higher plane of life, experienced toward them. But in Greek
Conniston good humor was a habit, and it returned as he assured
himself that what these desert-dwellers felt was worth only his
amusement.

At the store he bought some tobacco for his pipe and engaged the
storekeeper in trifling conversation. The talk was desultory and for
the most part led nowhere. But the little, brown, wizened old man,
contemplatively chewing his tobacco like a gentle cow ruminating over
her cud, answered what scattering questions Conniston put to him. The
young man learned that the town took its name from the stream which
crept rather than ran through it to spread out on the thirsty sands a
few miles to the north, where it was absorbed by them. That the creek
came from the hills to the south, and from the mountains beyond them.
When one crossed the brown hills he came to the Half Moon country and
into a land of many wide-reaching cattle-ranges.

"I saw a team drive out that way after the train came in," said
Conniston, carelessly. "Headed for one of the cattle-ranges, I
suppose?"

The old man spat and nodded, wiping his scanty gray beard with his
hand.

"That was Joe from the Half Moon. Took the ol' man's girl out."