uninterrupted contemplation of the sky above, unbroken by tree or
elevation. Unlike La Mision Perdida, of which it had been part, it
was a level plain of rich adobe, half the year presenting a billowy
sea of tossing verdure breaking on the far-off horizon line, half
the year presenting a dry and dusty shore, from which the vernal
sea had ebbed, to the low sky that seemed to mock it with a
visionary sea beyond. A row of rough, irregular, and severely
practical sheds and buildings housed the machinery and the fifty or
sixty men employed in the cultivation of the soil, but neither
residential mansion nor farmhouse offered any nucleus of rural
comfort or civilization in the midst of this wild expanse of earth
and sky. The simplest adjuncts of country life were unknown: milk
and butter were brought from the nearest town; weekly supplies of
fresh meat and vegetables came from the same place; in the harvest
season, the laborers and harvesters lodged and boarded in the
adjacent settlement and walked to their work. No cultivated flower
bloomed beside the unpainted tenement, though the fields were
starred in early spring with poppies and daisies; the humblest
garden plant or herb had no place in that prolific soil. The
serried ranks of wheat pressed closely round the straggling sheds
and barns and hid the lower windows. But the sheds were fitted
with the latest agricultural machinery; a telegraphic wire
connected the nearest town with an office in the wing of one of the
buildings, where Dr. West sat, and in the midst of the wilderness
severely checked his accounts with nature.

Whether this strict economy of domestic outlay arose from an
ostentatious contempt of country life and the luxurious habits of
the former landholders, or whether it was a purely business
principle of Dr. West, did not appear. Those who knew him best