Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 16, 2025
"No Christmas dinner and this here is in Ameriky!" It is difficult to tell just how it occurred; but presently, had any one of us turned to look about him, he must have found himself alone. The moonlight streamed brilliantly over the long street of Heart's Desire. . . . The scarred sides of old Carrizo looked so close that one might almost have touched them with one's hand. . . .
Only the small cattle owners suffered because of the drought. Riders told of the presence of plenty of water in the Canadian, the Cimarron, and the Ute. Carrizo held some. In fact, nearly all the streams held by the large ranchers seemed to contain plenty.
In a week this ground around here will be as level as a billiard table and they won't be enough horse feed in the valley to keep a burro. The town herd pulls out for Bender this mornin' and the rest of us will move up to Carrizo Creek." He hurried away to oversee the packing, but when all was ready he waved the boys ahead and returned to the conversation.
There were buttes, valleys, and cañons, the vast and lofty plateaus of the north, the ranges of the Navajo country, the Sierra del Carrizo, and the ice peaks of Monte San Francisco. It was sublime, savage, beautiful, horrible. It seemed a revelation from some other world. It was a nightmare of nature. Clara met him on the landing with the smile which she now often gave him.
It was a sad sight: such a picture of desolation, as I care never again to witness. Who the owners were, from whence they came, whither they were bound, or what was their fate, must stand one of the secrets of the desert, until revealed at the final day. After three days of terrible suffering, we reached the banks of Carrizo Creek.
Presently Dan Anderson settled himself upon the other, and for a time they sat in silence. The purple shadows had long ago deepened into half darkness, and as they looked up above the long, slow curve of old Carrizo, there rose the burnished silver of the wondrous moon of Heart's Desire. The bare and barren valley was softened and glorified into a strange, half-ghostly beauty.
But just as they turned into Carrizo Creek Cañon, Creede suddenly reined in old Bat Wings and held up his hand to Hardy. "Did you hear that?" he asked, still listening. "There! Didn't you hear that gun go off? Well, I did and it was a thirty-thirty, too, over there toward the Pocket." "Those herders are always shooting away their ammunition," said Hardy peevishly.
"The doctor isn't at Lazette; he is over on Carrizo Creek, taking care of Dave Moreland's wife, who is down bad. I saw Dave yesterday, and he was telling me about her; that the doctor is to stay there until she is out of danger. You don't know where Moreland's place is. Be sensible, now," he said gruffly. "I'll talk to you later about you suspecting me."
A great gladness came over Hardy as he saw the starved cattle eat, and as soon as he had felled a score or more he galloped up to Carrizo to tell the news to Jeff. The mesa was deserted of every living creature.
"No?" snapped Barkley. "So we called it Heart's Desire." "We'll call it Coalville now," retorted Barkley. They passed out into the bright sunlit street of Heart's Desire. Stern-browed Carrizo, guardian through centuries of calm and secrecy, gazed down on them unwinking. Dan Anderson looked up at the grim sentinel of the valley, and mockery left his speech.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking