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Back of the cattle shed, at a distance of several hundred feet, was a slight hollow, where there was a pool of water surrounded by mesquite-trees and bushes. This pool could be seen only from the back of the shed, and as Dan walked in that direction, something caught his eye which instantly arrested his attention. It was a plume of feathers waving above the bushes close to the pool.
There was a new yellow-pine hotel, also a wool warehouse, and perhaps three dozen box residences. The rest was composed of tents, cow ponies, "black-waxy" mud, and mesquite-trees, all bound round by a horizon. Paloma was an about-to-be city. The houses represented faith; the tents hope; the twice-a-day train, by which you might leave, creditably sustained the rôle of charity.
"What shall we do?" "Move to the right, and we'll see if we can't throw them off the trail," answered Poke Stover. To the right there was a slight hollow, filled with mesquite-trees and bushes, and beyond this was a sandy plain covered with cacti. But of the latter both were ignorant.
Both were now hungry, and coming to a pool in the prairie surrounded by mesquite-trees and bushes, they drew rein and tethered their ponies, and sat down to enjoy the midday meal they had brought along. Pompey had packed for them a tempting hamper, and the boys remained over the repast rather longer than anticipated.
One afternoon she rode down to the alfalfa-fields, round them, and back up to the spillway of the lower lake, where a group of mesquite-trees, owing to the water that seeped through the sand to their roots, had taken on bloom and beauty of renewed life. Under these trees there was shade enough to make a pleasant place to linger. Madeline dismounted, desiring to rest a little.
After the third creek-crossing the road ran straight as an avenue through a broad, level reach, and we flew along gayly. The little mesquite-trees, prim, dainty, and delicate, stood about in seeming order, civilizing the landscape and giving it the air of an orchard; the prairie-dog villages were thrown into a tumult of excitement by our passage; a chaparral-cock slipped out of a bush, stared an instant, pulled the string that lifts his tail and top-knot, and settled down for a race directly under the horses' feet. We passed the point of a hill, gained a slight rise, and the ranch was in sight. It must be confessed that it was not in appearance all that the name might imply, not the sort of place for which one starts after having provided one's self with a navy revolver and a low estimate of the value of human life. It was, in fact, a very pretty and domestic scene, a little village of half a dozen buildings and a net-work of white limestone and brush corrals. Shortly I was supping in a neat little cottage, and endeavoring in the usual way to be agreeable to some one in muslin. In this modern world we change our skies, truly, but not not our bric-
Down into the hollow they dove, their horses glad enough of the chance to get a drink at the pool among the bushes. Under the mesquite-trees they halted, and Stover went back to reconnoitre. The scout was gone for fully quarter of an hour, and came back chuckling softly to himself. "We threw 'em nicely," he said. "We are safe now, providin' we don't make too much noise." "Then let us go on, Poke.
The busiest periods of the sheepman's year are the lambing- and shearing-seasons. The first begins early in March, when the little mesquite-trees are of a feathery greenness and the brown gramma and mesquite grass are beginning to freshen, and lasts about six weeks. It is an exacting time for the conscientious proprietor.
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