interested in the changes of scenery to notice anything as ordinary as a good-looking young man. The country was changing, gradually, but still unmistakably changing, from a desert, flat and stifling, to a region of small hills and valleys; still brownish yellow, but with the monotony of mesquite varied by live oaks, and in some cases by shallow little streams along whose banks grew cottonwoods, their green foliage restful to the eye weary of desert bareness.

Many of the cacti were in their beautiful bloom and gave to the country the needed dash of color. Occasionally one saw small herds of cattle feeding off the short stubby vegetation. They were drawing near the 34 mountains, whose gauntness seemed less when approached.

34

“They’re like ugly people—grow better looking as you get to know them,” mused Polly. “Oh, my gracious, what’s the matter now?” The puffing little engine had given up trying to make the steep grade it had been negotiating, and had stopped with one last desperate wheeze. No one seemed surprised. The fat ladies went on talking and the old man continued to read his paper. The trainmen were outside, doing something, Polly couldn’t make out what, perhaps only talking about doing something. “Oh, dear, I wonder what has happened!”

In her excitement she must have said it aloud, for the young man across the way sprang to his feet and was at her side instantly. A keen observer might have drawn the conclusion that he had been waiting for some such opportunity.

“I beg pardon, señorita, but it is that the engine cannot make the grade,” he volunteered, politely, in English almost without an accent—or perhaps I should say with an intonation English rather than American, though with a slightly Latin arrangement of phrase.

“Oh, I see,” Polly replied blankly. The young man had been rather sudden, and he continued to stand in a disconcerting way, hat in hand, in the aisle. He appeared to be very young, hardly more than nineteen, Polly thought, and handsome in a dark way. He had large dark eyes, very white teeth, a smooth olive skin without the mustache which so many Spaniards wear, and a rather prominent under jaw and chin. 35

35

“You see,” he continued, “they take the first car over to Conejo and then come back for us.”

“Do you mean to say that they’ll leave us here, perched on the side of this hill, while they run off with 

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