tulips lifting their lovely orange cups, and sweet pea blossoms swinging like pink and white fairies above a lilac carpet of wild verbena and purple fragrant hyptis, while against the rocks that were stained with splashes of gray and orange and red and yellow lichens stood the purple pentstemon. The mountain sides below were wondrous with the scarlet glory of the ocotillo and the indescribable beauty of the chollas and opuntias with their crowns and diadems of red and salmon and orange and pink. The slopes and benches of the lower levels were bright with great fields of golden brittle-bush; and beyond these, on the wide spaces of the mesa, he could see the{29} yuccas (our Lord’s candles) in countless thousands, raising their stately shafts with eight-foot clusters of creamy-white bloom.

{29}

Mrs. Burton, leaving her housework for a moment, came to stand in the doorway. When they had spoken of the beautiful sight that never failed to move them—calling each other’s attention to different favorite views—Saint Jimmy said:

“Mother, doesn’t it all make you sort of hungry for something—something that can’t be told in words?” he laughed in boyish embarrassment.

His mother smiled.

“Marta will be coming from Oracle with the mail, I suppose—this is Saturday, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” said Jimmy softly, and wondered if his mother guessed what it really was that he hungered for and could not talk about even to her.

Mrs. Burton was turning back into the house when they heard some one coming up the trail from the cañon. A moment later the Pardners appeared. Saint Jimmy and his mother knew at once that the old prospectors had come on business of greater moment than to make a mere neighborly call.

When they had exchanged the customary greetings and Marta’s fathers had assured their friends that the girl was well, Thad and Bob sat looking at each other in troubled silence.

“Wal,” said Bob, at last, “why don’t you go ahead? She’s your gal this week. Bein’ her daddy makes it your play, don’t it?”

Thad, rubbing his bald head desperately, made{30} several ineffectual attempts to speak. At last, with a recklessness born of this inner struggle, he addressed Mrs. Burton:

{30}

“‘You see, ma’am, me an’ my pardner here has been takin’ notice 

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