The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 9, 1902, Page 2

" THE SUNDAY CALL Y S nd other women of her class and i0dded to Presley, watching d gaze from under her she held across her forehead her_eyes w Presley exerred himself in flew. He 're- puld 8o 1o bridge over 1 with a brusque spurt shol forward down 1.;wer Road that to get on had looked to the whole day on the in tne northern Quie abe ranch, read- F »king his pipe. But now d do well if he arrived there by e af oon. In a few the line fence of one of the slatform the uged to the y, her paws Three flat cars, ted farming ma- g above the sta- below a huge acked its COW- catcher sat »on its monstrous driv- ing-wheels, motionless, solid, drawing long breat at were punctuated by tue subdued sound of its steam-pump click- at exact intervals. ‘nl‘-iql evidently it had been decreed that d be stopped at every point at day as he was push- ycle across the tracks, he was to hear ne called What's the na there, Mr. Presley. good word?” Presley looked up quickly and saw Dyke, the engineer, leaning on his folded ms cab ‘window of the freight x ect of this troubled. well acq ed and The picturesq ife was always a than once he ne between Once, even, > run between the co in the cab. ajara. He adobe cot- kept house for d some five years ng him a little s best he y bui where his moth His wife to br himself w w, nearly twice the ‘with great shoulders arms, and & tremen- Presley, are you ime of day? I rvice answered t down and re neld against the seat of changing enger ding he: he she’ll clear to Fres- her be way here to let clay, but %, from ed and ou object ed Pr e to visit your mother obser choose this da go u D, wered D . ere, me s ne Jundred : He s ! hops. n with him.” oad- what for, growled I've for over ten of complaint They know a steadier man , more Brother- alon, you kn: amento that time I dule, with knowing when d culvert, g me a gold heir at stood their just along with men strikers that were short at his pipe. I went to dirt. Ttold and that I to get along The > man, and tt his sym- t the trouble ‘It's shameful idea occ Dyke's challe sal ustice, beyond lowering. his teeth pestem. The station door of the depot, 1 yawning. On ahead of the of the track * Dyke remarked omewhat sub- rer and 1 will take up ve saved a good deal rs, and there ought to ts of the and dying Mex- jcan towr 1 t hour of the siesta. Nobody was about. There was no busi- ness in the town. It was too close to Bonneville for that. Before the railroad ays when the raising reat industry of the oyed a flerce and bril- was moribund: The drugstore, two_barrooms, the hotel at the corner of the old plaza and the shops where Mexican “curios” were sold to those occasional Eastern tourists who came to visit the Mission of San Juan sufficed for the town's acti At Solotari’s, the restaurant on the jaza, diagonally across from the hotel, reslcy aie his long-deferred Mexican dinner—an omelette in Spanish-Mexican style, frijoles and tortillas, a salad and a glass of white wine. In a corner of the room, during the whole course of his dinne two young Mexicans (one of whom was astonishingly handsome, after the melodramatic fashion of his race) and an old fellow, the centenarian of the town, decrepit beyond belief, sang an in- terminable love song to the accompani- ment of a guitar and an accordio! These Span! Americans, decayed, pic- turesque, vicious_ and roman never failed to interest Presley. A few of them still remained . in Guadalajara, driftin, from the saloon to the restaurant, an from the restaurant to the plaza, relics of a former generation, standing for a different order of things, absolutely idle. living God knew how, happy with their cigarette, their guitar, their glass of mescal, and their siesta. The ' cen- tenarian remembered Fremont and Gov- ernor Alvarado, and the bandit Jesys Tejeda, and the days wken Los Muertos was a Spanish grant, 3 veritable princi- pality, Jeagues in extent, and when there was pever a fence from Visalia to Fres- no. Upon this occasion Presley offered the old man a drink of mescal and ex- cited him to talk of the things he re- membered. Their talk was in Spanish, a language with which Presley was. fa~ miliar. “De la Cuesta held the grant of Los Muertos in those days,” the centenarian said; “‘a-grand man. He had the power of life and death over his people, and there was no law but his word. There was no thought of wheat, then, you may believe. It was all cattle in those days, sheep, horses—steers, not so many—and if money was scarce there .was always plenty to.eat, and clothes enough for all, and wine, ah, yes, by the vat, and ofl, to0; the Mission Fathers had that. Yes, and there was wheat as well, now that 1 come to think of it, but & very little—in the field north of the. Mission where now it is the Seed ranch; wheat fields were there, and also a vineyard, all on Mission grounds. Wheat, olives and the vin thers ptanted those, to provide ments of the Holy Sacra- oil and_ wine, ~you_ under- s like that those industries California—from the church; d now, e _put his chin in the air, at would Father Ullivari have s to such a crop as Senor Derrick plants thes Ten thousand acres of w E but wheat from the Sierra to the Coast Ra I remember when De la Cuesta was married. He had never seen the young lady, only her miniature portrait, painted’—he raised & shoulder—“I do mot know by whom, small, a little thing to be held in the palm. But he fell in love with that, and marry her he would. The affair was ar- ranged_between him and the girl's par- ents. But en the time came that De la Cuesta to go to - Monterey to meet and marry the girl,: behoid, Jesus Tejeda broke in upon the small ranch- €rs near Terrabella. It was no time for De la Cuesta to be away, so he sent his brother Esteban to Monterey to marry the girl by proxy for him. 1 went with Esteban We were a company, nearly a hundred men. And De la Cuesta sent a horse for the girl to ride, white, pure white; and the saddle was of red leather; the head-stali, the bit, and buck- les, all’the metal work, of virgin silver. Well, there was a ceremony in,_the Mon- Mission, ana Esteban, in’the name brother, was married to the girl. On our way back De la Cuesta rode out to meet us. His company met. us- at Agatha dos Palos. Never will I forget De la Cuesta’s face as his eyes fell upon the girl. It was a look, a glance, come and gone like that,” he snapped his fin- gers.” “No_one but I saw it, but I was close by. “There was no_mistaking that look. De la Cuesta was disappointed.” nd the gir! demanded Presley. he never knew. Ah, ke was a grand gentleman, De la Cuesta. Always he treated her as a queen. Never was. hus- band more devoted, more respectful,-more chivalrous. But love?” The old. fellow put his chin in the air, shutting his syes in a knowing fashion. “I: was not there. I could tell. They were married over again at the Mission San Juan de Guad- alajara—our Mission—and for a week all the town of Guadalajara was 'in fete, There were bull fights in the plaza—this very one—for five days and to each of his tenants-in-chief De la "Cuesta gave & horse, a Larrel of tallow, an ounce .of silver and half an ounce of gold dust Ah, those were days. - That was a gay life. This’—he made a comprehensive glance with his left hand—‘“this is stupid.” “You may well say - that,”” observed Presley -moodily, discouraged . b the other's talky Al his doubts and uncers tainties had returned to him. Never would he grasp the subject of his great poem. To-day the life was colorless. Romance was dead. - He -had lived too late. To write of the past was not what he desired. Reality was what he longed for, things that he had seen. Yet how to make this compatible with romance? He ruse, putting on his hat, offering the old man a cigarette. The centenarian accepted with the air of a grandee and extended his - horn snuff box. Presley shook his head. “I was born too late for that,” He de- clared, “for that, and for many other things. Adios.” ¥ “You are traveling to-day, semor?" **A little turn through the country to get: the kinks out of my muscles,”. Pres- ley answeped. “I go up into the Quien Sabe, into the high country beyond the Mission.” “Ah, the Quien Sabe rancho. The sheep aré grazing there this week.” Solotari, the keeper of the restaurant, explained: “Young Annixter-sold his whe: tubble the ground tothe sheep raisers off yonder”; hLe motioned eastward toward the Sierra foothilis. Since Sunday the herd has been down. Very clever, that young Annixter. He gets a price for his stubble, which else he would have to burn, and also manures his land as the sheep move from place to place. A true Yankee, that Annixter, a good gTingo. After his meal Presley. once more mounted his bicycle, and :euvfni_thq res- taurant and the plaza behind him, held on through the main street of the drow- sing .town—the street that farther on de- veloped into the road which - turned abruptly northward ard led onward through the hop fields and the _Qulen Sabe ranch toward. the Mission of = San Juan. The home ranch of the Quien Sabe was in the little triangle bounded on the south by the railroad, on the nnrth¥eat by derson Creek, and on the op fle]ld and the Mission lands. traversed in all directions, now by the trafl from Hooven's, now by the Irrigat- ing ditch—the same which Presley had o3 d earlier in the day—and again by d upon which Presley the f. In its center were Ar house .and barps, topped on-like tower of the artesian weil was to feed the irrigating di.ch. Farther on the course of Broderson Creek was marked by a curved line of gray- green willows, while on the low hills to the north, as Presiey advanced, the an- cient Mission of San Juan de Guadaia- jara, with its belfry tower and red-tiled roof, began to show itself over/the crests of tie venerable pear trecs that cluscered in_its garden. When Presley reached Annixter's ranch house he found young Ann:xter himself stretched in his hammock bepind the mosquito bar on the front porch§ reading “David Copperfield” and gorging himself with aried prunes. Annixier—after the two had exchanged greetin omplained of terrific colic all the preceding night. ' His stomach was out of whack, but you bet he knew how to take care of himself; the last spell he had consulted a doctor at Bonneville, a gibbering busy-face who had fil.ed him up to. the neck with a dose of some hog. vash stuff that had made him worse—: healthy lot the doctors knew, anyhow. His case was peculiar. He knew; prunes were_what he needed, and by the pound. Annixter, who worked the Quien Sabe raneh—some four thousand acres of rich clav and heayy loams—was a very young man, younger even than Presley; like him a college graduate. He looked never a year older than he was. He was smogth-shaven and lean built. But his youthful appearance was offset by a certain le cast of counte- narce, the lowef lip thrust out, the chin large and deeply cleft. His university course had hardened rather than polished him. He still remalned one of the peo- ple,” rough almost to insolence, direct in speech, intolerant in his opinions, relying upon absolutely no one but himself; yet, with all this, of an astounding degree of Intelligence, and possessed of an execu- tive ability little short of positive genius. He was a ferocious worker, allowing him- self no pleasures, and exacting the same degree of-energy from all his subordi- nates. He was widely hated, and as widely trusted. Every . one spoke of his crusty temper and bullying disposition, invariably qualifying the statement with a commendation of his resources and ca- pabilities. The devil of a dr!ver, a hard man to- get along with, obstinate, con- trary, cantakerous; but brains! No doubt of that: brains to his boots. One would like to see the man who could get ahead of him on-a deal. Twice he had been shot at, once from ambush on Oster- man’s ranch and once by one of his own men whom he had kicked from the sack- ing platform of his harvester for gross negligence. At college he had specialized on finance, political economy and scien- tl%c agriculture. After his graduation (hé stood almost at the very top of his class) he had returned and obtained the found nixter's by the degree of civil engineer. Then suddenly he had taken a notion that a_ praetical knowledge of law was indispensable to & modern farmer. In eight months he did the work of three years, studying for his bar examinations. ~ His method of study was characteristic. He reduced all the material of his textbooks to notes. Tear- ing out the leaves of these notebooks, he pasted them upon the walls of his room; then, in his shirt sleeves, a cheap cigar in his teeth, his hands In his pockets, he walked around and around the room, scowling flercely at his notes, memoriz- ing, -devouring, digesting. At intervals he drank great cupfuls of unsweetened, black coffee. When the bar examinations were held he was admitted at the very head of all the applicants, and was com- plimented by the gudn. Immediately aft- erward he collapsed with nervous pro: tration; his stomach “'got out of whack, and he all but died in & Sacramento boarding-house, obstinately refusing to have anything to do with doctors, whom he vituperated as a rabble of quacks, dos- ing_himself with a patent medicine and stuffing Qimself almost to bursting with liver pills and dried prunes. He. had taken a trip to Europe after this sickness to put himself completely to rights. He Intended to be gone a year, but returned at the end of six weeks, fulminating abuse of European cooking. Nearly his entire time had been spent in Paris; but of this sojourn he had bfought Pack but two souvenirs, an electro-plated billhook and an empty bird cage which had tickled his fancy immensely. He was wealthy. Only a year previous to this his father—a widower, who had amassed a fortune in land speculation— had died, and Annixter, the only son, had come into the inheritance. For Presley, Annixter professed a great admiration, holding in deep respect the man who could rhyme words, deferrin, to him whenever there was question o literature or works of fiction. No doubt there was net much use in poetry, and as for novels, to his mind, there were only Dickens' works. Everything else was a lot of lies. But.just the same, it took brains to grind ‘out a poem. It wasn't ‘every one who could rhyme “brave” and “glaive” and make sense out of it. Sure not. But Presley's case was a notable ex- ception. - On no occasion was Annixter prepared to accept another man’s opinlon without reserve. In conversation with him it was almost, impossible to make any direct statement, however trivial, that he would accept without either modi= fication or open contradiction. He had a passion for violent discussion. He would argue upon every subject in the range of human knowledge, from astron- omy to the tariff, from the doctrine of predestination to the height of a horse. Never would he admit himself to be 'mis- taken; when cornered, he would intrench himself behind the remark: ‘‘Yes, that's all very well. In some ways it is, and then, agaln, in some ways it isn't.” Singularly enough, he and Presley were the best of friends. More than once Pres- ley marveled at this state of affairs, tell- ing himself that he and Annixter had nothing in common. In all his circle of acqualntances, Presley was the one man with whom Annixter had never quar- reled. The two men were diametrically oppos:d in temperament. Presley was —_— “The Octopus,” by the late | Frank Norris, has justly been considered the nearest ap- proach to the “great American vel” ever written. As a novel dealing with California life and scenes it is undoubtedly the best in print. This splendid story is now running in The Sunday Call— FREE! NO EXTRA EX- PENSE! ¥ — easy-going; Annixter, alert. Presley was a confirmed dreamer, irresolute, inactive, with a strong tendency to melancholy; the young farmer was a man of affairs, decistve, combative, whose only reflection upon his interior economy was a morbid 2oncern in the vagaries of his stomach. Yet the two never met without a mu- tual pleasure, taking a genuine inter in each other's affairs, and often put- ting themselves to great Inconvenience to be of trifiing service to help one another. As a last characteristic, Annixter pre- tended to be a woman hater, for no other reason than that he was a very bull calf of avkwardness in feminine surround- ings. Females! Rot! There was a fine way for a- man to waste his time and his good mon;?’, lally gagging with a lot o, of females. thank you; none of it in his, if you please. Once only he had an 'air—a timid, little creature in a glove-cleaning establishment in Sacra- mento, whom he had picked up, heaven knew how. After his return to his ranch a correspondence had been malntained between the two, Annixter taking the precaution to typewrite his letters and never affixing his signature, in an excess of prudence. He furthermore made car- bon. copies of-all his letters, fliing them away in a compartment of his safe. Ah, it would be a clever female who would get him into a mess. Then, suddenly smitten with a panic terror that he had committed himself, that he was involv- ing himself too deeply, he had abruptly sent the little woman about her business. It was his only love affair. After that he kept himself free. 0 petticoats should ever have a hold on him. Sure not. As Presley came up to the edge of the porch, pushing his bicycie in front of him, Annixter excused himself for not getting up, alleging that the cramps returned the moment he was off his back. ‘““What are you doing up this way?’ he demanded. ““Oh, just having a look around,” an- swered Presley. “How's the ranch? “‘Sa; observed the other, ignoring his question, “what's this I hear about Der- rick giving his tenants the bounce and working Los Muertos himself—working all his land?” Presley made a sharp movement of im- patience with his free hand. “I've heard nothing else myself since morning. I sup- pose it must be so.” “Huh!” grunted Annixter, spitting out a prune stone. ‘‘You give Magnus Der- my compliments and tell him he's a ‘What do you mean?”’ *‘I suppose Derrick thinks he’s still run- ning his mine, and that the same prin- ciples will apply to getting grain out of the earth as to getting gold. Oh, let him 80 on and see where he brings up. That's right, there's your Western farmer,” he exclaimed contemptuously. “Get the guts out of your land; work it to death; never give it a rest. Never alternate your crop, and then when your soil is exhausted sit down and roar about hard times.” “I suppose Magnus thinks the land has had rest.enough these last two dry sea- sons,” observed Presley. ‘“He has raised no crop to speak of for two years. The land has had a good rest.” “Ah, yes, that sonds well,” Annixter contradicted, unwilling to be convinced; “in a way the land’s been rested, and then, again, in a way it hasn't.” But Presley, scenting an argument, re- frained from answering, and bethought bimself of moving on. 'm going to leave my wheel bere for a while, Buck,” he sald, “if you don't mind. I'm going to the spring, and the road is rough between here and there.’ “‘Stop In for dinner on your way back, saild Annixter, ‘‘There'll be a venison steak. One of the boys got a deer over in the foothills last week. Out of season, but never mind that. I can’t eat it. This - stomach of mine wouldn't digest sweet oil to-day. Get here about 6.”" ‘“Well, maype I will, thank you,” sald Presley, moving off. “By the way,” he added, “I see your barn is about don ‘“You bet,” answered Annixter. n about a fortnight now she’ll be all ready.” “It's a big barn,” murmured Presley, glancing around the angle of the house toward ‘where the.great structure stood. “‘Guess we'll have to have a dance there before we move the stock in,” observed Anpixter. “That's the custom all around here.” te Presley took himself off, but at the ga Annlxtg called after him, his mouth ';‘u‘l‘l: of prunes: “Say, take a look at thet berd of sheep as you go up. They are right oft, here to the east of the roal, about half a mile from here. I guess that's_the b“g&l! lot of sheep yollt fem saw. You might write a poem aboul e umb—rn?v'l; sheep graze—sunny days. Catch on?” g Beyond Broderson Creek, as Presley ad- vanced, tramping along on foot now, | ot land opened out again into the same vast spaces of dull brown earth, sprinkled wi stubble, such as had been characteristic of Derrick’s ranch. To the east (te reach seemed infinite, flat, cheerless, h]EBO- ridden, unrolling like a gigantie scroll too ward the faint shimmer of the dlsu:d horizons, with here and there an isolat live oak’ to break the somber monotony But bordering the road to the westwar the surface roughened and raised, clurg- bering up to the higher ground, on the crest of which the old mission and its surrounding pear trees were now plainly vistble. Just beyond the mission the road bent abruptly eastward, striking off across the Seed ranch. But Presley left the road at this point, going on across the open flelds. here/ was no longer any trail. It was toward 3 o'clock. The sun still spun, a silent, blazing disk, high in the heavens, and tramping through the clods of uneven, broken plow was fatiguing work. The slope of the lowest foothills begun, the surface of the country be- came rolling and, snddenly, as he topped a higher ridge, Presley came upon the #heep. Already he had passed the larger part of the herd—an intervening rise ofgrnund having hidden it from sight. Now as he turned half way about, looking down Into the shallow hollow between him and the curve of the creek, he saw them very plainly. The fringe of the herd was some two hundred yards distant, but its farther side, in that lllusive shimmer of hot sur- face air, seemed miles away. The sheep were spread _out roughly in the shape of a figure eight, two larger herds connected by a smaller, and were headed to the southward, moving slowly grazing on the wheat stubble as they proceeded. But the number seemed incalculabie. Hundreds upon hundreds of gray, rounded backs, all exactly alike, huddled. close-packed, alive, hid the earth from sight. It was no longer an aggregate of individu It was a mass—a com! 3 solid, slowly moving ma: huge, with- out form, like a thick-pressed growth of mushroom tions over arose a spreading out in all direc- the earth. From it there vague murmur, confused, inar- ticulate, like the sound of very distant surf, while all the air in the vicinity was heavy with the warm, ammoniacal odor of the thousands of crowding bodies. All the colors of tie scene were som- ber—the brown of the earth, the faded yellow of the dead stubble, the gray of the myriads of undulating backs. Only on the far side of the herd, erect, mo- tionless—a single not of black, a speck, a dot—the shepherd stood, leaning upon an empty water trough, solitary, grave, impressive. For a few moments Presley stood, watching. Then as he started to move on a curious thing occurred. At first he thought he had heard some one call his name. He paused, listening; there was no sound but the vague noise of the mov- ing sheep. Then, as the' first impression gflssed. it seemed to him that he had been eckoned to. Yet nothing stirred; ex- cept for the lonely figure beyond the herd there was no-one In sight. He started on again, and in half a dozen steps found himself - Jooking over his shoulder. Without knowing why, he looked toward the shepherd; then halted and looked for a second time and a third. Had- the shepherd called to him? Presley knew that he had heard no voice. Brusquely, all his attention seemed riveted upon this distant figure. He put one forearm over his eyes, to keep off the sun, gazing across the Intervening herd. ~Surely the shepherd had called him. But the next instant he started, uttering an exclama- tlon under his breath. The far-away speck of black became animated. Pres- ley remarked a sweeping gesture. though the man had not beckoned to him before there was no doubt that he was beckoning now. Without any hesic tation, and singularly interested in the incident, Presley turned sharply aside and hurrled on toward the shepherd skirting the herd, wondering all the time that he should answer the call with so little questioning, so little hesitation. But the shepherd came forwa S Presley, followed by one of hlsrgolgbs.mk; the two men approached each other Pres. ley, closely studying the other, began to wonder where he had seen him before, It must have been a very long time ago, upon one of his previous vigits to the ranch. Certainly, however, there wagy something familiar in the shepherd's face and figure. When they came closer to each other, and Presley could see him more distinctly, this sense of a previous ncqgalnlance -was increased and sharp- ened. The shepherd was a man of a He was very lean and spare. Hlsbob“r'ovfi; canvas overalls were thrust into laced boots. A cartridge belt without any caf- tridges encircled his waist. A gray flan- nel shirt, open at the throat, showed his breast, tanned and ruddy. He wore no hat. His hair was very black and rather long. A peinted beard covered his chin, owing straight and fine from the hol- low cheeks. he absence of any cover- ing for his head was, no doubt, "habitual with hlm.'for his face was as brown as an Indian’s—a ruddy brown—quite differ- ent from Presley's dark olive. To Pres- ley’s morbidly keen observation the eral impression of the sh ' face ‘was intensely interesting. ¥ Y:el'g(a! G:@ common to an astonishing degree. Pres- ley’s vivid imagination chose gto see lne?t the face of an ascetic, of a recluse, al- most that of & young seer. So must have appeared the half-in: ‘ed shepherds of the Hebraic legend: younger prophets of Israel, dwellers in the wilderness, b. holders of visions, having their existence in a continual dream, talkers with God, gifted with strange powers. Suddenly, at some twenty paces distant | from the approaching shepherd, Presley stopped short, his eyes riveted upon the other. “Vanamee!” he exclaimed. The shepherd smiled and came forward, holding out his hand, saying, “I thought it was you. When I saw you come over the hill I called you. “But not with your voice,” returned Presley. “I knew that some one wan me. I felt it. I should have remembered that you could do that kind ot [ Bave mever known it to helps with the sheeép. “With the sheep?” In & way. 1 can’t tell exactly how. We don't understand these things yet. There are times when, if I close my eves and dig my fists into my temples, I can hold the entire herd for perhaps a in; fail. 1t minute. Perhaps, though, it's imagina- tion... Who knows? But it's good to ses you again. How lomg has it Dbeen since the last time? Two, three, nearly five years.” It was more than that. It was six years since Presley and Vanamee had met, and then it had been for a short time only during one of the shepherd’'s periodical brief returns to that part of the coun During a week he and Presley had much together, for the two were de’ fricnds. Then, as abruptiy, as myste- riously as he had come, Vanamee c - peared. Presley awoke one mornir > find him gonme. Thus it had been w Vanamee for a period of sixteen years. Hec lived his life in the unknown, one could not tell where—in the desert, in tha mountains, throughout all the vast e south . solitary, Three, four, fiv ars passed. herd would be al t forgotten. r the most trivial sc of information as to his whereabouts reached Los Muertos. He had melied off o the surface shim- « mer of the desert, into the mirage; he sank below the rizon; he was swal- lowed up in the waste of sand and sage. Then, without warning, he would reap- pear, coming in from the wilderness, emerging from the unknown. No one knew him well. In all that countryside he had but three friends, Presley, ag- nus Derrick and the priest at the Mis- sion of San Juan de Guadalajars, Father Barria. He remained always & mylur{‘ living & life half-real, half-legendary. In all those years he did not sesm to have grown_older by a single day. At t time Presley knew him to be 38 years of age. But since the first day the two had met the shepherd’s face and bear- ing had, to his eyes, remained the same. At this moment Presley was looking in the same face he had first seen many, many years It w ace stamped with an unspeakable sadness, a deathless grief, the permanent nt of a tragedy long 'past, but yet a g issue. Pres- ley told himself that it was impossible to look long into Vanamee's eyes without knowing that here was a man whose whole being had been at one time shat- tered and riven to its lowest depths, whose life had suddenly stopped at & cer- tain moment of its development. The two friends sat down upon the edge of the watering trough, their eyes wandering Incessantly toward the slow- 110ving herd, grazing on the wheat stub- ble, moving southward as they grazed, “YWhere have you come from this time?" Presley had asked. “Where have you kept yourself?” The other swept the horizon to the south and east with a vague gesturs. “Off there, down to the south, very far off. So many places that I can't remem- ber. I went the long trail this time: a long, long ways. Arizona, the Mexicos, and then, afterward, Utah and Nevada, following the horizon, traveling at haz- ard. Into Arizona first, golng in by Mon- ument Pass, and then on to the south, through the country of the avajos, down by the Aga Thia Needle—a great blade of red rock jutting from out the desert like a Knife thrust. Then on and on tarough the Mexicos, all through the Bouthwest, then back again in a great circle by Chihauhua and Aldama to La- redo, to Torreon and Albuquerque. From there across the Uncompahgre plateau into the Ulntah country; then at last due west through Nevada to_California and to_the valley of the San Joaquin.”” His voice lapsed to a monotons, his eyes becoming fixed; he continued to speak as though half awake, his thoughts elsewhere, secing again In the eye of his mind the reach of desert and red hill, the purple mountain, the level stretch of alkali, leper white, all the savage, gor- geous’ desolation of the long trail. He ignored Presley for the moment, but, on the other hand, Presley himself gave him but half his attention. The return of Vanamee had stimulated the poet's memory. He recalled the incidents of Vanamee's life, reviewing again that ter- rible drama which had uprooted his soul, which had driven him forth a wanderer, a shunner of men, a rner in wasts laces. He was, strangely enough, a col- ege graduate and a man of wide read- ing and great intelligence, but he had chosen to lead his own life, which was that of a recluse. Of a temperament similar in many ways to Presley's, there wers capabilities in Vanamee that were not ordinarily to be found in the rank and file of men. Liv- ing close to nature, a poet by instinct, where Presley was but a poet by train- ing, there developed in him a great sen- sitiveness to beauty and an almost ab- normal capacity for great happiness and great sorrow: he felt things intensely, deeply. He never forgot. It was when he was 18 or 19, at the formative and most_impressionable perfod of his life, that he had met Angele Varian. Presle: barely remembered her as a girl of 16, beautiful almost beyond expression, whe lived with an aged aunt on the Seed ranch back of the mission. At this me- ment he was trying to recall how she looked, with her hair of gold hangin in two straight plaits on either side o her face. making three-cornered her round, white forehead; her wonderful eyes, violet blue, heavy lidded, with their astonishing upward slant toward the temples, the slant that gave a strange, Orlental cast to her face, perplexing, en- chanting. He remembered the Egyptian fullness of the lips, the strange balanc- ing movement of her head upon her slen- der neck, the same movement that one sees in a snake at poise. Never had he seen a girl more radiantly beautiful, never a beauty so strange, so troublous, so out of all accepted standards. It was small wonder that Vanames had loved her, and less wonder still that his love bad been so intense, so passionats, so part of himself. Angele had loved him with a love no less than his own. It was one of those legendary passions that sometimes occur, idyllle, untouched by civilization, spontaneous as the growth of trees, natural as dewfall, strong as the firm-seated mountains. At the time of his meeting with Angels, Vanamee was living on the Los Muertos ranch. It was there he had chosen to spend one of his college vacations. But he preferred to pass it in out-of-door work, sometimes herding cattle, some- times pitching hay, sometimes working with pick and dynamite stick on the ditches rth division of the ranch, r e range, mending breaks in the wire fences. making himself gen- erally useful. College bred though ha‘ a8 was, the life pleased him. He was, he desired, close to nature, living the full measure of life, a worker among work- ers, taking enjoyment in simple pleasures, healthy in mind and body. He believe: in an existence p: fashion in the country, w eating full, drinking deep, lessly. But every night after supper he dled his pony and rode over to the gar- den of the old mission. The "dobe divid- d- ing wall on that side, which once had separated the mis: garden _and the Seed ranch, had s crumb! away and the boundary between the pieces of ground was marked only by a line of venerable pear trees. Here, un- der these trees, he found Angele await- ing him, and there the two would sit through 'the hot, still evening, their arms about each other, watching the moon rise over the foothills, listening to the trickle of the water in the moss-encrusted ¢ tain in the garden and the stealy cr of the great frogs that lived in the d: north corner of the inclosure. Through all one summer the enchantment of that new-found, wonderful love, pure and un- tainted. filled the lives of each of them with its sweetnes e summer passed, the harvest moon came and went. The nights were very dark. In the deep shads of the pear trees they could no longer see each other. When they met at the rendezvous. Vanamee found her only with his groping hands. They did not speak, mere words were useless between them. Sflently as his reaching hands touched her warm body, he took her in his arms, searching for her lips with his. Then one night the tragedy had suddenly leaped from out the shadow with the abruptness of an explosion. It was impossible afterward to rr“'g struct the manner of its occurrence. Angele’s mind—what there was left of it —the matter always remained a hideous blur, a blot, a vague, terrible confusion. No doubt they two had been watched; the plan succeeded too well for any other supposition. One moonless night, Angele,