her face from the cold for a moment. The wind never slept on this plain,
the old man said. Every little while eagles flew over.
Coming up from Laramie, the old man had told them that he was in
Brownsville, Nebraska, when the first telegraph wires were put across
the Missouri River, and that the first message that ever crossed the
river was “Westward the course of Empire takes its way.” He had been in
the room when the instrument began to click, and all the men there had,
without thinking what they were doing, taken off their hats, waiting
bareheaded to hear the message translated. Thea remembered that message
when she sighted down the wagon tracks toward the blue mountains. She
told herself she would never, never forget it. The spirit of human
courage seemed to live up there with the eagles. For long after, when
she was moved by a Fourth-of-July oration, or a band, or a circus
parade, she was apt to remember that windy ridge.
To-day she went to sleep while she was thinking about it. When Ray
wakened her, the horses were hitched to the wagon and Gunner and Axel
were begging for a place on the front seat. The air had cooled, the sun
was setting, and the desert was on fire. Thea contentedly took the back
seat with Mrs. Tellamantez. As they drove homeward the stars began to
come out, pale yellow in a yellow sky, and Ray and Johnny began to sing
one of those railroad ditties that are usually born on the Southern
Pacific and run the length of the Santa Fe and the “Q” system before
they die to give place to a new one. This was a song about a Greaser
dance, the refrain being something like this:—
“Pedro, Pedro, swing high, swing low, And it’s allamand left again; For there’s boys that’s bold and there’s some that’s cold, But the gold boys come from Spain, Oh, the gold boys come from Spain!”
VIII
Winter was long in coming that year. Throughout October the days were
bathed in sunlight and the air was clear as crystal. The town kept its
cheerful summer aspect, the desert glistened with light, the sand hills
every day went through magical changes of color. The scarlet sage
bloomed late in the front yards, the cottonwood leaves were bright gold
long before they fell, and it was not until November that the green on
the tamarisks began to cloud and fade. There was a flurry of snow about
Thanksgiving, and then December came on warm and clear.
Thea had three music pupils now, little girls whose mothers declared
that Professor Wunsch was “much too severe.” They took their lessons on
Saturday, and this, of course, cut down her time for play. She did not
really mind this because she was allowed to use the money—her pupils
paid her twenty-five cents a lesson—to fit up a little room for herself
upstairs in the half-story. It was the end room of the wing, and was not
plastered, but was snugly lined with soft pine. The ceiling was so low
that a grown person could reach it with the palm of the hand, and it
sloped down on either side. There was only one window, but it was a
double one and went to the floor. In October, while the days were still
