"That is the cheek of us humans," said Tom. "We call our forests solitudes because _we_ have never shown up there before. Precious little we were missed. This desert subsisted its own population, and asked no favors of irrigation, till man came and overstocked it, and upset its domestic economies. When the sheep-men and the cattle-men came with their foreign mouths to fill, the wild natives had to scatter and forage for food, and trot back and forth to the river for drink. They have to travel miles now to one they went before. Hence all these desert thoroughfares." And he showed us in the dust the track of a lizard, a kangaroo-mouse, and a horned toad. We could see for ourselves Bre'r Jack-rabbit and Sis' Gopher skipping away in the greasewood. The horses and cattle had their own broad-beaten roads converging from far away toward an occasional break in the cañon wall, where the thirsty tracks went down. We plodded along, and having with much deliberation taken the wrong road, we found ourselves about nightfall at the bottom of the cañon, in a perfect cul-de-sac. The bluffs ahead of us crowded close to the river, stretching their rocky knees straight down into deep water, and making no lap at all for our wagon to go over. And now, with this sweet prospect before us, it came on steadily to rain. The men made camp in the slippery darkness, while we sat in the wagon, warm and dry, and thanked our stars there were still a few things left that men could do without our aid or competition. Presently a lantern flashed out, and spots of light shifted over them as they slaved--pounding tent-pegs, and scraping stones away from places where our blankets were to be spread, hacking and hewing among the wet willows, and grappling with stovepipes and tent-poles; and the harder they worked the better their spirits seemed to be. "I wish some of the people who used to know Cecil Harshaw in England could see him now," said Kitty. "What did he do in England?" I asked. "He didn't hammer stovepipes and carry kitchen-boxes and cut fire-wood, you know." "Don't you like to see men use their muscle?" I asked her. "Very few of them are reflective to any purpose at his age." "Why, how old, or how young, do you take him to be?" "I think you spoke of him as a boy, if I remember." "If I called him a boy, it was out of charity for his behavior. He's within six months of my own age." "And you don't call yourself a girl any longer!" I laughed. "It's always 'girls' and 'men,'" she said. "If Cecil Harshaw is not a man now, he never will be." I didn't know, I said, what the point at issue was between us. _I_ thought Cecil Harshaw was very much a man, as men go, and I saw nothing, frankly, so very far amiss with his behavior. "It's very kind of you, Mrs. Daly, to defend him, I am sure. I suppose he could do no less than propose to me, after he had brought me out to marry a man who didn't appear to be quite ready; and if it had to be done, it was best to do it quickly."