Once more he fell into his brooding silence, looking up at the naked hills from habit, for there were no cattle there. And Rufus Hardy, quick to understand, gazed also at the arid slopes, where once the grama had waved like tawny hair in the soft winds and the cattle of Jeff Creede's father had stood knee-high in flowers. Now at last the secret of Arizona-the-Lawless and Arizona-the-Desert lay before him: the feed was there for those who could take it, and the sheep were taking it all. It was government land, only there was no government; anybody's land, to strip, to lay waste, to desolate, to hog for and fight over forever--and no law of right; only this, that the best fighter won. Thoughts came up into his mind, as thoughts will in the silence of the desert; memories of other times and places, a word here, a scene there, having no relation to the matter in hand; and then one flashed up like the premonitions of the superstitious--a verse from the Bible that he had learned at his mother's knee many years before: "Crying, Peace, Peace, when there is no peace." But he put it aside lightly, as a man should, for if one followed every vagrant fancy and intuition, taking account of signs and omens, he would slue and waver in his course like a toy boat in a mill pond, which after great labor and adventure comes, in the end, to nothing. CHAPTER IV DON PABLO MORENO On the edge of the barren mesa and looking out over the sandy flats where the Salagua writhed about uneasily in its bed, the _casa_ of Don Pablo Moreno stood like a mud fort, barricaded by a palisade of the thorny cactus which the Mexicans call _ocotilla_. Within this fence, which inclosed several acres of standing grain and the miniature of a garden, there were all the signs of prosperity--a new wagon under its proper shade, a storehouse strongly built where chickens lingered about for grain, a clean-swept _ramada_ casting a deep shadow across the open doorway; but outside the inclosure the ground was stamped as level as a threshing floor. As Creede and Hardy drew near, an old man, grave and dignified, came out from the shady veranda and opened the gate, bowing with the most courtly hospitality. "_Buenos tardes, senores_," he pronounced, touching his hat in a military salute. "_Pasa!_ Welcome to my poor house." In response to these salutations Creede made the conventional replies, and then as the old man stood expectant he said in a hurried aside to Hardy: "D'ye talk Spanish? He don't understand a word of English." "Sure," returned Hardy. "I was brought up on it!" "No!" exclaimed Creede incredulously, and then, addressing the Senor Moreno in his native tongue, he said: "Don Pablo, this is my friend Senor Hardy, who will live with me at Agua Escondida!" "With great pleasure, senor," said the old gentleman, removing his hat, "I make your acquaintance!"