In Crouch, the evil-looking fellow, I had no interest, for he was not mysterious. He was a rascal at the first glance, and could not be anything else. And he was the sort of rascal that one is content not to investigate, but observe at the greatest possible distance. What, then, was young Reynolds' interest in him? I intended to write home the next day to ask about the Mansfield brothers, but Howard carried me off to the mines to camp for a few days, and my thoughts were turned in a new direction. The day after my return I went out for a walk through the town. I crossed the plaza and started down one of the diverging streets, when I suddenly found myself in a most unsavory neighborhood, and suspected that I must have crossed the "dead line," beyond which I had been told no white woman ever ventured. I turned to beat a hasty retreat, when I heard my name, and looking up saw Charlie Reynolds, apparently very drunk, issuing from the door of a dance saloon. One or two of his friends were smoking in the doorway. "Good evening, Mish Spencer," he said, with an aggravated bow. "Thish bad place for lady. See you home, Mish Spencer?" "No," I said, "you can't see me home, but I will see you home. You walk on before me, and I will follow." To my surprise he obeyed, and across the plaza and down the street of _adobe_ houses I steered my drunken companion, until I saw him safe within the doors of the Eldorado House, where I was assured that he would be put to bed. That night my son was detained at the mines, and I sat at my window alone in the marvellous moonlight so clear, so brilliant in that rarefied atmosphere, that I could see the round blue lines of the mountains in Mexico, sixty miles away. Sounds from different parts of the town came up with startling distinctness. I could distinguish every word of sentences spoken two squares away, and the barking of coyotes out in the mesquit brush that surrounded the town seemed to come from under my window. I seemed to be far from the rest of the earth, on some desolate peak that stood in vast solitude, for the stars were so large and bright, and the great glowing moon seemed to hang just overhead. There were no trees on the great blue mountains, no grass in the stony valleys, and I realized in their absence how much we owe to the mission of the green and growing. There was no sense of companionship in the babel of sounds and languages that came up from the wicked little town. I am afraid that a few homesick tears came to my eyes.