_"So those three little owls flew back up in the barn-- Inky, dinky, doodum, day! And they said, 'Those little mice make us feel so nice and warm!' Inky, dinky, doodum, day! Then they all began to sing, 'Too-whit! Too-who!' I don't think much of this song, do you? But there's one thing about it--'tis certainly true-- Inky, dinky, doodum, day!"_ They reached the open; the gallop became a trot. "I go north here," said Foy at the cross-roads above the town. "Which way for you?" "North too," said Pringle. "I don't know just where, but you can tell me. I go to a railroad station first--Aden. Then to the Vorhis place?" "Vorhis? I'm going there myself?" said Foy. "You didn't tell me your name yet." "Pringle." "What? Not John Wesley Pringle? Great Scott, man! I've heard Stella talk about you a thousand times. Say, I'm sure glad to meet you! My name's Foy--Christopher Foy." "Why, yes," said Pringle. "I think I've heard Stella speak of you, too." Chapter III Being a child must have been great fun--once. Nowadays one would as lief be a Strasburg goose. When you and I went to school it was not quite so bad. True, neither of us could now extract a cube root with a stump puller, and it is sad to reflect how little call life has made for duodecimals. Sometimes it seems that all our struggle with moody verbs and insubordinate conjunctions was a wicked waste--poor little sleepy puzzleheads! But there were certain joyous facts which we remember yet. Lake Erie was very like a whale; Lake Ontario was a seal; and Italy was a boot. The great Chihuahuan desert is a boot too; a larger boot than Italy. The leg of it is in Mexico, the toe is in Arizona, the heel in New Mexico; and the Jornado is in the boot-heel. El Jornado del Muerto--the Journey of the Dead Man! From what dim old legend has the name come down? No one knows. The name has outlived the story. Perhaps some grim, hard-riding Spaniard made his last ride here; weary at last of war, turned his dead face back to Spain and the pleasant valleys of his childhood. We have a glimpse of him, small in the mighty silence; his faithful few about him, with fearful backward glances; a gray sea of waving grama breaking at their feet; the great mountains looking down on them. Plymouth Rock is unnamed yet.--Then the mist shuts down. The Santa Fé Trail reaches across the Jornado; tradition tells of vague, wild battles with Apache and Navajo; there are grave-cairns on lone dim ridges, whereon each passer casts a stone. Young mothers dreamed over the cradles of those who now sleep here, undreaming; here is the end of all dreams. Doniphan passed this way; Kit Carson rode here; the Texans journeyed north along that old road in '62--to return no more.