Twilight had deepened to dusk as Patty Sinclair pulled her team to a standstill upon the rim of the bench and looked down upon the twinkling lights of the little town that straggled uncertainly along the sandy bank of the shallow river. "Hain't it grand lookin'?" breathed Microby Dandeline who sat decorously booted and stockinged upon the very edge of the board seat. "You wouldn't think they wus so many folks, less'n you seen 'em yers'f. Wisht I lived to town, an' I wisht they'd be a circust." Patty guided the horses down the trail that slanted into the valley and crossed the half-mile of "flats" whose wire fences and long, clean-cut irrigation ditches marked the passing of the cattle country. A billion mosquitoes filled the air with an unceasing low-pitched drone, and settled upon the horses in a close-fitting blanket of gray. The girls tried to fight off the stinging pests that attacked their faces and necks in whirring clouds. But they fought in vain and in vain they endeavored to urge the horses to a quickening of their pace, for impervious alike to the sting of the insects and the blows of the whip, the animals plodded along in the unvarying walk they had maintained since early morning. "This yere's the skeeter flats," imparted Microby, between slaps. "They hain't no skeeters in the mountains, mebbe it's too fer, an' mebbe they hain't 'nough folks fer 'em to bite out there, they's only us-uns an' a few more." As the girl talked the horses splashed into the shallow water of the ford and despite all effort to urge them forward, halted in mid-stream, and sucked greedily of the crystal-clear water. It seemed an hour before they moved on and assayed a leisurely ascent of the opposite bank. The air became pungent with the smell of smoke. They were in town, now, and as the wagon wheels sank deeply into the soft sand of the principal street, Patty noted that in front of the doors of most of the houses, slow fires were burning--fires that threw off a heavy, stifling smudge of smoke that spread lazily upon the motionless air and hung thick and low to the ground. "Skeeter smudges," explained Microby proud of being the purveyor of information, "towns has 'em, an' then the skeeters don't bite. Oh, look at the folks! Lest hurry up! They might be a fight! Las' time they wus a fight an' a breed cut a man Pap know'd an' the man got the breed down an' stomped on his face an' the marshal come an' sp'ilt hit, an' the man says if he'd of be'n let be he'd of et the breed up." "My, what a shame! And now you may never see a man eat a breed, whatever a breed is." "A breed's half a Injun." Microby was standing up on the seat at the imminent risk of her neck, peering over the heads of the crowd that thronged the sidewalk. "Sit down!" commanded Patty, sharply, as she noted the amused glances with which those on the outskirts of the crowd viewed the ridiculous figure in the red dress and the pink sunbonnet. "They are waiting for the movie to open.