“How did it come that you didn’t travel with a maid?” “I wanted to be alone. But don’t you worry. I shall be able to look after myself. I dare say it will be good for me.” She went to the gate with him. “What a shaggy, dusty horse! He’s wild, too. Do you let him stand that way without being haltered? I should think he would run off.” “Tenderfoot! You’ll be great fun, Majesty, especially for the cowboys.” “Oh, will I?” she asked, constrainedly. “Yes, and in three days they will be fighting one another over you. That’s going to worry me. Cowboys fall in love with a plain woman, an ugly woman, any woman, so long as she’s young. And you! Good Lord! They’ll go out of their heads.” “You are pleased to be facetious, Alfred. I think I have had quite enough of cowboys, and I haven’t been here twenty-four hours.” “Don’t think too much of first impressions. That was my mistake when I arrived here. Good-by. I’ll go now. Better rest awhile. You look tired.” The horse started as Alfred put his foot in the stirrup and was running when the rider slipped his leg over the saddle. Madeline watched him in admiration. He seemed to be loosely fitted to the saddle, moving with the horse. “I suppose that’s a cowboy’s style. It pleases me,” she said. “How different from the seat of Eastern riders!” Then Madeline sat upon the porch and fell to interested observation of her surrounding. Near at hand it was decidedly not prepossessing. The street was deep in dust, and the cool wind whipped up little puffs. The houses along this street were all low, square, flat-roofed structures made of some kind of red cement. It occurred to her suddenly that this building-material must be the adobe she had read about. There was no person in sight. The long street appeared to have no end, though the line of houses did not extend far. Once she heard a horse trotting at some distance, and several times the ringing of a locomotive bell. Where were the mountains, wondered Madeline. Soon low over the house-roofs she saw a dim, dark-blue, rugged outline. It seemed to charm her eyes and fix her gaze. She knew the Adirondacks, she had seen the Alps from the summit of Mont Blanc, and had stood under the great black, white-tipped shadow of the Himalayas. But they had not drawn her as these remote Rockies. This dim horizon line boldly cutting the blue sky fascinated her. Florence Kingsley’s expression “beckoning mountains” returned to Madeline. She could not see or feel so much as that. Her impression was rather that these mountains were aloof, unattainable, that if approached they would recede or vanish like the desert mirage. Madeline went to her room, intending to rest awhile, and she fell asleep. She was aroused by Florence’s knock and call. “Miss Hammond, your brother has come back with Stillwell.” “Why, how I have slept!” exclaimed Madeline. “It’s nearly six o’clock.”