washing out this way; the banks caved in and carried the rubbish away. They hadn't been occupied for some time; but the house where Owens lived is just right across there – if you go near the bank you can see where he built a good, solid chimbley, like they've got at home. The camp used to be down the flat apiece. I had my house there last year; but it washed away with the rain: so I built up here, where there's better shelter for my chickens. They're my only friends, besides Bose, and I've got to be choice of 'em. I don't see a white face for months, sometimes, since the war is over, and it keeps me company kinder, to see the places where the houses used to be."
"And the other grave – that with the bones and rocks piled on it?"
The man threw a look toward the doorway, and put his hands in his pockets.
"That's Juanita's grave. She was an Indian girl."
He walked out of the door; and, as I had nothing better to do, I too stepped out, thinking to go as far to look for the ruins of that "chimbley" as the blazing sun would permit. The first I saw when I came out of the doorway was the old Indian woman, sitting on the ground in the shade of the house, her back against the wall, her knees drawn up, her elbow resting on them, the doubled fist supporting the face, while the other hand hung listlessly across them. The face was aged and wrinkled, the hair a dirty gray, and the eyes seemed set – petrified, I had almost said – with some great, deep sorrow. Beside her stood the tin-cup, untouched and unnoticed; the tin-plate had been almost emptied of its contents; but a drumstick in the hands of the young Indian, and a suspicious glossiness about his mouth and chin, seemed to mark the road the chicken had taken. The station-keeper stood by the woman, and said something to her in a jargon I could not understand; but she took no more notice of him or what he said than if it were a fly that had buzzed up to her. She moved neither her eyes nor her head, looking out straight before her. I walked as far as the banks of the river, failed to discover the remains of the "chimbley," and turned back to the house. The station-keeper was not to be seen; the Indian boy paused from his labors to take a look at me; but the woman seemed to be a thousand miles away, so little did she take heed of my presence.
It was nearly noon, and I concluded to pass the rest of the day in sleep, as we were to leave the station at about ten in the night, when the moon should be up. The "whole house" had been given up to me, and a comfortable bed arranged out of mattress and wagon-seats, so that I felt comparatively safe from prowling vermin, and soon went to sleep. I awoke only once, late in the afternoon; the station-keeper was saying something in a loud voice that I could not understand, and, directly, I saw two pair of dusky feet passing by the space that the blanket, hung up in the doorway, left near the ground. After awhile I raised the blanket, and saw the Indians trudging along through the sandy plain, the woman following the tall, athletic form of the man, the yellow sun burning fiercely down on their bare heads, scorching the broad, prickly leaves of the cactus, and withering its delicate, straw-colored, and deep-crimson flowers. I dropped the curtain, panting for breath: it was too hot to live while looking out into that glaring sunshine.
Later, when I could sleep no more, and had made my desert toilet, I stood in the doorway, and saw the two Indians coming back as in the morning: the woman with a bundle of fire-wood on her shoulders, the man walking empty-handed and burdenless before her. I turned to the station-keeper, and pointing to the bundle she had brought in the morning, and which lay untouched by the wall, I said, indignantly:
"It seems to me you need not have sent the poor woman out in the blazing sun to gather fire-wood, when you had not even used this. You might have waited till now."
"She – she would have been somewhere else in the blazing sun; she was just going – " And he stopped – as he had spoken – in haste, yet with some confusion.
I cast a pitying look on the woman, which, however, she heeded no more than the rose-pink and pale-gold sunset-clouds floating above her, and then wandered slowly forth toward the hill, which I meant to climb while the day was going down.
When I reached the top, the light, flying clouds had grown heavy and sad, and their rose hue had turned into a dark, sullen red, with tongues of burning gold shooting through it – the history of Arizona, pictured fittingly in pools of blood and garbs of fire. But the fire died out, and a dim gray crept over the angry clouds; and then, slowly, slowly, the clouds weaved and worked together till they formed a single heavy bank – black, dark, and impenetrable.
Just as I turned to retrace my steps, my eyes fell on a group of low bushes, which would have taken the palm in any collection of those horribly dead-looking things that ladies call phantom-flowers. So pitilessly had the sun bleached and whitened the tiny branches, that not a drop of life or substance seemed left; yet they were perfect, and phantom-bushes, if ever I saw any. How well they would look on those graves below, I thought, as I approached to break a twig in remembrance of the strange sight. But how came the red berries on this one? I stooped, and picked up – a rosary; the beads of red-stained wood, the links and crucifix of some white metal, and inscribed on the cross the words, "Souvenir de la Mission." How had it come there? Had ever the foot of devout Catholic pressed this rocky, thorny ground? Of what mission was it a gift of love and remembrance? Surely it had not lain here a hundred years – the gift of love from one of the Spanish padres of the Arizona Missions to an Indian child of the church! Or had it come from one of those California Missions, where the priests to this day read masses to the descendants of the Mission Indians? Yonder, in the west, with the purplish mists deepening into darkness in its cleft sides, was the mountain which to-morrow would show us "Montezuma's face," and here lay the emblem of peace, of devotion to the one living God. Perhaps the station-keeper could solve the mystery; so I hastened back through the gloom that was settling on the earth, unbroken by any sound save the distant yelping of a coyote, who had spied me out, and followed me, as though to see if I were the only one of my kind who had come to invade his dominion.
"See what I have found!" I cried exultingly, when barely within speaking distance of the station-keeper, who stood within the doorway.
In a moment he was beside me, calling out something in his Indian-Spanish, which seemed to electrify the woman, who still sat by the adobe wall. Springing up with the agility of a panther, she was by my side, pointing eagerly to my hand holding the rosary.
"What does she want?" I asked, in utter consternation.
"The rosary; give her the rosary" – the barefooted man was speaking almost imperiously – "it's hers; she has the best right to it."
"Gladly," I said; but she had already clutched it, and turned tottering back to the mud-wall, against which she crouched, as though afraid of being robbed of her new-found treasure.
The man turned to me in evident excitement: "And you found it! Where? She has been hunting for it these years – day after day – in the blazing sun and streaming rain; and you found it. Well, old Screetah's eyes are getting blind – she's old – old."
"But her son might have found it, if he had looked; for I found it just up on the hill there," I suggested.
"He's not her son; only an Indian I kept to look after her, kinder; for she's been brooding and moping till she don't seem to notice nothing no more. But now she's found it, maybe she'll come round again, or go on to Sonora, where, she says, her people are."
"How came she to lose it, then, if it was so precious?"
"She didn't lose it – but, I forget everything; supper's been waiting on; if you'll eat hearty, I'll tell you about those beads after a while. The moon won't rise till after ten, and you've good three hours yet."
I was so anxious to hear about the beads, that I would not give the man time to wash dishes; though he insisted on putting away the china cup and plate, which he kept for State occasions, when he saw my disposition to let Bose make free with what was on the table – table being a complimentary term for one of the ambulance-seats.
In the days when this had been a military post, garrisoned by but one company of the – Infantry, the station-keeper had been an enlisted man, and the servant of Captain Castleton, commanding the camp and company. Young, handsome, and generous, the men were devoted to their captain, though as strict a disciplinarian as ever left the military school. The little settlement springing up around the camp was chiefly peopled