218 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



I suspect that he exaggerated. For my own 

 part, I have n't suffered from cold. It is the oc- 

 casional heat that makes me fearful of homesick- 

 ness. Three days like that one afternoon would 

 set me packing. All of which may seem not very 

 important to a chance reader ; but unless he is of 

 a hopelessly unimaginative turn he can perhaps 

 conceive how interesting and important it must 

 be to the parties directly concerned, especially if 

 he remembers that this is a winter resort, where 

 weather is the one thing needful. 



But what a perfect afternoon we had yester- 

 day! cool, yet not too cool; and warm, yet 

 not too warm ; with a softness and yet a gently 

 bracing, uplifting, pulse-quickening, life-reviving 

 quality in the air ; and the sky, too, clear, but 

 not too clear, so that wisps of cloud floated here 

 and there over the bare, steep sides of the Santa 

 Catalinas, giving them beauty. I was out upon 

 the desert in a mood of absolute indolence, con- 

 tented to walk a mile an hour, and breathe and 

 breathe, and look. At such times it seems hardly 

 too much to say, strange as the words may sound, 

 that I am falling in love with the desert, a desert 

 bounded only by mountains. Already I can be- 

 lieve that men are fascinated by it (the right 

 men), and having once been here cannot long 

 stay away. 



