THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 61 



morning and perceive upon the Organ peaks a 

 cloud no larger than a man's hand. I iook upon my 

 second crop of purple alfalfa and sigh, but what 

 must be, must be, and I send the grumbling mowers 

 away — who proceed to cut their own crop instead of 

 mine, and while it lies helpless down comes a raging 

 thunderstorm. But it is not my hay. 



One summer I was compelled to abandon my 

 ranch at the date of that second cutting. For the 

 first time, and the last, in my ranching history I 

 lost the entire crop. Why? Because the men in 

 charge, who not only were to share the expected 

 harvest but were older residents than I, had kept 

 their weather eyes closed. In return for such losses 

 and muddy roads and sometimes leaky roofs, a 

 luscious green which climbs high up on the 

 granite peaks delights the Arid Belt habitant — such 

 green, such a wealth of rampant wild flowers, as is 

 rare elsewhere in midsummer — rare, because this 

 green is so fresh and young, and abides with us for 

 months. The earth and all that is therein has 

 turned backward, and there remains. 



Occasionally the too credulous Tenderfoot is 

 entrapped. Maybe, attracted by the abnormally 

 fertile soil, whose reasonable reason he does not 

 suspect, or beguiled by a real-estater, he has bought 

 and built and settled himself in the Valley, unmind- 

 ful of a dry arroyo at his back. His crops are fine, 

 and he is a happy man — -for the nonce. Then one 

 dreadful day the storm descends, the arroyo fills 

 and sweeps down upon his land; it is a lake and his 

 house stands alone in its midst. He has come to 



