THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 171 



ledge of his own vast country oft" the beaten tracks. 

 A rare treat is it to journey in company with one 

 who really merits the title of traveler ! 



While passing on one of the overland trains 

 through a valley some hundred miles removed from 

 my own, a strident feminine voice abruptly penetrat- 

 ed every corner of the hitherto peaceful Pullman. 



"Our Johnny went all through this section in 

 a wagon last year. He regained his health that I 

 must say, but the tales he told us of the lives these 

 people lead were something dreadful! Ranches 

 miles and miles apart, women dying of loneliness 

 and hard work, scarcely any churches or schools" — 

 Oh, Johnny, well it is for you that no New Mexican 

 lady got a grip on you ere you escaped to relate 

 such fables! — "and everything and everybody just 

 running wild. Yet I don't quite see why people 

 we see on the station platforms look so rosy and 

 well satisfied. Then they do seem to make things 

 grow, too! Yet Johnny said that all crops depend 

 on the Spring rains, and if they don't come the peo- 

 ple nearly starve." 



Spring rains ! Spring rains, which are, or were, 

 represented by the raging Rio Grande roaring down 

 from the northern mountains like a tiger unre- 

 strained, and bestowing its fertilizing waters a 

 thought too profusely. Rains in the springtime 

 cause the Oldest Inhabitant to sit up and take mild, 

 even grateful, notice; if we had them often we 

 should lose our young chicks, but that is another 

 subject. It is not in the Spring that the thoughts of 

 the true sportsman turn yearningly to visions of 



