THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 187 



Every rock and hollow clear yet ethereal, the peaks 

 against that coppery glow rise delicately heaven- 

 ward in points of silver blue. 



Yet the Valley still sleeps, frostbound, shrouded, 

 silent. 



Beautiful visions come to at least one of us as 

 our gaze seems to dip, bathe, lose itself in the beauti- 

 ful sky — not all dreams as we idly term them but 

 visions which, if not wholly of heaven are surely 

 not all of earth — lofty aspirations, beatific flights, 

 tinging with rose color life's duties and abnega- 

 tions, bringing the unattainable within our reach, 

 the highest within our possibilities. 



Then at last the eastern fires blaze up into a light- 

 er, brighter flame, devouring in their upward course 

 all tenderer hues. The wide Valley assumes the 

 garb of day, and then, joyous and dazzling, the 

 unclouded sun springs into a sky of now vivid blue. 



"The wonders of the wonderful country!" 



No one replies, and in silence we drive up to the 

 station platform and resume our mundane habits of 

 thought; for we have many errands, not omitting 

 those for the benefit of our friends, the health- 

 seekers. 



And on these brief forty-four mile trips to El 

 Paso — a large and ever growing city whose boast 

 is that it is up-to-the-minute, in all material things 

 at least — my mind projects itself rather into the 

 past than into present or future. Thus mentally I 

 journey into a past so dim that I find myself in pre- 

 historic ages, among forgotten peoples — pastoral 

 races who irrigated this fertile Vale by ways and 



