THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 195 



greyhound on the leash! One and all unconscious 

 Coquelins! Clearly some plan of action was being 

 discussed, of which approval, disapproval, enthusi- 

 asm on one side or the other occupied the entire 

 mentality of every man present. This is the kind 

 of transformation often effected by our Western 

 atmosphere. Ironed out of the faces of men are 

 restraint, neutrality, conventionality. We see the 

 real man without the mask, and can make a pretty 

 fair guess as to his thoughts. 



Thus do I, after my manner, my companions with 

 magazines, while away one of those tedious inter- 

 vals which are the appointed lot of womankind. 



The sun has already set when we disembark 

 at our home station, a merry party laden with bun- 

 dles suggestively feminine. Twilight broods ere 

 we are well started, but it is not the twilight that 

 precedes the dawn. 



On the contrary, there is something in the swift 

 on-stealing of these nights, in face of the lingering 

 colors of the sunset sky, that has in it an element of 

 relentlessness. Day has hushed itself beneath a 

 dome the tint of a sparrow's egg, gilt edged where 

 the huge orb has passed. The gray hand is once 

 more laid upon our Valley. Cottonwoods yet re- 

 taining their November fires pale from gold to 

 primrose. It is night; the bright day is over; we 

 must hasten homeward. 



The sombre quiet of evening brings with it at 

 times a vague, crushing sense of finality, a nameless 

 apprehension — the heritage, it is to be supposed, of 



