198 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



leys of the Blue Ridge — inhabited, and cultivated 

 in so far as the often exhausted soil permits — 

 have nothing in common with the broad, fertile 

 vales of Southern New Mexico. And not only the 

 valleys but those rounded Virginia mountains wear 

 an air of peace and home, of neighborliness, to 

 which our Western mountains make no claim, or 

 ever will if Nature has her way. The woods upon 

 the Blue Ridge glow with the colors of the Fall, fold 

 about them during the brief winters veils of rich 

 and varied brown, and in the Springtime toss silvery 

 stars of dogwood to the gentle, exquisite sky. The 

 leafy masses are spaced with verdant pastures, or 

 streaked in their descent toward the valleys with 

 the crimson ribbons of Virginia roads. And yet — 

 down from these peaceful, homelike heights rides 

 a "dark complected" silent person, his black slouch 

 hat pulled over his brows, his family following — 

 two, or maybe three, of them to a horse — the woman 

 probably smoking a corncob pipe in the depths of a 

 black sunbonnet, and the little towheads staring at 

 the stranger with eyes for whose forget-me-not blue 

 neither of the parents appear to be responsible. 



Thus rides a man of mystery from the seemingly 

 kind heart of the Blue Ridge. 



Yet even as the Virginia mountains secrete rocky 

 dens in their sheltering woods — to which woods 

 many a time we have climbed, carrying lunches tied 

 to our saddles, perpendicular ascents meaning noth- 

 ing to a Virginia bred horse — so does her man of 

 mystery expand on occasion — to some congenial 

 stranger, eager to take potluck with his host in a 



