290 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



for a certain nameless dignity and, as the present- 

 day word is, distinction. He did not deign to 

 break silence, or to notice in any manner, unless 

 it were by an added touch of patrician reserve, 

 the presence of three human intruders. I stared 

 at him, — exercising a cat's privilege, — for all 

 his hauteur, admiring his gray colors, his con- 

 spicuous white eye-ring, and his manner. I say 

 " manner," not " manners." You would never' 

 liken him to a dancing-master. 



He was the solitaire, I somehow felt certain 

 (certain with a lingering of uncertainty), though 

 I had forgotten aU description of that bird's ap- 

 pearance. It was the place for him, and his looks 

 went with the name. Moreover, to confess a more 

 prosaic consideration, there was nothing else he 

 could be. 



" Myadestes," I said to my two companions, 

 both unacquainted with such matters ; " I think 

 it is Myadestes, though I can't exactly tell why I 

 think so." 



We must go into the canyon a little way, gaz- 

 ing up at the waUs, picking a few of the more 

 beautiful flowers, feeling the place itself (the best 

 thing one can do, whether in a canyon or on a 

 mountain-top) ; then we came back to the hack- 

 berry trees, but the solitaire was no longer in 

 them. I had had my opportunity, and perhaps 



