“Up in the mountains back of my ranch there’s a lost mine,” said Stillwell.  “Mebbe it’s only a legend.  But somehow I believe it’s there.  Other lost mines hev been found.  An’ as fer’ the rollin’ stones, I sure know thet’s true, as any one can find out if he goes trailin’ up the gulch.  Mebbe thet’s only the weatherin’ of the cliffs.  It’s a sleepy, strange country, this Southwest, an’, Miss Majesty, you’re a-goin’ to love it.  You’ll call it ro-mantic, Wal, I reckon ro-mantic is correct.  A feller gets lazy out hyar an’ dreamy, an’ he wants to put off work till to-morrow.  Some folks say it’s a land of manana—­a land of to-morrow.  Thet’s the Mexican of it.

“But I like best to think of what a lady said to me onct—­an eddicated lady like you, Miss Majesty.  Wal, she said it’s a land where it’s always afternoon.  I liked thet.  I always get up sore in the mawnin’s, an’ don’t feel good till noon.  But in the afternoon I get sorta warm an’ like things.  An’ sunset is my time.  I reckon I don’t want nothin’ any finer than sunset from my ranch.  You look out over a valley that spreads wide between Guadalupe Mountains an’ the Chiricahuas, down across the red Arizona desert clear to the Sierra Madres in Mexico.  Two hundred miles, Miss Majesty!  An’ all as clear as print!  An’ the sun sets behind all thet!  When my time comes to die I’d like it to be on my porch smokin’ my pipe an’ facin’ the west.”

So the old cattleman talked on while Madeline listened, and Florence dozed in her seat, and the sun began to wane, and the horses climbed steadily.  Presently, at the foot of the steep ascent, Stillwell got out and walked, leading the team.  During this long climb fatigue claimed Madeline, and she drowsily closed her eyes, to find when she opened them again that the glaring white sky had changed to a steel-blue.  The sun had sunk behind the foothills and the air was growing chilly.  Stillwell had returned to the driving-seat and was chuckling to the horses.  Shadows crept up out of the hollows.

“Wal, Flo,” said Stillwell, “I reckon we’d better hev the rest of thet there lunch before dark.”

“You didn’t leave much of it,” laughed Florence, as she produced the basket from under the seat.

While they ate, the short twilight shaded and gloom filled the hollows.  Madeline saw the first star, a faint, winking point of light.  The sky had now changed to a hazy gray.  Madeline saw it gradually clear and darken, to show other faint stars.  After that there was perceptible deepening of the gray and an enlarging of the stars and a brightening of new-born ones.  Night seemed to come on the cold wind.  Madeline was glad to have the robes close around her and to lean against Florence.  The hollows were now black, but the tops of the foothills gleamed pale in a soft light.  The steady tramp of the horses went on, and the creak of wheels and crunching of gravel.  Madeline grew so sleepy