incense to his gods.  A true adventurer, albeit timid, he journeyed not knowing why, but rather because he knew no reason for not journeying.  Wrapped in his vague imaginings he swung along, peering ahead from time to time until at last he saw upon the far background of the night a darker something shaped like a tiny mound.  “That’s her!” he exclaimed, joyously, and quickened his pace.  “But Gee Gosh!  I guess them fellas forgot I was afoot.  That hill looks turruble far off.  Mebby because it’s dark.”  The distant hill seemed to keep pace ahead of him, sliding away into the southern night as he advanced.  Having that stubbornness so frequently associated with timidity, he plodded on, determined to top the hill before morning.  “Them fellas as rides don’t know how far things are,” he commented.  “But, anyhow, the folks at that hotel will sure know I want the job, walkin’ all night for it.”

Gradually the outline of the hill became bolder.  Sundown estimated that he had been traveling several hours, when the going stiffened to a slow grade.  Presently the grade became steep and rocky.  Thus far the road had led straight south.  Now it swung to the west and skirted the base of the hill in a gradual ascent.  Then it swung back again following a fairly easy slope to the top.  His optimism waned as he saw no light ahead.  The night grew colder.  The stars flickered as the wind of the dawn, whispering over the grasses, touched his face.  He paused for a moment on the crest of the hill, turned to look back, and then started down the slope.  It was steep and rutted.  He had not gone far when he stumbled and fell.  His blanket-roll had pitched ahead of him.  He fumbled about for it and finally found it.  “Them as believes in signs would say it was about time to go to roost,” he remarked, nursing his knee that had been cut on a fragment of ragged tufa.  A coyote wailed.  Sundown started up.  “Some lonesome.  But she sure is one grand old night!  Guess I’ll turn in.”

He rolled in his blankets.  Hardly had he adjusted his length of limb to the unevenness of the ground when he fell asleep.  He had come twenty-five miles across the midnight mesas.  Five miles below him was his destination, shrouded by the night, but visioned in his dreams as a palatial summer resort, aglow with lights and eagerly awaiting the coming of the new cook.

The dawn, edging its slow way across the mesas, struck palely on the hillside where he slept.  A rabbit, huddled beneath a scrub-cedar, hopped to the middle of the road and sat up, staring with moveless eyes at the motionless hump of blanket near the road.  In a flash the wide mesas were tinged with gold as the smouldering red sun rose, to march unclouded to the western sea.