Hearts Desire | Page 5

said Curly. "They're there, sir, four cans of 'em. You know
where the Carrizo spring is? Well, there's a snowbank in that cañon,
about two hundred yards off to the left of the spring. The oysters is in
there. Keep? They got to keep!
"Them's the only oysters ever was knowed between the Pecos and the

Rio Grande," he continued pridefully. "Now I want to ask you, friend,
if this ain't just a leetle the dashed blamedest, hottest Christmas dinner
ever was pulled off?"
"Curly," said I, "you are a continuous surprise to me."
"The trouble with you is," said Curly, lighting another cigarette, "you
look the wrong way from the top of the divide. Never mind about home
and mother. Them is States institooshuns. The only feller any good
here is the feller that comes to stay, and likes it. You like it?"
"Yes, Curly," I replied seriously, "I do like it, and I'm going to stay if I
can."
"Well, you be mighty blamed careful if that's the way you feel about
it," said Curly. "I got my own eye on that girl from Kansas, and I serve
notice right here. No use for you or Mac or any of you to be a-tryin' to
cut out any stock for me. I seen it first."
We dropped down and ever down as we rode on along the winding
mountain trail. The dark sides of the Patos Mountains edged around to
the back of us, and the scarred flanks of big Carrizo came farther and
farther forward along our left cheeks as we rode on. Then the trail made
a sharp bend to the left, zigzagged a bit to get through a series of
broken ravines, and at last topped the low false divide which rose at the
upper end of the valley of Heart's Desire.
It was a spot lovely, lovable. Nothing in all the West is more fit to
linger in a man's memory than the imperious sun rising above the
valley of Heart's Desire; nothing unless it were the royal purple of the
sunset, trailed like a robe across the shoulders of the grave unsmiling
hills, which guarded it round about. In Heart's Desire it was so calm, so
complete, so past and beyond all fret and worry and caring. Perhaps the
man who named it did so in grim jest, as was the manner of the early
bitter ones who swept across the Western lands. Perhaps again he
named it at sunset, and did so reverently. God knows he named it right.
There was no rush nor hurry, no bickering nor envying, no crowding

nor thieving there. Heart's Desire! It was well named, indeed; fit capital
for the malcontents who sought oblivion, dreaming, long as they might,
that Life can be left aside when one grows weary of it; dreaming--ah!
deep, foolish, golden dream--that somewhere there is on earth an Eden
with no Eve and without a flaming sword!
The town all lay along one deliberate, crooked street, because the
arroyo along which it straggled was crooked. Its buildings were mostly
of adobe, with earthen roofs, so low that when one saw a rainstorm
coming in the rainy season (when it rained invariably once a day), he
went forth with a shovel and shingled his roof anew, standing on the
ground as he did so. There were a few cabins built of logs, but very few.
Only one or two stores had the high board front common in Western
villages. Lumber was very scarce and carpenters still scarcer. How the
family from Kansas had happened to drift into Heart's Desire--how a
man of McKinney's intelligence had come to settle there--how Dan
Anderson, a very good lawyer, happened to have tarried there--how
indeed any of us happened to be there, are questions which may best be
solved by those who have studied the West-bound, the dream-bound,
the malcontents. At any rate, here we were, and it was Christmas-time.
The very next morning would be that of Christmas Day.

CHAPTER II
THE DINNER AT HEART'S DESIRE
_This continuing the Relation of Curly, the Can of Oysters, and the Girl
from Kansas; and Introducing Others_
There were no stockings hung up in Heart's Desire that Christmas Eve,
for all the population was adult, male, and stern of habit. The great
moon flooded the street with splendor. Afar there came voices of
rioting. There were some adherents to the traditions of the South in
regard to firecrackers at Yuletide, albeit the six-shooter furnished the
only firecracker obtainable. Yet upon that night the very shots seemed
cheerful, not ominous, as was usually the case upon that long and

crooked street, which had seen duels, affairs, affrays,--even riots of
mounted men in the days when the desperadoes of the range came
riding into