The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On | Page 9

That you, Mr. Lisner? This is Kitty Foy," he said sweetly.
"Sheriff, I hate to bother you, but old Nueces River, your chief of
police, is out of town. And I thought you ought to know that the police
force is all balled up. They're here at the Gadsden Purchase. Bell
Applegate is sick--seems to be indigestion; Espalin is having a nervous
spell; and Ben Creagan is bleeding from his happiest vein. You'd better
come see to 'em. Good-by!"
Pringle smiled benevolently from the door.
"There! I almost forgot to tell you boys. We disapprove of your actions
oh-very-much! You know you were doing what was very, very
wrong--like three little mice that were playing in the barn though the
old mouse said: 'Little mice, beware! When the owl comes singing
"Too-whoo" take care!' If you do it again we shall consider it
deliberately unfriendly of you.... Well, I'll toddle my decrepit old bones
out of this. Eleven o'clock! How time has flown, to be sure! Thank you
for a pleasant evening. Good-by, George. Good-by, all! Be good little
boys--go nighty-nighty!"
They raced to the corner, scurried down the first side street, turned
again, and slowed to a gallop. Pringle was in high feather; he caroled
blithesome as he rode:
"So those three little owls flew back up in the barn-- Inky, dinky,
doodum, day! And they said, 'Those little mice make us feel so nice and
warm!' Inky, dinky, doodum, day! Then they all began to sing,
'Too-whit! Too-who!' I don't think much of this song, do you? But
there's one thing about it--'tis certainly true-- Inky, dinky, doodum,
day!"
They reached the open; the gallop became a trot.
"I go north here," said Foy at the cross-roads above the town. "Which
way for you?"
"North too," said Pringle. "I don't know just where, but you can tell me.
I go to a railroad station first--Aden. Then to the Vorhis place?"

"Vorhis? I'm going there myself?" said Foy. "You didn't tell me your
name yet."
"Pringle."
"What? Not John Wesley Pringle? Great Scott, man! I've heard Stella
talk about you a thousand times. Say, I'm sure glad to meet you! My
name's Foy--Christopher Foy."
"Why, yes," said Pringle. "I think I've heard Stella speak of you, too."
Chapter III
Being a child must have been great fun--once. Nowadays one would as
lief be a Strasburg goose. When you and I went to school it was not
quite so bad. True, neither of us could now extract a cube root with a
stump puller, and it is sad to reflect how little call life has made for
duodecimals. Sometimes it seems that all our struggle with moody
verbs and insubordinate conjunctions was a wicked waste--poor little
sleepy puzzleheads! But there were certain joyous facts which we
remember yet. Lake Erie was very like a whale; Lake Ontario was a
seal; and Italy was a boot.
The great Chihuahuan desert is a boot too; a larger boot than Italy. The
leg of it is in Mexico, the toe is in Arizona, the heel in New Mexico;
and the Jornado is in the boot-heel.
El Jornado del Muerto--the Journey of the Dead Man! From what dim
old legend has the name come down? No one knows. The name has
outlived the story.
Perhaps some grim, hard-riding Spaniard made his last ride here; weary
at last of war, turned his dead face back to Spain and the pleasant
valleys of his childhood. We have a glimpse of him, small in the
mighty silence; his faithful few about him, with fearful backward
glances; a gray sea of waving grama breaking at their feet; the great
mountains looking down on them. Plymouth Rock is unnamed
yet.--Then the mist shuts down.

The Santa Fé Trail reaches across the Jornado; tradition tells of vague,
wild battles with Apache and Navajo; there are grave-cairns on lone
dim ridges, whereon each passer casts a stone. Young mothers dreamed
over the cradles of those who now sleep here, undreaming; here is the
end of all dreams.
Doniphan passed this way; Kit Carson rode here; the Texans journeyed
north along that old road in '62--to return no more.
These were but passers-by. The history of the Jornado, of indwellers
named and known, begins with six Americans, as follows: Sandoval, a
Mexican; Toussaint, a Frenchman; Fest, a German; Martin, a German;
Roullier, a Swiss; and Teagardner, a Welshman.
You might have thought the Jornado a vast and savage waste or a
pleasant place and a various. That depended upon you. Materials for
either opinion were plenty; lava flow, saccaton flats, rolling sand hills
sage-brush, mesquite and yucca, bunch grass and shallow lakes, bench
and hill, ridge and groundswell and wandering draw; always the great
mountains round about; the mountains and the warm sun over