getting away from an old basic truth that a man's life is so strongly
influenced as almost to be moulded by his environment; there was
uneasiness in the thought that here one's existence might grow to
resemble his habitat, taking on the gray tone and monotony and bleak
barrenness of this sun-smitten land.

Yielding a little already to the command laid upon breathing nature
hereabouts, she was lying still, her hands lax, her thoughts taking
unto themselves something of the character of the listless, songless
brown bird's flight. She had come here to-day following in the
footsteps of other men and a few women. Her own selection of San Juan
was explicable; the thing to wonder at was what had given the hardihood
to the first men to stop here and make houses and then homes? Later
she would know; the one magic word of the desert lands: water. For San
Juan, standing midway between the railroad and the more tempting lands
beyond the mountains, had found birth because here was a mud-hole for
cradle; down under the sand were fortuitous layers of impervious clay
cupping to hold much sweet water.

The slow tolling of a bell came billowing out through the silence. The
girl sat up. It was the Captain. Never, it seemed to her, had she
heard anything so mournful. Ignacio had informed himself concerning
all details and had returned to the garden at the Mission. The man was
dead, then. There could be no doubt as one listened to the measured
sorrowing of the big bell.

She got to her feet and, walking swiftly, moved on, still farther from
San Juan. The act was without premeditation; her whole being was
insistent upon it. She wondered if it was the sheepman from Las
Palmas; if he had, perhaps, a wife and children. Then she stopped