information clerk for rates and methods of transportation for all
desert points north, south, east and west. She was the recipient of
confidences from waitresses engaged in the innocent pastime of across-
the-counter flirtations with conductors and brakemen. She was the joy
of the men and the envy of the women. In fact, Donna was an exemplified
copy of that distinctive personality with which we unconsciously invest
any young woman upon whose capable shoulders must fall such
multifarious duties as those already described; particularly when, as
in Donna's case, they are accepted and disposed of with the gentle,
kindly, interested yet impersonal manner of one who loves her little
world enough to be a very distinct part of it; yet, seeing it in its
true light, manages to hold herself aloof from it; unconsciously
conveying to one meeting her for the first time the impression that she
was in San Pasqual on her own sufferance--a sort of strayling from
another world who had picked upon the lonely little desert town as the
scene of her sphere of action for something of the same reason that
prompts other people to collect postage stamps or rare butterflies.

It has already been stated that Donna Corblay was an institution. That
is quite true. She was the mistress of the Hat Ranch.

This last statement requires elucidation. Just what is a hat ranch? you
ask. It is--a hat ranch. There is only one Hat Ranch on earth and it
may be found a half mile south of San Pasqual, a hundred yards back
from the tracks. Donna Corblay owned it, worked it in her spare moments
and made it pay.

You see, San Pasqual lies just south of Tehachapi pass, and about five
days in every week, the year round, the north wind comes whistling down
the pass. When it strikes the open desert it appears to become