“Aren’t you co-cold?” asked Madeline.

“I?” Florence laughed.  “I’m used to it.  I never get cold.”

The Western girl sat with ungloved hands on the outside of the robe she evidently did not need to draw up around her.  Madeline thought she had never seen such a clear-eyed, healthy, splendid girl.

“Do you like to see the sun rise?” asked Florence.

“Yes, I think I do,” replied Madeline, thoughtfully.  “Frankly, I have not seen it for years.”

“We have beautiful sunrises, and sunsets from the ranch are glorious.”

Long lines of pink fire ran level with the eastern horizon, which appeared to recede as day brightened.  A bank of thin, fleecy clouds was turning rose.  To the south and west the sky was dark; but every moment it changed, the blue turning bluer.  The eastern sky was opalescent.  Then in one place gathered a golden light, and slowly concentrated till it was like fire.  The rosy bank of cloud turned to silver and pearl, and behind it shot up a great circle of gold.  Above the dark horizon gleamed an intensely bright disk.  It was the sun.  It rose swiftly, blazing out the darkness between the ridges and giving color and distance to the sweep of land.

“Wal, wal,” drawled Stillwell, and stretched his huge arms as if he had just awakened, “thet’s somethin’ like.”

Florence nudged Madeline and winked at her.

“Fine mawnin’, girls,” went on old Bill, cracking his whip.  “Miss Majesty, it’ll be some oninterestin’ ride all mawnin’.  But when we get up a bit you’ll sure like it.  There!  Look to the southwest, jest over thet farthest ridge.”

Madeline swept her gaze along the gray, sloping horizon-line to where dark-blue spires rose far beyond the ridge.

“Peloncillo Mountains,” said Stillwell.  “Thet’s home, when we get there.  We won’t see no more of them till afternoon, when they rise up sudden-like.”

Peloncillo!  Madeline murmured the melodious name.  Where had she heard it?  Then she remembered.  The cowboy Stewart had told the little Mexican girl Bonita to “hit the Peloncillo trail.”  Probably the girl had ridden the big, dark horse over this very road at night, alone.  Madeline had a little shiver that was not occasioned by the cold wind.

“There’s a jack!” cried Florence, suddenly.

Madeline saw her first jack-rabbit.  It was as large as a dog, and its ears were enormous.  It appeared to be impudently tame, and the horses kicked dust over it as they trotted by.  From then on old Bill and Florence vied with each other in calling Madeline’s attention to many things along the way.  Coyotes stealing away into the brush; buzzards flapping over the carcass of a cow that had been mired in a wash; queer little lizards running swiftly across the road; cattle grazing in the hollows; adobe huts of Mexican herders; wild, shaggy horses, with heads high, watching from the gray ridges—­all these things Madeline looked