At his feet the plain broke away sharply, in a series of steplike sandy benches, to where the Rio Grande bore quartering across the desert, turning to the Mexican sea; the Mesilla Valley here, a slender ribbon of mossy green, broidered with loops of flashing river—­a ribbon six miles by forty, orchard, woodland, and green field, greener for the desolate gray desert beyond and the yellow hills of sand edging the valley floor.  Below him Las Uvas, chief town of the valley, lay basking in the sun, tiny square and street bordered with greenery:  its domino houses white-walled in the sun, with larger splashes of red from courthouse or church or school.

Far on the westering desert, beyond the valley, Pringle saw a white feather of smoke from a toiling train; beyond that a twisting gap in the blue of the westmost range.

“That’s our road.”  He lifted his bridle rein.  “Amble along, Sam!”

To that amble he crooned to himself, pleasantly, half-dreamily—­as if he voiced indirectly some inner thought—­quaint snatches of old song: 

"She came to the gate and she peeped in—­ Grass and the weeds up to her chin; Said, ’A rake and a hoe and a fantail plow Would suit you better than a wife just now.’"

And again: 

    "Schooldays are over now,
      Lost all our bliss;
    But love remembers yet
      Quarrel and kiss. 
    Still, as in days of yore——­“

Then, after a long silence, with a thoughtful earnestness that Rainbow would scarce have credited, he quoted a verse from what he was wont to call Billy Beebe’s Bible: 

      "One Moment in Annihilation’s waste,
      One Moment of the Well of Life to taste—­
      The Stars are setting, and the Caravan
    Starts for the Dawn of——­Nothing.  Oh, make haste!"

After late dinner at the Gadsden Purchase, Pringle had tidings of the Motion Picture Palace; and thither he bent his steps.  He was late and the palace was a very small palace indeed; it was with difficulty that he spied in the semidarkness an empty seat in a side section.  A fat lady and a fatter man, in the seats nearest the aisle, obligingly moved over rather than risk any attempt to squeeze by.

Beyond them, as he took the end seat, Pringle was dimly aware of a girl who looked at him rather attentively.

He turned his mind to the screen, where a natty and noble young man, with a chin, bit off his words distinctly and smote his extended palm with folded gloves to emphasize the remarks he was making to a far less natty man with black mustaches.  John Wesley rightly concluded that this second man, who gnashed his teeth so convincingly, and at whom an incredibly beautiful young lady looked with haughty disdain, was the villain, and foiled.

The blond and shaven hero, with a magnificent gesture, motioned the villain to begone!  That baffled person, after waiting long enough to register despair, spread his fingers across his brow and be-went; the hero turned, held out his arms; the scornful young beauty crept into them.  Click!  On the screen appeared a scroll: