Two or three times Bob Flick had come up and remained several days, and on these occasions Pearl had roused somewhat from her indifference to life.  On his last visit, late in September, he had succeeded in persuading her to ride again, and had sent down to the desert for a horse for her.  She would not admit at first that she enjoyed being in the saddle again, but to his unexpressed satisfaction it was obvious that she did.

The crystalline, amber air was like wine; the mountains were a mosaic of color; the trees burned red and yellow, glowing torches of autumn, and accentuating all their ephemeral and regal splendor; among them, yet never of them, were the green austere pines marching in their serried ranks, on, on up the hillsides to timber line.

One day, as Pearl and Flick rode among the hills, a flood of sunlight falling about them, crimson and yellow leaves blowing on the wind, she expressed, for the first time, an interest in the desert and a desire to see it again.

“I’ll have to go back sometime, Bob, I suppose,” she said, “if it’s only to see Lolita.”

“I nearly brought her up with me,” he said.  “I thought maybe she’d stand it all right for a day or two; then I got afraid she’d sicken right away in this rare air, and I didn’t dare.”

“I guess so,” sighed Pearl; “but, goodness!  I’d sure like to see her again.  I’d most give anything to hear her say, ’mi jasmin, Pearl, mi corazon.’”

“We understand each other, you and me and Lolita,” returned Flick.  “We all got the South in us, I reckon that’s why.”

“Maybe,” she answered.  “Yes, I’d like to see Lolita and mother.  She won’t leave her chickens and melons and sweet potatoes and all long enough to come up here, and, oh, there’s times when I feel like I’d most give my eyes to see the desert again; but I couldn’t stand it yet, Bob, not yet.”

A shade had fallen over her face as she spoke and, to divert her, he began to speak of Jose.  “Doesn’t he make you laugh?” he asked.  “He keeps everybody else on the broad grin.”

“Men,” she said scornfully.  “I think he works a charm on you that you all put yourselves in danger for a thing like that.  Sometimes he makes me laugh—­a little; but if I had my way I would waste no time in putting him in prison where he belongs.  What is it you see in him?”

“I don’t believe women do like Jose much,” reflected Flick.

“Except Nitschkan,” replied Pearl.  “She says she’s trying to reform him and save his soul; but it mostly consists in getting him to do all the odd jobs she can think of, and Mrs. Thomas is trying to flirt with him.”

“I guess you don’t like him, because you don’t see him as he is,” ruminated Bob Flick.  “He’s not afraid of anything; he’ll take chances, just without thinking of them, that I don’t believe another man on earth would.  He’s always good-natured and amusing, and look how he can cook, Pearl,” turning in his saddle, “just think of that!  Why, he could take a piece of sole leather and make it taste like venison.”