Another dawn found Gale so much recovered that he arose and looked after himself, not, however, without considerable difficulty and rather disheartening twinges of pain.

Some time during the morning he heard the girls in the patio and called to ask if he might join them.  He received one response, a mellow, “Si, Senor.”  It was not as much as he wanted, but considering that it was enough, he went out.  He had not as yet visited the patio, and surprise and delight were in store for him.  He found himself lost in a labyrinth of green and rose-bordered walks.  He strolled around, discovering that the patio was a courtyard, open at an end; but he failed to discover the young ladies.  So he called again.  The answer came from the center of the square.  After stooping to get under shrubs and wading through bushes he entered an open sandy circle, full of magnificent and murderous cactus plants, strange to him.  On the other side, in the shade of a beautiful tree, he found the girls.  Mercedes sitting in a hammock, Nell upon a blanket.

“What a beautiful tree!” he exclaimed.  “I never saw one like that.  What is it?”

“Palo verde,” replied Nell.

“Senor, palo verde means ‘green tree,’” added Mercedes.

This desert tree, which had struck Dick as so new and strange and beautiful, was not striking on account of size, for it was small, scarcely reaching higher than the roof; but rather because of its exquisite color of green, trunk and branch alike, and owing to the odd fact that it seemed not to possess leaves.  All the tree from ground to tiny flat twigs was a soft polished green.  It bore no thorns.

Right then and there began Dick’s education in desert growths; and he felt that even if he had not had such charming teachers he would still have been absorbed.  For the patio was full of desert wonders.  A twisting-trunked tree with full foliage of small gray leaves Nell called a mesquite.  Then Dick remembered the name, and now he saw where the desert got its pale-gray color.  A huge, lofty, fluted column of green was a saguaro, or giant cactus.  Another oddshaped cactus, resembling the legs of an inverted devil-fish, bore the name ocatillo.  Each branch rose high and symmetrical, furnished with sharp blades that seemed to be at once leaves and thorns.  Yet another cactus interested Gale, and it looked like a huge, low barrel covered with green-ribbed cloth and long thorns.  This was the bisnaga, or barrel cactus.  According to Nell and Mercedes, this plant was a happy exception to its desert neighbors, for it secreted water which had many times saved the lives of men.  Last of the cacti to attract Gale, and the one to make him shiver, was a low plant, consisting of stem and many rounded protuberances of a frosty, steely white, and covered with long murderous spikes.  From this plant the desert got its frosty glitter.  It was as stiff, as unyielding as steel, and bore the name choya.