She heeded not the half-tamed Indian on the trail; but the insolent
leer of Sonora's scum, the brutalized peon, the low caste chulo of
Chihuahua, froze into the panic-stare of abject terror under the
straight glance of her eye. The slightest motion of her tender hand
to him augured a sudden death, for she was of Arizona's daughters,
invulnerable in the armor of their self-reliant strength, a shield of
lovely innocence, white as the snow is driven.
On the Mesa del Mogollon, in the darkling Coconino Forest she
interviewed the cowboy, that valiant belted knight of modern western
chivalry, and in the chaparral she cheered the lonesome herder.
In the treasure-vaults of earth, a thousand feet below the surface,
invading the domain of Pluto's treacherous gnomes she met the
hardiest man in Arizona, the miner, who always happy is and full of
hope.
Poor fellows, they hobnob with death and do not mind it!
Floods of rivers, cloudbursts in narrow gorges, the lightning of the
hills, blinding and smothering sandstorms on the desert detained her
not, for in her chosen path not on delay she thought.
By fragrant orange groves in the valley of Saltriver, past "lowing
kine on pastures green," under the luring shade of palms, among the
vines she passed.
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