We were sitting upon the verandah oppressed with the weight of beans, bacon, and soggy biscuit. As we smoked in silence our eyes rested gloomily upon the landscape--our domain. Before us lay an amber- coloured, sun-scorched plain; beyond were the foot-hills, bristling with chaparral, scrub-oaks, pines and cedars; beyond these again rose the grey peaks of the Santa Lucia range, pricking the eastern horizon. Over all hung the palpitating skies, eternally and exasperatingly blue, a-quiver with light and heat.
"Somebody's coming," said Ajax.
The country road, white with alkaline dust, crossed the ranch at right angles. Far away, to the left, was a faint blur upon the pink hills.
"It's no wagon," said Ajax idly, "and a vaquero would never ride in the dust. It must be a buggy."
Five minutes later we could distinguish a quaint figure sitting upright in an ancient buckboard whose wheels wobbled and creaked with almost human infirmity. A mule furnished the motive power.
"Is it a man or a woman?" said Ajax.
"Possibly," I replied, "a cook."
"She is about to pay us a visit. Yes, it's a woman, a bundle of bones, dust and alpaca crowned with a sombrero. A book-agent, I swear. Go and tell her we have never learned to read."
I demurred. Finally we spun a dollar to decide upon which of us lay the brutal duty of turning away the stranger within our gates. Fortune frowned on me, and I rose reluctantly from my chair.
"Air you the hired man?" said the woman in the buggy, as I looked askance into her face.