For, the world over, under white skin or skin of bronze-brown, the human heart throbs the same; for we are brothers—ay! brothers all.
Yet, even so, there is still the point of view.
WHERE THE BURROS BROWSED
“HELLO, Dick!”
“Hello, Reddy!”
Seven little gray burros—browsing upon the dust-covered chamiso—lifted their heads at the words; and turned seven mealy noses and seven pairs of inquisitive ears toward the speakers in indolent curiosity.
The two men who met upon the mesa had been drawing slowly together on the long white road winding up toward the mountain a dozen miles away. The dust, raised by the shuffling feet of their horses, floated—a long streamer of white—down toward the muddy, crooked river in the valley far below. The dust had whitened, too, the slouch hats and worn blue overalls they wore; and their faces were marked with furrows, burned deep by the harsh, relentless sun of the plains. It was pouring its rays down now with the fierce malignance of some demon bent on destroying every vestige of plant-life that had the temerity to put forth its young shoots; and save for the scant bunch-grass, and the sage, and the greasewood, and a few distant and scattering junipers that grew dark upon the mountains beyond, no growth of vegetation was to be seen. It was within an hour of noon, and the scorching rays descended upon the blistered earth through a silver-gray haze that—reaching across the valley—quivered over the scene like the heat that comes through an open furnace-door.
Little gray lizards with black, shining eyes; little horned toads with prickly backs, lay with palpitating bodies in the scant shade. The saucy Paiute squirrels which earlier in the day darted in and out of their burrows, had now disappeared into subterranean darkness. Jack-rabbits, with limp ears lying back, crouched under the edges of the greasewood. The three horses stood with listless, drooping heads; the two men sat with listless, drooping bodies—one leaning forward to rest his crossed arms on the horn of the Mexican saddle he bestrode; the other, with loosely held reins between his fingers, leaned with his elbows on his knees.