“Please defer your oration until it is too dark to see,” begged Grace laughingly. “I prefer to enjoy the view now.”
“Hippy being wound up, you can’t stop him. I know, for I have tried many, many times,” whispered Nora.
“Set in the sapphire rocks of the great colorful mountains, held back by the dam, like Hoppi, the Nile God, at whose magic touch the mighty Egyptian River brings forth such abundance, our prosaic Uncle Sam is causing the desert—Whoa! Wha—”
Lieutenant Wingate’s pony, left to its own devices while its master was lost in the glory of his own oratory, had nosed off the trail to browse, and stepped on a rounded rock. The pony, in trying to recover its balance, went down violently on its knees. Hippy went over the animal’s head, landing on his back in the dirt at the side of the trail.
Hippy uttered a grunt when he struck the ground.
“He’s killed! He’s killed!” cried Nora. “Serve him right if he is.”
“Oh, Nora, don’t say that,” begged Grace, restraining her laughter.
Hippy sat up slowly and picked up his sombrero.
“As I was saying when, for the moment checked by this trifling brute-interruption,” spoke Hippy, “our prosaic Uncle Sam is causing the desert to bloom as the rose. The dam is two hundred and eighty feet high. That is the distance through which the overflow falls into Salt River Canyon. Ladies and gentlemen—that includes myself—I have finished.” Hippy got up and began brushing the dirt from his clothes.
“The kind Fates be thanked,” murmured Elfreda Briggs.