He sleeps, by the snows enfolded
In a mantle of wintry white."
"'A lone pine'—that's so, a lone pine like that one over the prospector's grave. I reckon if that lode there turns out all that Rocky said I'll have to call it Lone Pine. Suits me, too, the name does; I've always played a lone hand; ay, and I know what the barren mountain heights are, if any man ever did, and many's the time I've slept on them with the snow over me for a blanket—"
"He dreams of a lonely palm-tree
Afar in the morning land"—
"'He dreams of a palm-tree'—no, that's not me, after all. I haven't dreamt much. Yes, by thunder, I have though! I dreamt some up in the sierra. I dreamt a lot of queer things by that old cliff-dweller's fire I relit after I found the Lone Pine; I thought this whole New Mexican country here was asleep, and that maybe I was the man to wake her up. Ah, and I thought, too, that I must have been asleep myself to have played a lone hand so long when I needn't, when I might have had a woman's love, and got some joy and happiness into life instead of toughing it out in solitude. I believe I've been a blamed idiot."
He listened as in a trance to the throbbing, wailing strings, while the sweet voice of the girl sang the last verse a second time—
"He dreams of a lonely palm-tree,
Afar in the morning land,