When dreams come true

by Ritter Brown

The Captain's gaze was riveted upon Chiquita's tall, erect figure in front of him who ever and anon turned in the saddle and smiled, her beautiful, lustrous eyes flashing like stars in the moon-fire.

Higher and higher they mounted, pausing occasionally to allow the horses time to draw breath, until they at length drew rein on the summit of the Sierra Madres. Here a wonderful sight met their eyes, poised as they were upon the rim of the earth and gazing off into star-strewn space. Dawn was just breaking, suffusing the long line of the eastern horizon with a soft, rosy glow which crept swiftly towards them over the gray-green, purple plains that swept away from the mountains' base like vast undulating stretches of ocean; the golden shafts of the on-coming dawn driving the paling stars before them like a shepherd his flocks to the hills. North and south, as far as the eye could reach, stretched the broken and many crested length of the great Sierra Madre range; its sides clothed with dark forests of cedar and pine and chaparral, its secluded recesses obscured in the gloom; its highest peaks glowing with golden, pink and violet tints. In the west, surrounded by a host of golden stars that still glittered in the purple black depths of vanishing night, the silver moon hung half-way dipped as it slowly sank behind the towering crest of the Sahuaripa range, an isolated spur of the Sierra Madres. A vast plain intervened between them and the distant Sierras at whose foot dwelt the Tewana.

Far below them, from out the shadowy depths on either side of the range, arose faint sounds of awakening life. The breeze began to sigh among the tree tops, while high above them they heard the wild scream of eagles that soared in great circles with widespread pinions in their morning flight to greet the sun. Great waves of indefinable melody, more subtle and exquisite than music, swept over them, causing their souls to quicken and tingle in the freshening dawn as the Day Star rose to hold again his sway over earth. His mighty splendor and effulgence swept through and over them, their souls vibrating with renewed life and vigor as they felt and recognized God's sign and immanence as in the days when man first walked with Him in the cool of the morning.

They realized that they had entered upon the new life. The promise was fulfilled—the veil was lifted. The scroll of human destiny seemed to unroll itself from out the dim traditions of the past, and they beheld as in a dream the life that was when first the children of men roamed the earth and established the Kingdom of God which was intended from the beginning. In the picture of the golden childhood of the race, they beheld reflected in the new light of the future, the vision of the emancipated, delivered man, guided by the lessons still to be learned from the great Book of Nature lying open before him, and the accumulated wisdom of past ages, handed down to him by his forefathers through travail and suffering and in legend and song from those ancient days of suns and nights of stars when the earth and man were young. A

freeborn race of men who are joint tenants of the soil, sharing all things in common with which their bountiful Mother, the Earth, has provided them. A race of men, athletic in body as they are able in mind, and spiritual and courageous, recognizing no laws but those of Nature's or God's.

In silence and with bared heads they gazed upon the grandeur of the scene that lay spread out before them. It was as though they looked back upon the old life from another world. It lay so far behind them that it seemed but a memory; not a vestige of it clung to them, so filled were they with new hopes and aspirations.

"Behold!" cried José excitedly, pointing toward the west. And looking in the direction indicated by his outstretched arm, they beheld in the dim distance numerous columns of smoke rising heavenward in the clear morning air from the tops of the mesas that dotted the plain.

"'Tis the sign of your coming, Princess!" he continued. "The people have bowed to the will of the White Cloud—acknowledged the authority of the White Chief."

Parrakeets began to twitter among the branches of the trees on every hand during their descent of the western slope. Ravens croaked and called from the heart of the forest, and the owl flitted by on silent wing. Black birds with orange heads and throats and splashed with scarlet on their wings, greeted them at the foot of the mountain among the reeds which grew along the stream they were following. Deer broke from the willow copse and bounded away, while grouse rose on whirring wings from under the horses' hoofs as they emerged upon the plain where the wild cry of the curlew rang clear and sharp on the morning. They were free and breathed deep of the spirit of freedom; listened to the old primeval song of nature's myriad voices; gazed long upon the pristine loveliness of earth.

All that day and the three following, the columns of smoke continued to rise heavenward as they pursued their journey. At night, pillars of fire took the place of the smoke, and all the while, save for an occasional glimpse in the distance of a solitary horseman who faded specterlike from view on their approach, they saw not a soul.