Brainard stared out into the grim Arizona landscape, before which rose the deserted mansion. There was a Melody! He had never really doubted her existence, but this assurance of his conviction pleased him, even though she might not be all that his ardent fancy had imagined.
“And now the house is empty, same as the mine, and I dunno what will become of it all. Sold for taxes, I expect, if they can git any one to buy it!”
They strolled up the road in the direction of the house upon the hill. The austere dusk of the desert was settling over the dreary habitations of Monument. Far away along the horizon purple mountains lifted their heads in grandeur.
The house was so placed that it gave a large view of the horizon from the mountains to the distant rim of the desert and again to mountains. Close beneath, in wide folds, the river bed wound its serpent course westward into the dusk. Before the broad southern veranda there were signs of old flower beds, which had once been cherished with precious water brought in iron pipes from the river below. The great white pillars had peeled their one coat of paint, and underfoot the sun-dried boards rattled.
The scene was large and grand, but inhumanly empty—as empty as the great house itself. No wonder that the young girl, her mother dead, had fled from this parched desert and these bony mountains in search of the world of men and women, in search of life!
“Kind of lonesome here?” the miner observed.
“It’s like death!”
“But you get used of it, same as death. . . . She and her mother stayed here by themselves after the old man went, and I guess the girl had enough of it.”
“How old was she, do you think?”
The old miner wrinkled his brows thoughtfully.