"Perhaps it is just a mirage," I suggested hopefully, "like that beautiful lake we saw on the plains in Kansas, with the trees around it. That was nothing but a heated haze and our thirsty imaginations."
"That's no mirage, it's the real thing," declared Tom. "You'll see in a half hour."
"A half hour," laughed Jim, scornfully, "you've been in the West all this time and can't tell distance better than that. It will take us a good three hours to reach it."
Jim hit it about right, for it took us three hours and a half before we came within striking distance of the mesa.
"It looks like quite a town up there," said Jim, "but nobody seems to be at home."
I took off my sombrero and began to brush down my shock of light hair. "I must slick up," I announced, "if we are going into society. Lend me your mirror, Tommy."
"I'll lend you a kick," he offered, as he rode alongside, and shot his moccasined foot out, but missed me and hit Coyote in the flanks, making him jump.
"You do that again to my horse and I'll bump your nose for you," I cried, hotly.
I would not have minded it if he had landed on me. Tom knew that I meant business and refrained from further exercises along that line.
"Just look at the dust on your clothes, Thomas, I'm ashamed of you," I continued, after a moment, "and you have no more polish on your moccasins than you have on your manners."