So we left the shadow of the tall elms and strolled up the main street
toward the west.
Where the one cross-street cut the trail in the center of the village
there was a public well. The ground around it was trampled into mud by
many hoofs. A Mexican train had just come in and was grouped about this
well, drinking eagerly.
"What news of the plains?" I asked their leader as we passed.
"I cannot tell you with the lady here," he replied, bowing courteously.
"It is too awful. A spear hung with a scalp of pretty baby hair like
hers. I see it yet. The plains are all _alive--alive_ with hostile red
men; and the worst one of all--he that had the golden scalp--is but a
half-breed Cheyenne Dog. Never the Apaches were so bad as he."
The cattle horned about the well, with their drivers shouting and
struggling to direct them, as we went wide to avoid the mud, then passed
up to the rise beyond which lay the old trail's westward route.
The mists were rising from the lowlands; along the creek the sunset sky
was all a flaming glory, under whose deep splendor the June prairies lay
tenderly green and still; down in the village the sounds of the Mexicans
settling into camp; the shouting of children, romping late; and out
across the levels, the mooing call of milking-time from some far-away
settler's barn-yard; a robin singing a twilight song in the elms;
crickets chirping in the long grass; and the gentle evening breeze sweet
and cool out of the west--such was the setting for us two.
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