Off to the left the Patos Mountains showed patches of snow, and the top of Carrizo was yet whiter, and even a portion of the highest peak of the Capitans carried a blanket of white; but all the lower levels were red-brown, calm, complete, unchanging, like the whole aspect of this far-away and finished country, whereto had come, long ago, many Spaniards in search of wealth and dreams; and more recently certain Anglo-Saxons, also dreaming, who sought in a stolen hiatus of the continental conquest nothing of more value than a deep and sweet oblivion.
It was a Christmas-tide different enough from that of the States toward which Curly pointed.

We looked eastward, looked again, turned back for one last look before we tightened the cinches and started down the winding trail which led through the foothills along the flank of the Patos Mountains, and so at last into the town of Heart's Desire.
"Lord!" said Curly, reminiscently, and quite without connection with any thought which had been uttered.

"Say, it was fine, wasn't it, Christmas?
We allus had firecrackers then.

And eat! Why, man!" This allusion to the firecrackers would have determined that Curly had come from the South, which alone has a midwinter Fourth of July, possibly because the populace is not content with only one annual smell of gunpowder.

"We had trees where I came from," said I.