The Coconino weekly sun., 1894-08-02

beer The windows had all been thrown open to admit the night air, which, from radiation, becomes quickly freshened in dry climates, when skies are clear and the sun has set, and bathes the thick-walled, adobe buildings, tempering them and making them habitable, and, if closed in the early morning, seem cloisters of welcome refuge, after drill or duty done in the glare and pitiless heat of day. No other mater ial known to architecture so well re- :sists the penetrating ardor of untem- pered rays shed in southern summer by cloudless sun; for adobe is of of heat and cold, and, like her, makes stubborn resistance to changing tenn perature.
 The walls of the building now seemed hot and eXhaled through the room the expiring heat of day. Stand ing near them, hot air was breathed on the face like the slow, warm breath of great animal sinking into silent sleep. The sun had set, and the dimness of twilight was creeping from the valley over the foothills and rising in shadowy cones of noun tain purple up the pine-clad slopes be- yond, spreading over forests that framed the base of frozen bastions, whose faded whiteness, seen in fail ing light, was that of snows a sunset had left cold. The curtains and Hanks of natures grand redoubt were no longer visible, for the fugitive after-glow had faded into gray, and the sharp tracery of the divide was lost for want of light.
 Through the open window we could see the sentry-lamps, just lighted, bor- dering the rectangle of the bare parade-steady, sultry, and yellow, like the street-lamps of foreign town. Around each, as far as the illu- imitation extended, lay disk of yell low where the white parade had taken up the tone of light that fell upon it. Certainly in each disk lay circular shadow, cast by the base of the lamp. On the side of the general bar-room a light near the door of the traders store illuminated the compound as far as the troop corral, where a stable guard paced the gravel in his rounds past the heavy gates, challenging and admitting mounted parties returning from duty or from pass.
 It was shortly after dinner, and, be- ing yet warm, the game had not grown hilarious. Davis, out post-surgeon, had not joined in the play. That afternoon he had been shooting fool quail on the mesquite fiat up the Gila; he was late at mess, so had missed the arrival of the weeks mail, this being Friday; and, still in shooting. jacket, was seated at the reading-table, look ing over news contained in latest New York papers, now ten days old, and opening his letters.
 "I thought I heard firing toward Mackay" David had walked across the room and was standing near an open window. He spoke quietly to the traders clerk, still giving the alert attention of one uncertain that he has heard a sound.
 Mackay was an adobe village ad- joining the garrison, where soldiers became intoxicated and were then robbed, for the territorial laws were getting severe and it was not wise to rob men sober.
 Several shots fired in quick success sion confirmed the doctors opinion; there was pause in the poker game, a shuffiing back of chairs, and some one said: Remember, Jones, it was your ante" as we joined the surgeon at the window.
 The shooting had ceased, and in the village we could now hear the barking of dogs, the hurrying of feet, and the sound of an unshod horse galloping over soft earth on the fiat leading up to the post. A moment later the horse was halted under the sentry's challenge at the corral, and cowboy, clad as on rodeo, came into the gen eral bar and asked for the post-sur- geon, saying, as Davis entered: Doe, they've had scrap at the Harmony, and need you and undertaken" He spoke with the short, quick breath of one who has hastened
 "The undertaking can wait" said Davis; but I'll go down at once. Ride around to the hospital and tell the steward to bring ny operating case and bandages to the Harmony I'll walk; you can overtake me-"
 accompanied Davis to the village, distant few hundred yards and com. prising double row of square adobe o1on,. +ba Calla Andao an mn,