The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-12-19


awoke in the dawn on the Colorado
desert and, shouldering their burden of
blankets and fears, trudged onward
through the sand toward the far line
of the mountains to the west.
They had hunted the Evolutionary
"ship on the desert" likewise the trad-
tionary Pegleg mine; had lost their
outfit and lost their way. Their cam
teens were empty that morning. !
IF it would only RANT"
Grain? Look at that sky; you could
as easily expect rain out Of brass
kettle"
They stopped short in their tracks.
In the wink of an eye the far-off range
of mountains stood before them; so
near they could see the canyons and
trees and rocks. They turned their
ewes to the south. The glimmering, de-
faint Cocopah range, toward which so
many bleaching skeletons lay headed,
stood out boldly against the dawn. But
what is that nearer thing? The men
caught their breath and looked harder
southwark. High in the air-and so
gratefully near-it was house; be-
fore it a giant palm tree-one solitary
nalm-in the midst of green lawn.
There was a horse on the lawn ana
woman sat in the door or the house.
II all vanished in a moment. In an
other moment it was there agaln-the
house so impossibly tall, the legs OF
the horse so grotesquely long. A long
struggling grove of mesqult was TINS
time a part of the scene
The three men hailed it with different
expressions.
"Deliverancei"
"a mirage!'
"But this kind of a mirage always
has a reality at the bottom of 1t.
There is a horse on that green stuff;
there is 2 - tse there of some sort. 4nd
a wou4I sitting in the door. JusA as
surely as yon range of mountainSSSS-
tually exists. 1t may be twenty miles
away, but it is there"
Quicker that thought it all vanished.
| The shafts of the sun had touched the
sand. 4
Several hours later three leS-weary
thirsty men, toiling around the end Of
A long bluff of sand. stopped and
shouted simultaneously:
''There!"
Look there!"
Look"
There. right before their eager eyes,
was the place the mirage had Shown
them. The woman still sat in the door,
the horse still stood on the lawn. They
! felt awed, they knew not why.
Nearer, the green lawn was a long
| irregular patch of coarse grass and
yerba. mansa; the house a mere mud
| walled hut, rooted with poles, from
which hung tattered remnants of cloth.
But the woman sat in the door. She
| leaned against the side of it. They
could see her-see her attitude of ex-
pectancy as plainly as they had seen
her in the mirage.
The grove of mesquit began just a
little way from the hut.
The men talked
Enough beans on that grove to feast
a whole tribe of Indians"
eff 1 were a great artist I would
paint that scene and call it Waiting
mo need to name it; every one who
saw it would know it's name"
THAT woman is waiting for some
man, I'll bet"
They lowered their voices.
Maybe she is alone and is afraid Of
u.s."
at wouldn't blame her to be-"
They stepped around the widespread
/ palm and stood before the wom%n.
/ Then they took off their hats a
| bowed their heads in silence.
1t was mummy in shreds Of dress.
On that same bright Christmas day
a priest in a foreign land confessed a
| dying man. And he alone of all the
living knows the mystery of the One
Palm Spring. MADGE MORRIS.