Alamo Ranch: A Story of New Mexico

exico, this land of sunshine, the season is now as ki

any holding bigger than a kitchen garden is known as a ranch. The alamo, Spanish for poplar, lends here and there its scant, stiff shade to th

ne Jersey cows, lies between the house and the orchard,-a not

tches of kitchen garden, carefully

s home, and sage-brush and mesquite strike root in the meagre soil. Cones of alfalfa hay stacked here and there outline themselves lik

s idly tilted against the house-front, the boarders loo

ive finds his Eldorado. Hither, year by year, come these foredoomed children of men to fight for breath, puttin

ss mortals, with the single sad choice of eking out existence far from friends and home,

st the cloudless sky; great hills of sand are these, surmounted by tall, serrated peaks of bare rock, and now taking on their aftern

on every hand detached sugar-loaf peaks lend their magnific

, he is heartening himself by the way with a song. When the listeners hear the familiar tune,-it is "Home, Sweet Home,"-one of them rallying his meagre wind whistles a faint accompaniment to the chorus. It is not a success; a

nd weary, hollow cough predict that the poor fellow's journey will not take h

sportsman steps ch

oy, lazily propped by a neighboring poplar trunk, he cries, "Catch!" and deftly tossing him the game (pigeons from the mesa) goes in to put away his gun. When

w-comer, Leonard Starr. Though not robust, he has the substantial mien and bearing of one who finds it good to live, and makes those about him also find

s that some of its children are "born to t