ALAMO RANCH
A Story of New Mexico
BY SARAH WARNER BROOKS
Author of "My Fire Opal," "The Search of Ceres," etc.
CAMBRIDGE
PRIVATELY PRINTED
MCMIII
UNIVERSITY PRESS . JOHN WILSON
AND SON . CAMBRIDGE . U.S.A.
Speak! I should hear it from God's outmost sun,
Above Earth's noise of idle blame and praise,—
The longed-for whisper of thy dear "Well done!"
ALAMO RANCH
ALAMO RANCH
A STORY OF NEW MEXICO
CHAPTER I
It is autumn; and the last week in November. In New Mexico, this land ofsunshine, the season is now as kindly as in the early weeks of ourNorthern September.
To-day the sky is one cloudless arch of sapphire! The light breezescarce ruffles a leaf of the tall alamo, the name tree of this ranch.Here any holding bigger than a kitchen garden is known as a ranch. Thealamo, Spanish for poplar, lends here and there its scant, stiff shadeto this roomy adobe dwelling, with its warm southern frontage andhalf-detached wings. Behind the house irregular out-buildings arescattered about.
A commodious corral, now the distinguished residence of six fine Jerseycows, lies between the house and the orchard,—a not over-flourishingcollection of peach, apricot, and plum trees.
Here and there may be seen wide patches of kitchen garden, carefullyintersected by irrigating ditches.
Near and afar, wide alfalfa fields with their stiff aftermath stretchaway to the very rim of the mesa, where the cotton-tail makes his home,and sage-brush and mesquite strike root in the meagre soil. Cones ofalfalfa hay stacked here and there outline themselves like giantbeehives against the soft blue sky; and over all lies the sunny silenceof a cloudless afternoon with its smiling westering sun.
Basking in this grateful warmth, their splint arm-chairs idly tiltedagainst the house-front, the boarders look with sated invalid eyes uponthis gracious landscape.
Alamo Ranch is a health resort. In this thin, dry air of Mesilla Valley,high above the sea level, the consumptive finds his Eldorado. Hither,year by year, come these foredoomed children of men to fight for breath,putting into this struggle more noble heroism and praiseworthy couragethan sometimes goes to victory in battle-fields.
Of these combatants some are still buoyed by the hope of recovery;others are but hopeless mortals, with the single sad choice of eking outexistence far from friends and home, or returning to native skies, thereto throw up hands in despair and succumb to the foe.
Sixteen miles away the Organ Mountains—seeming, in this wonderfullyclear atmosphere, within but a stone's throw—loom superbly against thecloudless sky; great hills of sand are these, surmounted by tall,serrated peaks of bare rock, and now taking on their afternoon array inthe ever-changing light, rare marvels of shifting color,—amethyst andviolet, rosy pink, creamy gold, and dusky purple.
The El Paso range rises sombrely on the gray distance, and on every handdetached sugar-loaf peaks lend the