Lakes rippling in the wind
and breaking on the shore, cattle big as elephants or small as
rabbits, distances that did not exist and forests that never
were, beds of lava along the hills swearing to a cloud shadow,
while the sky was polished like a precious stone--these, and many
other beautiful and marvellous but empty shows the great desert
displayed lavishly, with the glitter and inconsequence of a
dream. Senor Johnson sat on his horse in the hot sun, his chin
in his band, his elbow on the pommel, watching it all with grave,
unshifting eyes.
Occasionally, belated, he saw the stars, the wonderful desert
stars, blazing clear and unflickering, like the flames of
candles. Or the moon worked her necromancies, hemming him in by
mountains ten thousand feet high through which there was no pass.
And then as he rode, the mountains shifted like the scenes in a
theatre, and he crossed the little sand dunes out from the dream
country to the adobe corrals of the home ranch.
All these things, and many others, Senor Johnson now saw for the
first time, although he had lived among them for twenty years.
It struck him with the freshness of a surprise. Also it reacted
chemically on his mental processes to generate a new power within
him.
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