Roldan raised himself on his elbow and looked about him. Adan was some quarter of a mile away, approaching him, leading the mustangs. Cleaving the horizon on four sides was a vast plain. On it was not a tree, nor even a hut. Here and there were clumps of palms and cacti, as stark as if cut from pale green stone. At vast intervals were short, isolated mountains, known in the vernacular as "buttes." On the ground was not the withered remnant of a blade of grass; but there were many fissures, and some of them were deep and wide. Of the things that crawl and scamper and fly there was no sign, not even a hole in the ground; for even reptiles must have food to eat, and there was nothing here to sustain man nor beast. The fleckless sky was a deep, hot blue; a blood- red sun toiled heavily toward the zenith.
"Adan!" shouted Roldan; he was suddenly mad for sound of any sort. A discouraged "Halloa!" came promptly back.
Roldan dressed himself rapidly. His clothes were quite dry; indeed the very atmosphere of this strange beautiful place was so dry that it seemed to crumble in the nostrils. As he finished dressing Adan reached him. The horses' heads were hanging listlessly. Adan's face had lost its ruddy colour.
"Roldan," he said, "where are we?"
"I know not," said Roldan, setting his lips.
"I left you to look for water, and there are not even tarantulas in this accursed place. There is no water, not a drop. Nor a handful of stubble for the horses."
"We must go back the way we came, and start once more from the foot of the mountain."
"Can you remember from which point we entered this place? This soil might be rock; there is not a hoof-print anywhere."
"We should have gone south and we came east. On the northwestern horizon is something which looks like mountains--a long range--almost buried in mist. There is no sign of a range anywhere else; so the only thing to do is to go back to them; they are our mountains; I feel sure of that."
"If the horses do not give out. They are empty and choking, poor things.
Well, there is no reason we should not eat, and, thanks be to that good mayor domo, we still have a bottle of wine. But I would give something for a gourd of water. However, we have not been girls yet, and we will not begin now, my friend."
The boys ate their breakfast, but their spirits felt little lighter, even after a long draught of wine. The awful quiet of the place, broken only by an occasional whinny from the mustangs, seemed to press hard about them, thickening the blood in their veins. Roldan was filled with forebodings he could not analyse, and strove to coax forth from its remote brain-cell something that had wandered in, he could not recall when nor where.
They saddled the mustangs, mounted, and were about to make for the northwest when Adan gave a hoarse gurgle, caught Roldan's arm, pulled him about, and pointed with shaking hand to the south.
"Dios de mi alma!" exclaimed Roldan. "It is Los Angeles. We were right, after all. But why were we never told that it was so beautiful?"
On the southern horizon, half veiled in pale blue mist, showed a stately city, with domes and turrets and spires and many lofty cathedrals. It was a white city; there were no red tiles to break those pure and lovely lines, to blotch that radiant whiteness; even the red sun withheld its angry shafts.
Roldan gazed, his lips parting, his breath coming quickly. If his imagination had ever attempted to picture heaven, its wildest flight would have resembled but fallen short of that living beauty before him.
It was mystifying, exalting. It was worth the dangers and discomforts of the past month multiplied by twelve, just to have one moment's glimpse of such perfection. And it was Los Angeles! A city of the Californias, built by Indian hands! No wonder his family had been careful to leave its wonders out of the table talk; had he known, he would have been at its feet long since.
"It isn't the wine?" asked Adan, feebly.
"No. There must have been a fog before; Los Angeles is near the sea."
"Shall we start?"
"Yes, but slowly. The poor mustangs! But it will not be long now. We cannot be more than two leagues from there. See, it grows plainer every moment; the fog must have been very heavy."
They cantered on slowly, the mustangs responding automatically to the light prick of the spur. The beautiful alluring city looked to be floating in cloud; it smiled and beckoned, inciting even the weary famished brutes to effort. But at the end of an hour Roldan reined in with a puzzled expression. "I do not understand," he said. "It seemed not two leagues away when we started, and we have come that far and more, and still it seems exactly the same distance beyond."
"The atmosphere is so clear," suggested Adan. "But I wish we were there.
My mouth is parched, my tongue is dry--and the horses, Roldan. Soon they will be as limp as sails in a calm."
"True, but we could easily walk the distance now. We could return for them at once with water and food." But he was beginning to feel vaguely uneasy once more. The odd sensation of death, of a buried world, had returned. Could it be that that fair city beyond was heaven? Surely, he thought with unconscious humour, it was very un-Californian.
They passed the lonely buttes, the parched beds of lakes, salt-coated.
Still they saw not a living thing; still the city seemed to recede with the horizon, its sharp beautiful outlines unchanged. For some time the horses had been trotting unevenly. Gradually they relaxed into a dogged amble, their heads down, their tongues out. Every now and again they half paused, with quivering knees.
Adan's was the first to collapse; it fell to its knees, then rolled over, Adan scrambling from under, unhurt.
Roldan also dismounted, and both boys, without a word, unsaddled the poor brutes, thrust the pistols into their belts and what was left of the provisions into their pockets. They cast off their ponchos, then once more turned their faces to the south. But they did not advance.
They stood with distended eyes and suspended breath. The city had disappeared.
