She could not see with him any romance, any poetry in the life around her; she looked to Italy for that.

His "Song of the West," which only once, incoherent and fierce, he had tried to explain to her, its swift, tumultous life, its truth, its nobility and savagery, its heroism and obscenity had revolted her.
"But, Presley," she had murmured, "that is not literature." "No," he had cried between his teeth, "no, thank God, it is not." A little later, one of the stablemen brought the buggy with the team of bays up to the steps of the porch, and Harran, putting on a different coat and a black hat, took himself off to Guadalajara.

The morning was fine; there was no cloud in the sky, but as Harran's buggy drew away from the grove of trees about the ranch house, emerging into the open country on either side of the Lower Road, he caught himself looking sharply at the sky and the faint line of hills beyond the Quien Sabe ranch.

There was a certain indefinite cast to the landscape that to Harran's eye was not to be mistaken.

Rain, the first of the season, was not far off.
"That's good," he muttered, touching the bays with the whip, "we can't get our ploughs to hand any too soon." These ploughs Magnus Derrick had ordered from an Eastern manufacturer some months before, since he was dissatisfied with the results obtained from the ones he had used hitherto, which were of local make.