The street was quiet at that time in the morning.

A sentry stood on guard at the corner, and here and there a light flared in some window where others were wakeful.

But for the most part the town lay asleep.

Over in what was really the Mexican quarter, three or four roosters were crowing as if they would never leave off.

The sound of them depressed Jean, and made her feel how heavy was the weight of her great undertaking,--heavier now, when the end was almost in sight, than it had seemed on that moonlight night when she had ridden over to the Lazy A and had not the faintest idea of how she was going to accomplish any part of her task which she had set herself.