Across the Mesa

movies, Bob’s short letters being quite lacking in atmosphere. She saw herself leaning over a balcony, listening to the strains of a mandolin, played by a tall, slim youth, who resembled a composite photograph of several of her favorite movie idols. Poor Joyce Henderson, how unimportant he seemed by the side of that radiant vision! Polly scribbled furiously. ATHENS In the northern part of Mexico, in the state of Sonora, lies the little mining town of Athens, ironically named by someone whose sense of beauty was offended by the yellow stretches of desert sand, broken by hills, dotted here and there by cactus and mesquite, and frowned upon by gaunt and angular mountains. Athens, when the mining industry was running full time, was a busy if not a beautiful spot. Its row of shacks housed workers, male and a few female, to a generous number, while its busy little train of cars—for Athens owned a tiny spur of railroad connecting with the neighboring town of Conejo and operated for reasons germane to the coal industry—gave it, if you were very temperamental, something of the air of a metropolis seen through a diminishing glass. The plant and offices which boasted two stories, and the general merchandise store which was long and rambling, were larger than the shacks; otherwise Athens was a true democracy. The company house in which the superintendent, the manager and the chief engineer “bached” only differed from the others by an added cleanliness, for Mrs. Van Zandt, the energetic woman who ran the boarding-house, gave an eye to its welfare. The little houses were arranged in one long street and that street was Athens. Several days after the invasion of Athens suggested itself to Miss Polly Street in far-off Chicago, a prominent citizen strode from the offices in the direction of the boarding-house. He moved with decision, for he was hungry, and Mrs. Van Zandt was fastidious as to hours. The office force ate its supper at six, and the fact that Marc Scott was the assistant superintendent and, in the absence of the superintendent on affairs matrimonial, in charge altogether, was no reason in the eyes of Mrs. Van Zandt why he should be late to his meals. Scott paused outside the boarding-house to look into the distance where an accustomed but always interesting sight met his eyes. Away in the distance, between two foothills, appeared the…