For two days we lived high among the glaciers and snow crags, taking

tremendous tramps, seeing wonderful peaks, frozen lakes, sheer cliffs,

the tracks of grizzlies in numbers, the tiny sources of great streams,

and the infinity of upper spaces. But no goats; and no tracks of goats.

Little by little we eliminated the possibilities of the country

accessible to us. Leagues in all directions, as far as the eye could

reach, was plenty of other country, all equally good for goats; but it

was not within reach of us from this cañon; and our time was up.

Finally, we dropped back and made camp at the last feed; a mile or so

below the Citadel. Two ranges at right angles here converged, and the

Citadel rose like a tower at the corner. Here was our last chance.

CHAPTER V

GOATS

As we were finishing breakfast my eye was attracted to a snow speck on

the mountainside some two thousand feet above us and slightly westward

that somehow looked to me different from other snow specks. For nearly a

minute I stared at it through my glasses. At last the speck moved. The

game was in sight!

We drew straws for the shot, and Fisher won. Then we began our climb. It

was the same old story of pumping lungs and pounding hearts; but with

the incentive before us we made excellent time. A shallow ravine and a

fringe of woods afforded us the cover we needed. At the end of an hour

and a half we crawled out of our ravine and to the edge of the trees.

There across a steep cañon and perhaps four hundred yards away were the

goats, two of them, lying on the edge of small cliffs. We could see them

very plainly, but they were too far for a sure shot. After examining

them to our satisfaction we wormed our way back.

"The only sure way," I insisted, "is to climb clear to the top of the

ridge, go along it on the other side until we are above and beyond the

goats, and then to stalk them down hill."

That meant a lot more hard work; but in the end the plan was adopted.

We resumed our interminable and toilsome climbing.

The ridge proved to be of the knife-edge variety, and covered with snow.

From a deep, wide, walled-in basin on the other side rose the howling of

two brush wolves. We descended a few feet to gain safe concealment;

walked as rapidly as possible to the point above the goats; and then

with the utmost caution began our descent.

In the last two hundred yards is the essence of big-game stalking. The

hunter must move noiselessly, he must keep concealed; he must determine

_at each step_ just what the effect of that step has been in the matters

of noise and of altering the point of view. It is necessary to spy

sharply, not only from the normal elevation of a man's shoulders, but

also stooping to the waist line, and even down to the knees. An animal

is just as suspicious of legs as of heads; and much more likely to see

them.

The shoulder of the mountain here consisted of a series of steep grass

curves ending in short cliff jump-offs. Scattered and stunted trees and

tree groups grew here and there. In thirty minutes we had made our

distance and recognized the fact that our goats must be lying at the

base of the next ledge. Motioning Harry to the left and Fisher to the

front, I myself moved to the right to cut off the game should it run in

that direction. Ten seconds later I heard Fisher shoot; then Harry

opened up; and in a moment a goat ran across the ledge fifty yards below

me. With a thrill of the greatest satisfaction I dropped the gold bead

of my front sight on his shoulder!

The bullet knocked him off the edge of the cliff. He fell, struck the

steep grass slope, and began to roll. Over and over and over he went,

gathering speed like a snowball, getting smaller and smaller until he

disappeared in the brush far below, a tiny spot of white.

No one can appreciate the feeling of relaxed relief that filled me. Hard

and dangerous climbs, killing work, considerable hardship and discomfort

had at length their reward. I could now take a rest. The day was young,

and I contemplated with something like rapture a return to camp, and a

good puttery day skinning out that goat. In addition I was suffering now

from a splitting headache, the effects of incipient snow-blindness, and

was generally pretty wobbly.

And then my eye wandered to the left, whence that goat had come. I saw a

large splash of blood; at a spot _before_ I had fired! It was too

evident that the goat had already been wounded by Fisher; and therefore,

by hunter's law, belonged to him!

I set my teeth and turned up the mountain to regain the descent we had

just made. At the knife-edge top I stopped for a moment to get my breath

and to survey the country. Diagonally across the basin where the wolves

were howling, half way down the ridge running at right angles to my own,

I made out two goats. They were two miles away from me on an air line.

My course was obvious. I must proceed along my ridge to the Citadel,

keeping always out of sight; surmount that fortress; descend to the

second ridge; walk along the other side of it until I was above those

goats, and then sneak down on them.

I accomplished the first two stages of my journey all right, though

with considerably more difficulty in spots than I should have

anticipated. The knife edge was so sharp and the sides so treacherous

that at times it was almost impossible to travel anywhere but right on

top. This would not do. By a little planning, however, I managed to

reach the central "keep" of the Citadel: a high, bleak, broken pile,

flat on top, with snow in all the crevices, and small cliffs on all

sides. From this advantage I could cautiously spy out the lay of the

land.

Below me fifty feet dipped the second ridge, running nearly at right

angles. It sloped abruptly to the wolf basin, but fell sheer on the

other side to depths I could not at that time guess.[D] A very few

scattered, stunted, and twisted trees huddled close down to the rock and

snow. This saddle was about fifty feet in width and perhaps five hundred

yards in length. It ended in another craggy butte very much like the

Citadel.

My first glance determined that my original plan would not do. The goats

had climbed from where I had first seen them, and were now leisurely

topping the saddle. To attempt to descend would be to reveal myself. I

was forced to huddle just where I was. My hope was that the goats would

wander along the saddle toward me, and not climb the other butte

opposite. Also I wanted them to hurry, please, as the snow in which I

sat was cold, and the wind piercing.

This apparently they were not inclined to do. They paused, they nibbled

at some scanty moss, they gazed at the scenery, they scratched their

ears. I shifted my position cautiously--and saw below me,[E] lying on

the snow at the very edge of the cliff, a tremendous billy! He had been

there all the time; and I had been looking over him!

At the crack of the Springfield he lurched forward and toppled slowly

out of sight over the edge of the cliff. The two I had been stalking

instantly disappeared. But on the very top of the butte opposite

appeared another. It was a very long shot,[F] but I had to take chances,

for I could not tell whether or not the one I had just shot was

accessible or not. On a guess I held six inches over his back. The goat

gave one leap forward into space. For twenty feet he fell spread-eagled

and right side up as though flying. Then he began to turn and whirl. As

far as my personal testimony could go, he is falling yet through that

dizzy blue abyss.

"Good-bye, billy," said I, sadly. It looked then as though I had lost

both.

I worked my way down the face of the Citadel until I was just above the

steep snow fields. Here was a drop of six feet. If the snow was soft,

all right. If it was frozen underneath, I would be very likely to

toboggan off into space. I pried loose a small rock and dropped it,

watching with great interest how it lit. It sunk with a dull plunk.

Therefore I made my leap, and found myself waist deep in feathery snow.

With what anxiety I peered over the edge of that precipice the reader

can guess. Thirty feet below was a four-foot ledge. On the edge of that

ledge grew two stunted pines about three feet in height--and only two.

Against those pines my goat had lodged! In my exultation I straightened

up and uttered a whoop. To my surprise it was answered from behind me.

Frank had followed my trail. He had killed a nanny and was carrying the

head. Everybody had goats!

After a great deal of man[oe]uvring we worked our way down to the ledge

by means of a crevice and a ten-foot pole. Then we tied the goat to the

little trees, and set to work. I held Frank while he skinned; and then

he held me while I skinned. It was very awkward. The tiny landscape

almost directly beneath us was blue with the atmosphere of distance. A

solitary raven discovered us, and began to circle and croak and flop.

"You'll get your meal later," we told him.

Far below us, like suspended leaves swirling in a wind, a dense flock of

snowbirds fluttered.

We got on well enough until it became necessary to sever the backbone.

Then, try as we would, we could not in the general awkwardness reach a

joint with a knife. At last we had a bright idea. I held the head back

while Frank shot the vertebrae in two with his rifle!

Then we loosed the cords that held the body. It fell six hundred feet,

hit a ledge, bounded out, and so disappeared toward the hazy blue map

below. The raven folded his wings and dropped like a plummet, with a

strange rushing sound. We watched him until the increasing speed of his

swoop turned us a little dizzy, and we drew back. When we looked a

moment later he had disappeared into the distance--straight down!

Now we had to win our way out. The trophy we tied with a rope. I

climbed up the pole, and along the crevice as far as the rope would let

me, hauled up the trophy, jammed my feet and back against both sides of

the "chimney." Frank then clambered past me; and so repeat.

But once in the saddle we found we could not return the way we had come.

The drop-off into the feather snow settled that. A short reconnaissance

made it very evident that we would have to go completely around the

outside of the Citadel, at the level of the saddle, until we had gained

the other ridge. This meant about three quarters of a mile against the

tremendous cliff.

We found a ledge and started. Our packs weighed about sixty pounds

apiece, and we were forced to carry them rather high. The ledge proved

to be from six to ten feet wide, with a gentle slope outward. We could

not afford the false steps, nor the little slips, nor the overbalancings

so unimportant on level ground. Progress was slow and cautious. We could

not but remember the heart-stopping drop of that goat after we had cut

the rope; and the swoop of the raven. Especially at the corners did we

hug close to the wall, for the wind there snatched at us eagerly.

The ledge held out bravely. It had to; for there was no possible way to

get up or down from it. We rounded the shoulder of the pile. Below us

now was another landscape into which to fall--the valley of the stream,

with its forests and its high cliffs over the way. But already we could

see our ridge. Another quarter mile would land us in safety.

Without warning the ledge pinched out. A narrow tongue of shale, on so

steep a slope that it barely clung to the mountain, ran twenty feet to a

precipice. A touch sent its surface rattling merrily down and into

space. It was only about eight feet across; and then the ledge began

again.

We eyed it. Three steps would take us across. Alternative: return along

the ledge to attack the problem _ab initio_.

"That shale is going to start," said Frank. "If you stop, she'll sure

carry you over the ledge. But if you keep right on going, _fast_, I

believe your weight will carry you through."

We readjusted our packs so they could not slip and overbalance us; we

measured and re-measured with our eyes just where those steps would

fall; we took a deep breath--and we _hustled_. Behind us the fine shale

slid sullenly in a miniature avalanche that cascaded over the edge. Our

"weight had carried us through!"

In camp, we found that Harry's shooting had landed a kid, so that we had

a goat apiece.

We rejoined the main camp next day just ahead of a big snowstorm that

must have made travel all but impossible. Then for five days we rode

out, in snow, sleet, and hail. But we were entirely happy, and

indifferent to what the weather could do to us now.

MOISTURE, A TRACE

Last fall I revisited Arizona for the first time in many years. My

ultimate destination lay one hundred and twenty-eight miles south of the

railroad. As I stepped off the Pullman I drew deep the crisp, thin air;

I looked across immeasurable distance to tiny, brittle, gilded buttes; I

glanced up and down a ramshackle row of wooden buildings with crazy

wooden awnings, and I sighed contentedly. Same good old Arizona.

The Overland pulled out, flirting its tail at me contemptuously. A

small, battered-looking car, grayed and caked with white alkali dust,

glided alongside, and from under its swaying and disreputable top

emerged someone I knew. Not individually. But by many campfires of the

past I had foregathered with him and his kind. Same old Arizona, I

repeated to myself.

This person bore down upon me and gently extracted my bag from my grasp.

He stood about six feet three; his face was long and brown and grave;

his figure was spare and strong. Atop his head he wore the sacred

Arizona high-crowned hat, around his neck a bright bandana; no coat, but

an unbuttoned vest; skinny trousers, and boots. Save for lack of spurs

and _chaps_ and revolver he might have been a moving-picture cowboy.

The spurs alone were lacking from the picture of a real one.

He deposited my bag in the tonneau, urged me into a front seat, and

crowded himself behind the wheel. The effect was that of a grown-up in a

go-cart. This particular brand of tin car had not been built for this

particular size of man. His knees were hunched up either side the

steering column; his huge, strong brown hands grasped most competently

that toy-like wheel. The peak of his sombrero missed the wrinkled top

only because he sat on his spine. I reflected that he must have been

drafted into this job, and I admired his courage in undertaking to

double up like that even for a short journey.

"Roads good?" I asked the usual question as I slammed shut the door.

"Fair, suh," he replied, soberly.

"What time should we get in?" I inquired.

"Long 'bout six o'clock, suh," he informed me.

It was then eight in the morning--one hundred and twenty-eight

miles--ten hours--roads good, eh?--hum.

He touched the starter. The motor exploded with a bang. We moved.

I looked her over. On the running board were strapped two big galvanized

tanks of water. It was almost distressingly evident that the muffler had

either been lost or thrown away. But she was hitting on all four. I

glanced at the speedometer dial. It registered the astonishing total of

29,250 miles.

We swung out the end of the main street and sailed down a road that

vanished in the endless gentle slope of a "sink." Beyond the sink the

bank rose again, gently, to gain the height of the eyes at some _mesas_.

Well I know that sort of country. One journeyed for the whole day, and

the _mesas_ stayed where they were; and in between were successively

vast stretches of mesquite, or alkali, or lava outcrops, or _sacatone_

bottoms, each seeming, while one was in it, to fill all the world

forever, without end; and the day's changes were of mirage and the

shifting colours of distant hills.

It was soon evident that my friend's ideas of driving probably coincided

with his ideas of going up a mountain. When a mounted cowboy climbs a

hill he does not believe in fussing with such nonsense as grades; he

goes straight up. Similarly, this man evidently considered that, as

roads were made for travel and distance for annihilation, one should

turn on full speed and get there. Not one hair's breadth did he deign to

swerve for chuck-hole or stone; not one fractional mile per hour did he

check for gully or ditch. We struck them head-on, bang! did they happen

in our way. Then my head hit the disreputable top. In the mysterious

fashion of those who drive freight wagons my companion remained

imperturbably glued to his seat. I had neither breath nor leisure for

the country or conversation.

Thus one half hour. The speedometer dial showed the figures 29,260. I

allowed myself to think of a possible late lunch at my friend's ranch.

We slowed down. The driver advanced the hand throttle the full sweep of

the quadrant, steered with his knees, and produced the "makings." The

faithful little motor continued to hit on all four, but in slow and

painful succession, each explosion sounding like a pistol shot. We had

passed already the lowest point of the "sink," and were climbing the

slope on the other side. The country, as usual, looked perfectly level,

but the motor knew different.

"I like to hear her shoot," said the driver, after his first cigarette.

"That's why I chucked the muffler. Its plumb lonesome out yere all by

yourself. A hoss is different."

"Who you riding for?"

"Me? I'm riding for me. This outfit is mine."

It didn't sound reasonable; but that's what I heard.

"You mean you drive this car--as a living----"

"Correct."

"I should think you'd get cramped!" I burst out.

"Me? I'm used to it. I bet I ain't missed three days since I got

her--and that's about a year ago."

He answered my questions briefly, volunteering nothing. He had never had

any trouble with the car; he had never broken a spring; he'd overhauled

her once or twice; he averaged sixteen actual miles to the gallon. If I

were to name the car I should have to write advt. after this article to

keep within the law. I resolved to get one. We chugged persistently

along on high gear; though I believe second would have been better.

Presently we stopped and gave her a drink. She was boiling like a little

tea kettle, and she was pretty thirsty.

"They all do it," said Bill. Of course his name was Bill. "Especially

the big he-ones. High altitude. Going slow with your throttle wide open.

You're all right if you got plenty water. If not, why then ketch a cow

and use the milk. Only go slow or you'll git all clogged up with

butter."

We clambered aboard and proceeded. That distant dreamful _mesa_ had

drawn very near. It was scandalous. The aloof desert whose terror, whose

beauty, whose wonder, whose allure was the awe of infinite space that

could be traversed only in toil and humbleness, had been contracted by a

thing that now said 29,265.

"At this rate we'll get there before six o'clock," I remarked,

hopefully.

"Oh, this is County Highway!" said Bill.

As we crawled along, still on high gear--that tin car certainly pulled

strongly--a horseman emerged from a fold in the hills. He was riding a

sweat-covered, mettlesome black with a rolling eye. His own eye was

bitter, and likewise the other features of his face. After trying in

vain to get the frantic animal within twenty feet of our _mitrailleuse,_

he gave it up.

"Got anything for me?" he shrieked at Bill.

Bill leisurely turned off the switch, draped his long legs over the side

of the car, and produced his makings.

"Nothing, Jim. Expaicting of anything?"

"Sent for a new grass rope. How's feed down Mogallon way?"

"Fair. That a bronco you're riding?"

"Just backed him three days ago."

"Amount to anything?"

"That," said Jim, with an extraordinary bitterness, "is already a gaited

hoss. He has fo' gaits now."

"Four gaits," repeated Bill, incredulously. "I'm in the stink wagon

business. I ain't aiming to buy no hosses. What four gaits you claim

he's got?"

"Start, stumble, fall down _and_ git up," said Jim.

Shortly after this joyous _rencontre_ we topped the rise, and, looking

back, could realize the grade we had been ascending.

The road led white and straight as an arrow to dwindle in perspective to

a mere thread. The little car leaped forward on the invisible down

grade. Again I anchored myself to one of the top supports. A long, rangy

fowl happened into the road just ahead of us, but immediately flopped

clumsily, half afoot, half a-wing, to one side in the brush, like a

stampeded hen.

"Road runner," said Bill, with a short laugh. "Remember how they used to

rack along in front of a hoss for miles, keeping just ahead, lettin' out

a link when you spurred up? Aggravatin' fowl! They got over tryin' to

keep ahead of gasoline."

In the white alkaline road lay one lone, pyramidal rock. It was about

the size of one's two fists and all its edges and corners were sharp.

Probably twenty miles of clear space lay on either flank of that rock.

Nevertheless, our right front wheel hit it square in the middle. The car

leaped straight up, the rock popped sidewise, and the tire went off with

a mighty bang. Bill put on the brakes, deliberately uncoiled himself,

and descended.

"Seems like tires don't last no time at all in this country," he

remarked, sadly. He walked around the car and began to examine the four

wrecks he carried as spares. After some inspection of their respective

merits, he selected one. "I just somehow kain't git over the notion she

ought to sidestep them little rocks and holes of her own accord," he

exclaimed. "A hoss is a plumb, narrow-minded critter, but he knows

enough for that."

While he changed the tire--which incidentally involved patching one of

half a dozen over-worn tubes--I looked her over more in detail. The

customary frame, strut rods, and torsion rods had been supplemented by

the most extraordinary criss-cross of angle-iron braces it has ever been

my fortune to behold. They ran from anywhere to everywhere beneath that

car. I began to comprehend her cohesiveness.

"Jim Coles, blacksmith at the O T, puts them braces in all our cars,"

explained Bill. "He's got her down to a system."

The repair finished and the radiator refilled we resumed the journey. It

was now just eleven o'clock. The odometer reading was 29,276. The

temperature was well up toward 100 degrees. But beneath the disreputable

top, and while in motion, the heat was not noticeable. Nevertheless, the

brief stop had brought back poignantly certain old days--choking dust,

thirst, the heat of a heavy sun, the long day that led one nowhere----

The noon mirages were taking shape, throwing stately and slow their vast

illusions across the horizon. Lakes glimmered; distant ranges took on

the forms of phantasm, rising higher, flattening, reaching across space

the arches of their spans, rendering unreal a world of beauty and dread.

That in the old days was the deliberate fashion the desert had of

searing men's souls with her majesty. Slowly, slowly, the changes

melted one into the other; massively, deliberately the face of the world

was altered; so that at last the poor plodding human being, hot, dry,

blinded, thirsty, felt himself a nothing in the presence of eternities.

Well I knew that old spell of the desert. But now! Honestly, after a few

minutes I began to feel sorry for the poor old desert! Its spells didn't

work for the simple reason that _we didn't give it time!_ We charged

down on its phantom lakes and disproved them and forgot them. We broke

right in on the dignified and deliberate scene shifting of mountains and

_mesas_, showed them up for the brittle, dry hills they were, and left

them behind. It was pitiful! It was as though a revered tragedian should

overnight find that his vogue had departed; that he was no longer

getting over; that an irreverent upstart, breaking in on his most

sonorous periods, was getting laughs with slang. We had lots of water;

the dust we left behind; it wasn't even hot in the wind of our going!

In the shallow crease of hills a shimmer of white soon changed to

evident houses. We drew into a straggling desert town.

It was typical--thirty miles from the railroad, a distributing point for

the cattle country. Four broad buildings with peeled, sunburned faces, a

wooden house or so, and a dozen flat-roofed adobe huts hung pleasingly

with long strips of red peppers. Of course one of the wooden buildings

was labelled General Store; and another, smaller, contained a barber

shop and postoffice combined. The third was barred and unoccupied. The

fourth had been a livery stable but was now a garage. Six saddle horses

and six Fords stood outside the General Store, which was a fair

division.

Bill slowed down.

"Have a drink," I observed, hospitably.

"Arizona's a dry state," Bill reminded me; but nevertheless stopped and

uncoiled. That unbelievable phenomenon had escaped my memory. In the old

days I used to shut my eyes and project my soul into what I imagined was

the future. I saw Arizona, embottled, dying in the last-wet ditch, while

all the rest of the world, even including Milwaukee, bore down on her

carrying the banners of Prohibition. So much for prophecy. I voiced a

thought.

"There must be an awful lot of old timers died this spring. You can't

cut them off short and hope to save them."

Bill grunted.

We entered the store. It smelled good, as such stores always do--soap,

leather, ground coffee, bacon, cheese--all sorts of things. On the right

ran a counter and shelves of dry goods and clothing; on the left

groceries, cigars, and provisions generally. Down the middle saddles,

ropes, spurs, pack outfits, harness, hardware. In the rear a glass

cubby-hole with a desk inside. All that was customary, right and proper.

But I noticed also a glass case with spark plugs and accessories; a rack

full of tires; and a barrel of lubricating oil. I did not notice any

body polish. By the front door stood a paper-basket whose purport I

understood not at all.

Bill led me at once past two or three lounging cow persons to the

cubbyhole, where arose a typical old timer.

"Mr. White, meet Mr. Billings," he said.

The old timer grasped me firmly by the right hand and held tight while

he demanded, as usual, "What name?" We informed him together. He allowed

he was pleased. I allowed the same.

"I want to buy a yard of calico," said Bill.

The old timer reached beneath the counter and produced a strip of cloth.

It was already cut, and looked to be about a yard long. Also it showed

the marks of loving but brutal and soiled hands.

"Wrap it up?" inquired Mr. Billings.

"Nope," said Bill, and handed out three silver dollars. Evidently calico

was high in these parts. We turned away.

"By the way, Bill," Mr. Billings called after us, "I got a little

present here for you. Some friends sent her in to me the other day. Let

me know what you think of it."

We turned. Mr. Billings held in his hand a sealed quart bottle with a

familiar and famous label.

"Why, that's kind of you," said Bill, gravely. He took the proffered

bottle, turned it upside down, glanced at the bottom, and handed it

back. "But I don't believe I'd wish for none of that particular breed.

It never did agree with my stummick."

Without a flicker of the eye the storekeeper produced a second sealed

bottle, identical in appearance and label with the first.

"Try it," he urged. "Here's one from a different case. Some of these

yere vintages is better than others."

"So I've noticed," replied Bill, dryly. He glanced at the bottom and

slipped it into his pocket.

We went out. As we passed the door Bill, unobserved, dropped into the

heretofore unexplained waste-basket the yard of calico he had just

purchased.

"Don't believe I like the pattern for my boudoir," he told me, gravely.

We clambered aboard and shot our derisive exhaust at the diminishing

town.

"Thought Arizona was a dry state," I suggested.

"She is. You cain't sell a drop. But you can keep stuff for personal

use. There ain't nothing more personal than givin' it away to your

friends."

"The price of calico is high down here."

"And goin' up," agreed Bill, gloomily. He drove ten miles in silence

while I, knowing my type, waited.

"That old Billings ought to be drug out and buried," he remarked at

last. "We rode together on the Chiracahua range. He ought to know better

than to try to put it onto me."

"???" said I.

"You saw that first bottle? Just plain forty-rod dog poison--and me

payin' three good round dollars!"

"For calico," I reminded.

"Shore. That's why he done it. He had me--if I hadn't called him."

"But that first bottle was identically the same as the one you have in

your pocket," I stated.

"Shore?"

"Why, yes--at least--that is, the bottle and label were the same, and I

particularly noticed the cork seal looked intact."

"It was," agreed Bill. "That cap hasn't never been disturbed. You're

right."

"Then what objection----"

"It's one of them wonders of modern science that spoils the simple life

next to Nature's heart," said Bill, unexpectedly. "You hitch a big

hollow needle onto an electric light current. When she gets hot enough

you punch a hole with her in the bottom of the bottle. Then you throw

the switch and let the needle cool off. When she's cool you pour out the

real thing for your own use--mebbe. Then you stick in your

forty-cent-a-gallon squirrel poison. Heat up your needle again. Draw her

out very slow so the glass will close up behind her. Simple, neat,

effective, honest enough for down here. Cork still there, seal still

there, label still there. Bottle still there, except for a little bit of

a wart-lookin' bubble in the bottom."

It was now in the noon hour. Knowing cowboys of old I expected no lunch.

We racketed along, and our dust tried to catch us, and sleepy,

accustomed jack rabbits made two perfunctory hops as we turned on them

the battery of our exhaust.

We dipped down into a carved bottomland, several miles wide, filled with

minarets, peaks, vermilion towers, and strange striped labyrinths of

many colours above which the sky showed an unbelievable blue. The trunks

of colossal trees lay about in numbers. Apparently they had all been

cross-cut in sections like those sawed for shake bolts, for each was

many times clearly divided. The sections, however, lay all in place; so

the trunks of the trees were as they had fallen. About the ground were

scattered fragments of rock of all sizes, like lava, but of all the

colours of the giddiest parrots. The tiniest piece had at least all the

tints of the spectrum; and the biggest seemed to go the littlest several

better. They looked to me like beautiful jewels. Bill cast at them a

contemptuous glance.

"Every towerist I take in yere makes me stop while he sags down the car

with this junk," he said. Whenever I say "Bill said" or "I said," I

imply that we shrieked, for always through that great, still country we

hustled enveloped in a profanity of explosions, creaks, rattles, and

hums. Just now though, on a level, we travelled at a low gear.

"Petrified wood," Bill added.

I swallowed guiltily the request I was about to proffer.

The malpais defined itself. We came to a wide, dry wash filled with

white sand. Bill brought the little car to a stop.

Well I know that sort of sand! You plunge rashly into it on low gear;

you buzz bravely for possibly fifty feet; you slow down, slow down; your

driving wheels begin to spin--that finishes you. Every revolution digs a

deeper hole. It is useless to apply power. If you are wise you throw out

your clutch the instant she stalls, and thus save digging yourself in

unnecessarily. But if you are really wise you don't get in that fix at

all. The next stage is that wherein you thrust beneath the hind wheels

certain expedients such as robes, coats, and so forth. The wheels, when

set in motion, hurl these trivialities yards to the rear. The car then

settles down with a shrug. About the time the axle is actually resting

on the sand you proceed to serious digging, cutting brush, and laying

causeways. Some sand you can get out of by these methods, but not dry,

stream-bed sand in the Southwest. Finally you reach; the state of true

wisdom. Either you sit peacefully in the tonneau and smoke until someone

comes along; or, if you are doubtful of that miracle, you walk to the

nearest team and rope. And never, never, never are you caught again! A

détour of fifty miles is nothing after that!

While Bill manipulated the makings, I examined the prospects. This was

that kind of a wash; no doubt of it!

"How far is the nearest crossing?" I asked, returning.

"About eight feet," said he.

My mind, panic-stricken, flew to several things--that bottle (I regret

that I failed to record that by test its contents had proved genuine),

the cornered rock we had so blithely charged, other evidences of Bill's

casual nature. My heart sank.

"You ain't going to tackle that wash!" I cried.

"I shore am," said Bill.

I examined Bill. He meant it.

"How far to the nearest ranch?"

"'Bout ten mile."

I went and sat on a rock. It was one of those rainbow remnants of a

bygone past; but my interest in curios had waned.

Bill dove into the grimy mysteries of under the back seat and produced

two blocks of wood six or eight inches square and two strong straps with

buckles. He inserted a block between the frame of the car and the rear

axle; then he ran a strap around the rear spring and cinched on it until

the car body, the block, and the axle made one solid mass. In other

words, the spring action was entirely eliminated. He did the same thing

on the other side.

"Climb in," said he.

We went into low and slid down the steep clay bank into the waiting

sand. To me it was like a plunge into ice water. Bill stepped on her. We

ploughed out into trouble. The steering wheel bucked and jerked vainly

against Bill's huge hands; we swayed like a moving-picture comic; but we

forged steadily ahead. Not once did we falter. Our wheels gripped

continuously. When we pulled out on the other bank I exhaled as though

I, too, had lost my muffler. I believe I had held my breath the whole

way across. Bill removed the blocks and gave her more water. Still in

low we climbed out of the malpais.

It was now after two o'clock. We registered 29,328. I was getting humble

minded. Six o'clock looked good enough to me now.

One thing was greatly encouraging. As we rose again to the main level of

the country I recognized over the horizon a certain humped mountain.

Often in the "good old days" I had approached this mountain from the

south. Beneath its flanks lay my friend's ranch, our destination. Five

hours earlier in my experience its distance would have appalled me; but

my standards had changed. Nevertheless, it seemed far enough away. I was

getting physically tired. There is a heap of exercise in many

occupations, such as digging sewers and chopping wood and shopping with

a woman; but driving in small Arizona motor cars need give none of these

occupations any odds. And of late years I have been accustoming myself

to three meals a day.

For this reason there seems no excuse for detailing the next three

hours. From three o'clock until sunset the mirages slowly fade away into

the many-tinted veils of evening. I know that because I've seen it; but

never would I know it whilst an inmate of a gasoline madhouse. We

carried our own egg-shaped aura constantly with us, on the invisible

walls of which the subtle and austere influences of the desert beat in

vain. That aura was composed of speed, bumps, dust, profane noise, and

an extreme and exotic busyness. It might be that in a docile, tame,

expensive automobile, garnished with a sane and biddable driver, one

might see the desert as it is. I don't know whether such a combination

exists. But me--I couldn't get into the Officers' Training Camp because

of my advanced years: I may be an old fogy, but I cherish a sneaking

idea that perhaps you have to buy some of these things at the cost of

the aforementioned thirst, heat, weariness, and the slow passing of long

days. Still, an Assyrian brick in the British Museum is inscribed by a

father to his son away at school with a lament over the passing of the

"good old days!"

At any rate, we drew into Spring Creek at five o'clock, shooting at

every jump. My friend's ranch was only six miles farther. This was home

for Bill, and we were soon surrounded by many acquaintances. He had

letters and packages for many of them; and detailed many items of local

news. To us shortly came a cowboy who had evidently bought all the

calico he could carry. This person was also long and lean and brown;

hard bitten; bedecked with worn brown leather _chaps_, and wearing a

gun. The latter he unbuckled and cast from him with great scorn.

"And I don't need no gun to do it, neither!" he stated, as though

concluding a long conversation.

"Shore not, Slim," agreed one of the group, promptly annexing the

artillery. "What is it?"

"Kill that ---- ---- ---- Beck," said Slim, owlishly. "I can do it; and

I can do it with my bare hands, b' God!"

He walked sturdily enough in the direction of the General Store across

the dusty square. No one paid any further attention to his movements.

The man who had picked up the gun belt buckled it around his own waist.

Bill refilled the ever-thirsty radiator, peered at his gasoline gauge,

leisurely turned down a few grease cups. Ten minutes passed. We were

about ready to start.

Back across the square drifted a strange figure. With difficulty we

recognized it as the erstwhile Slim. He had no hat. His hair stuck out

in all directions. One eye was puffing shut, blood oozed from a cut in

his forehead and dripped from his damaged nose. One shirt sleeve had

been half torn from its parent at the shoulder. But, most curious of

all, Slim's face was evenly marked by a perpendicular series of long,

red scratches as though he had been dragged from stem to stern along a

particularly abrasive gravel walk. Slim seemed quite calm.

His approach was made in a somewhat strained silence. At length there

spoke a dry, sardonic voice.

"Well," said it, "did you kill Beck?"

"Naw!" replied Slim's remains disgustedly, "the son of a gun wouldn't

fight!"

We reached my friend's ranch just about dusk. He met me at the yard

gate.

"Well!" he said, heartily. "I'm glad you're here! Not much like the old

days, is it?"

I agreed with him.

"Journey out is dull and uninteresting now. But compared to the way we

used to do it, it is a cinch. Just sit still and roll along."

I disagreed with him--mentally.

"The old order has changed," said he.

"Yes," I agreed, "now it's one yard of calico."

THE RANCH

CHAPTER I

THE NEW AND THE OLD

The old ranching days of California are to all intents and purposes past

and gone. To be sure there remain many large tracts supporting a single

group of ranch buildings, and over which the cattle wander "on a

thousand hills." There are even a few, a very few--like the ranch of

which I am going to write--that are still undivided, still game haunted,

still hospitable, still delightful. But in spite of these apparent

exceptions, my first statement must stand. About the large tracts swarm

real estate men, eager for the chance to subdivide into small farms--and

the small farmers pour in from the East at the rate of a thousand a

month. No matter how sternly the old land-lords set their faces against

the new order of things, the new order of things will prevail; for

sooner or late old land-lords must die, and the heirs have not in them

the spirit of the ancient tradition. This is, of course, best for the

country and for progress; but something passes, and is no more. So the

Chino ranch and more recently Lucky Baldwin's broad acres have yielded.

And even in the case of those that still remain intact, whose wide

hills and plains graze thousands of head of cattle; whose pastures breed

their own cowhorses; whose cowmen, wearing still with a twist of pride

the all-but-vanished regalia of their all-but-vanished calling, refuse

to drop back to the humdrum status of "farm hands on a cow ranch"; even

here has entered a single element powerful enough to change the old to

something new. The new may be better--it is certainly more

convenient--and perhaps when all is said and done we would not want to

go back to the old. But the old is gone. One single modern institution

has been sufficient to render it completely of the past. That

institution is the automobile.

In the old days--and they are but yesterdays, after all--the ranch was

perforce an isolated community. The journey to town was not to be

lightly undertaken; indeed, as far as might be, it was obviated

altogether. Blacksmithing, carpentry, shoe cobbling, repairing,

barbering, and even mild doctoring were all to be done on the premises.

Nearly every item of food was raised at home, including vegetables,

fruit, meat, eggs, fowl, butter, and honey. Above all, the inhabitants

of that ranch settled down comfortably into the realization that their

only available community was that immediately about them; and so they

both made and were influenced by the individual atmosphere of the place.

In the latter years they have all purchased touring cars, and now they

run to town casually, on almost any excuse. They make shopping lists as

does the city dweller; they go back for things forgotten; and they

return to the ranch as one returns to his home on the side streets of a

great city. In place of the old wonderful and impressive expeditions to

visit in state the nearest neighbour (twelve miles distant), they drop

over of an afternoon for a ten-minutes' chat. The ranch is no longer an

environment in which one finds the whole activity of his existence, but

a dwelling place from which one goes forth.

I will admit that this is probably a distinct gain; but the fact is

indubitable that, even in these cases where the ranch life has not been

materially changed otherwise, the automobile has brought about a

condition entirely new. And as the automobile has fortunately come to

stay, the old will never return. It is of the old, and its charm and

leisure, that I wish to write.

CHAPTER II

THE OLD WEST

I went to the ranch many years ago, stepping from the train somewhere

near midnight into a cold, crisp air full of stars. My knowledge of

California was at that time confined to several seasons spent on the

coast, where the straw hat retires only in deference to a tradition

which none of the flowers seem bound to respect. As my dress accorded

with this experience, I was very glad to be conducted across the street

to a little hotel. My guide was an elderly, very brown man, with a white

moustache, and the bearing of an army regular. This latter surmise later

proved correct. Manning was one of the numerous old soldiers who had

fought through the General's Apache campaigns, and who now in his age

had drifted back to be near his old commander. He left me, after many

solicitations as to my comfort, and a promise to be back with the team

at seven o'clock sharp.

Promptly at that hour he drew up by the curb. My kit bag was piled

aboard, and I clambered in beside the driver. Manning touched his team.

We were off.

The rig was of the sort usual to the better California ranches of the

day, and so, perhaps, worth description. It might best be defined as a

rather wide, stiff buckboard set on springs, and supported by stout

running gear. The single seat was set well forward, while the body of

the rig extended back to receive the light freight an errand to town

was sure to accumulate. An ample hood top of gray canvas could be raised

for protection against either sun, wind, or rain. Most powerful brakes

could be manipulated by a thrust of the driver's foot. You may be sure

they were outside brakes. Inside brakes were then considered the weak

expedients of a tourist driving mercenary. Generally the tongue and

moving gear were painted cream; and the body of the vehicle dark green.

This substantial, practical, and business-like vehicle was drawn by a

pair of mighty good bright bay horses, straight backed, square rumped,

deep shouldered, with fine heads, small ears, and alert yet gentle eyes

of high-bred stock. When the word was given, they fell into a steady,

swinging trot. One felt instinctively the power of it, and knew that

they were capable of keeping up this same gait all day. And that would

mean many miles. Their harness was of plain russet leather, neat and

well oiled.

Concerning them I made some remark, trivial yet enough to start Manning.

He told me of them, and of their peculiarities and virtues. He descanted

at length on their breeding, and whence came they and their fathers and

their fathers' fathers even unto the sixth generation. He left me at

last with the impression that this was probably the best team in the

valley, bar none. It was a good team, strong, spirited, gentle, and

enduring.

We swung out from the little town into a straight road. If it has seemed

that I have occupied you too exclusively with objects near at hand, the

matter could not be helped. There was nothing more to occupy you. A fog

held all the land.

It was a dense fog, and a very cold. Twenty feet ahead of the horses

showed only a wall of white. To right and left dim, ghostly bushes or

fence posts trooped by us at the ordered pace of our trot. An occasional

lone poplar tree developed in the mist as an object on a dry plate

develops. We splashed into puddles, crossed culverts, went through all

the business of proceeding along a road--and apparently got nowhere. The

mists opened grudgingly before us, and closed in behind. As far as

knowing what the country was like I might as well have been blindfolded.

From Manning I elicited piecemeal some few and vague ideas. This

meagreness was not due to a disinclination on Manning's part, but only

to the fact that he never quite grasped my interest in mere

surroundings. Yes, said he, it was a pretty flat country, and some

brush. Yes, there were mountains, some ways off, though. Not many trees,

but some--what you might call a few. And so on, until I gave it up.

Mountains, trees, brush, and flat land! One could construct any and all

landscapes with such building blocks as those.

Now, as has been hinted, I was dressed for southern California; and the

fog was very damp and chill. The light overcoat I wore failed utterly to

exclude it. At first I had been comfortable enough, but as mile

succeeded mile the cold of that winter land fog penetrated to the bone.

In answer to my comment Manning replied cheerfully in the words of an

old saw:

"_A winter's fog

Will freeze a dog_,"

said he.

I agreed with him. We continued to jog on. Manning detailed what I then

thought were hunting lies as to the abundance of game; but which I

afterward discovered were only sober truths. When too far gone in the

miseries of abject cold I remembered his former calling, and glancing

sideways at his bronzed, soldierly face, wished I had gumption enough

left to start him going on some of his Indian campaigns. It was too

late; I had not the gumption; I was too cold.

Now I believe I am fairly well qualified to know when I really feel

cold. I have slept out with the thermometer out of sight somewhere down

near the bulb; I once snowshoed nine miles; and then overheated from

that exertion, drove thirty-five without additional clothing. On various

other occasions I have had experiences that might be called frigid. But

never have I been quite so deadly cold as on that winter morning's drive

through the land fog of semi-tropical California. It struck through to

the very heart.

I subsequently discovered that it takes two hours and three quarters to

drive to the ranch. That is a long time when one has nothing to look at,

and when one is cold. In fact, it is so long that one loses track of

time at all, and gradually relapses into that queer condition of passive

endurance whereto is no end and no beginning. Therefore the end always

comes suddenly, and as a surprise.

So it was in this case. Out of the mists sprang suddenly two tall fan

palms, and then two others, and still others. I realized dimly that we

were in an avenue of palms. The wheels grated strangely on gravel. We

swung sharply to the left between hedges. The mass of a building loomed

indistinctly. Manning applied the brakes. We stopped, the steam from

the horses' shining backs rising straight up to mingle with the fog.

"Well, here we are!" said Manning.

So we were! I hadn't thought of that. We must be here. After an

appreciable moment it occurred to me that perhaps I'd better climb down.

I did so, very slowly and stiffly, making the sad mistake of jumping

down from the height of the step. How that did injure my feelings! The

only catastrophe I can remember comparable to it was when a teacher

rapped my knuckles with a ruler after I had been making snowballs bare

handed. My benumbed faculties next swung around to the proposition of

proceeding up an interminable gravel walk--(it is twenty-five feet

long!) to a forbidding flight of stairs--(porch steps--five of them!) I

put this idea into execution. I reached the steps. And then----

The door was flung open from within, I could see the sparkle and leap of

a fine big grate fire. The Captain stood in the doorway, a broad smile

on his face; my hostess smiled another welcome behind him; the General

roared still another from somewhere behind her.

Now I had never met the Captain. He held out both hands in greeting. One

of those hands was for me to shake. The other held a huge glass of hot

scotch. The hot scotch was in the right hand!

CHAPTER III

THE PEOPLE AND THE PLACE

They warmed me through, and then another old soldier named Redmond took

me up to show me where I lived. We clambered up narrow boxed stairs that

turned three ways; we walked down a narrow passage; turned to the right;

walked down another narrow passage, climbed three steps to open a door;

promptly climbed three steps down again; crossed a screened-in bridge to

another wing; ducked through a passageway, and so arrived. The ranch

house was like that. Parts of it were built out on stilts. Five or six

big cottonwood trees grew right up through the verandahs, and spread out

over the roof of the house. There are all sorts of places where you hang

coats, or stack guns, or store shells, or find unexpected books;

passageways leading to outdoor upstairs screened porches, cubby holes

and the like. And whenever you imagine the house must be quite full of

guests, they can always discover to you yet another bedroom. It may, at

the last, be a very tiny bedroom, with space enough only for a single

bed and not much else; and you may get to it only by way of out of

doors; and it may be already fairly well occupied by wooden decoys and

shotgun shells, but there it is, guests and guests after you thought the

house must be full.

Belonging and appertaining unto the house were several fixtures. One of

these was old Charley, the Chinese cook. He had been there twenty-five

years. In that time he had learned perfect English, acquired our kind of

a sense of humour, come to a complete theoretical understanding of how

to run a ranch and all the people on it, and taught Pollymckittrick what

she knew.

Pollymckittrick was the bereaved widow of the noble pair of yellow and

green parrots Noah selected for his ark. At least I think she was that

old. She was certainly very wise in both Oriental and Occidental wisdom.

Her chief accomplishments, other than those customary to parrots, were

the ability to spell, and to sing English songs. "After the Ball" and

"Daisy Bell" were her favourites, rendered with occasional jungle

variations. She considered Charley her only real friend, though she

tolerated some others. Pollymckittrick was a product of artificial

civilization. No call of the wild in hers! She preferred her cage,

gilded or otherwise. Each afternoon the cage was placed out on the lawn

so Pollymckittrick could have her sun bath. One day a big redtail hawk

sailed by. Pollymckittrick fell backward off her perch, flat on her

back. The sorrowing family gathered to observe this extraordinary case

of heart failure. After an interval Pollymckittrick unfilmed one yellow

eye.

"Po--o--or Pollymckittrick!" she remarked.

At the sight of that hawk Pollymckittrick had fainted!

The third institution having to do with the house was undoubtedly

Redmond. Redmond was another of the old soldiers who had in their age

sought out their beloved General. Redmond was a sort of all-round man.

He built the fires very early in the morning; and he did your boots and

hunting clothes, got out the decoys, plucked the ducks, saw to the

shells, fed the dogs, and was always on hand at arrival and departure to

lend a helping hand. He dwelt in a square room in the windmill tower

together with a black cat and all the newspapers in the world. The cat

he alternately allowed the most extraordinary liberties or disciplined

rigorously. On the latter occasions he invariably seized the animal and

hurled it bodily through the open window. The cat took the long fall

quite calmly, and immediately clambered back up the outside stairway

that led to the room. The newspapers he read, and clipped therefrom

items of the most diverse nature to which he deprecatingly invited

attention. Once in so often a strange martial fervour would obsess him.

Then the family, awakened in the early dawn, would groan and turn over,

realizing that its rest was for that morning permanently shattered. The

old man had hoisted his colours over the windmill tower, and now in a

frenzy of fervour was marching around and around the tower beating the

long roll on his drum. After one such outbreak he would be his ordinary,

humble, quiet, obliging, almost deprecating self for another month or

so. The ranch people took it philosophically.

The fourth institution was Nobo. Nobo was a Japanese woman who bossed

the General. She was a square-built person of forty or so who had also

been with the family unknown years. Her capabilities were undoubted; as

also her faith in them. The hostess depended on her a good deal; and at

the same time chafed mildly under her calm assumption that she knew

perfectly what the situation demanded. The General took her domination

amusedly. To be sure nobody was likely to fool much with the General.

His vast good nature had way down beneath it something that on occasion

could be stern. Nobo could and would tell the General what clothes to

wear, and when to change them, and such matters; but she never ventured

to inhibit the General's ideas as to going forth in rains, or driving

where he everlastingly dod-blistered pleased, or words to that effect,

across country in his magnificently rattletrap surrey, although she

often looked very anxious. For she adored the General. But we all did

that.

As though the heavy curtain of fog had been laid upon the land expressly

that I might get my first impressions of the ranch in due order, about

noon the weather cleared. Even while we ate lunch, the sun came out.

After the meal we went forth to see what we could see.

The ranch was situated in the middle of a vast plain around three sides

of which rose a grand amphitheatre of mountains. The nearest of them was

some thirty miles away, yet ordinarily, in this clear, dry, Western

atmosphere they were always imminent. Over their eastern ramparts the

sun rose to look upon a chill and frosty world; behind their western

barriers the sun withdrew, leaving soft air, purple shadows, and the

flight of dim, far wildfowl across a saffron sky. To the north was only

distance and the fading of the blue of the heavens to the pearl gray of

the horizon.

So much if one stepped immediately beyond the ranch itself. The plains

were broad. Here and there the flatness broke in a long, low line of

cottonwoods marking the winding course of a slough or trace of subsoil

water. Mesquite lay in dark patches; sagebrush; the green of

pasture-land periodically overflowed by the irrigation water. Nearer at

home were occasional great white oaks, or haystacks bigger than a house,

and shaped like one.

To the distant eye the ranch was a grove of trees. Cottonwoods and

eucalyptus had been planted and had thriven mightily on the abundant

artesian water. We have already noticed the six or eight great trees

growing fairly up through the house. On the outskirts lay also a fruit

orchard of several hundred acres. Opposite the house, and separated from

it by a cedar hedge, was a commodious and attractive bungalow for the

foreman. Beyond him were the bunk house, cook houses, blacksmith shops,

and the like.

We started our tour of inspection by examining and commenting gravely

upon the dormant rose garden and equally dormant grape arbour. Through

this we came to the big wire corrals in which were kept the dogs. Here I

met old Ben.

Old Ben was not very old; but he was different from young Ben. He was a

pointer of the old-fashioned, stocky-built, enduring type common--and

serviceable--before our bench-show experts began to breed for speed,

fineness, small size--and lack of stamina. Ben proved in the event to be

a good all-round dog. He combined the attributes of pointer, cocker

spaniel, and retriever. In other words, he would hunt quail in the

orthodox fashion; or he would rustle into the mesquite thorns for the

purpose of flushing them out to us; or he would swim anywhere any number

of times to bring out ducks. To be sure he occasionally got a little

mixed. At times he might try to flush quail in the open, instead of

standing them; or would attempt to retrieve some perfectly lively

specimens. Then Ben needed a licking; and generally got it. He lacked in

his work some of the finish and style of the dogs we used after grouse

in Michigan, but he was a good all-round dog for the work. Furthermore,

he was most pleasant personally.

Next door to him lived the dachshunds.

The dachshunds were a marvel, a nuisance, a bone of contention, an

anomaly, an accident, and a farce. They happened because somebody had

once given the hostess a pair of them. I do not believe she cared

particularly for them; but she is good natured, and the ranch is large,

and they are rather amusing. At the time of my first visit the original

pair had multiplied. Gazing on that yardful of imbecile-looking canines,

my admiration for Noah's wisdom increased; he certainly needed no more

than a pair to restock the earth. Redmond claimed there were twenty-two

of them, though nobody else pretended to have been able to disentangle

them enough for a census. They were all light brown in colour; and the

aggregation reminded me of a rather disentangled bunch of angle-worms.

They lived in a large enclosure; and emerged therefrom only under

supervision, for they considered chickens and young pigs their especial

prey. The Captain looked upon them with exasperated tolerance; Redmond

with affection; the hostess, I think, with a good deal of the

partisanship inspired not so much by liking as by the necessity of

defending them against ridicule; and the rest of the world with amused

expectation as to what they would do next. The Captain was continually

uttering half-serious threats as to the different kinds of sudden death

he was going to inflict on the whole useless, bandylegged, snipe-nosed,

waggle-eared----

The best comment was offered last year by the chauffeur of the

automobile. After gazing on the phenomenon of their extraordinary build

for some moments he remarked thoughtfully:

"Those dogs have a mighty long wheel base!"

For some reason unknown two of the dachshunds have been elevated from

the ranks, and have house privileges. Their names are respectively Pete

and Pup. They hate each other, and have sensitive dispositions. It took

me just four years to learn to tell them apart. I believe Pete has a

slightly projecting short rib on his left side--or is it Pup? It was

fatal to mistake.

"Hullo, Pup!" I would cry to one jovially.

"G--r--r--r--!" would remark the dog, retiring under the sofa. Thus I

would know it was Pete. The worst of it was that said Pete's feelings

were thereby lacerated so deeply that I was not forgiven all the rest of

that day.

Beyond the dogs lay a noble enclosure so large that it would have been

subdivided into building lots had it been anywhere else. It was

inhabited by all sorts of fowl, hundreds of them, of all varieties.

There were chickens, turkeys, geese, and a flock of ducks. The Captain

pointed out the Rouen ducks, almost exactly like the wild mallards.

"Those are my live decoys," said he.

For the accommodation of this multitude were cities of nest houses,

roost houses, and the like. Huge structures elevated on poles swarmed

with doves. A duck pond even had been provided for its proper denizens.

Thus we reached the southernmost outpost of our quadrangle, and turned

to the west, where an ancient Chinaman and an assistant cultivated

minutely and painstakingly a beautiful vegetable garden. Tiny irrigation

streams ran here and there, fitted with miniature water locks. Strange

and foreign bamboo mattings, withes, and poles performed strange and

foreign functions. The gardener, brown and old and wrinkled, his cue

wound neatly beneath his tremendous, woven-straw umbrella of a hat,

possessing no English, no emotion, no single ray of the sort of

intelligence required to penetrate into our Occidental world, bent over

his work. When we passed, he did not look up. He dwelt in a shed. At

least, such it proved to be, when examined with the cold eye of

analysis. In impression it was ancient, exotic, Mongolian, the abode of

one of a mysterious and venerable race, a bit of foreign country. By

what precise means this was accomplished it would be difficult to say.

It is a fact well known to all Californians that a Chinaman can with no

more extensive properties than a few pieces of red paper, a partition, a

dingy curtain, and a varnished duck transform utterly an American

tenement into a Chinese pagoda.

Thence we passed through a wicket and came to the abode of hogs. They

dotted the landscape into the far distance, rooting about to find what

they could; they lay in wallows; they heaped themselves along fences;

they snorted and splashed in sundry shallow pools; a good half mile of

maternal hogs occupied a row of kennels from which the various progeny

issued forth between the bars. I cannot say I am much interested in

hogs, but even I could dimly comprehend the Captain's attitude of

swollen pride. They were clean, and black, and more nearly approximated

the absurd hog advertisements than I had believed possible. You know the

kind I mean; an almost exact rectangle on four short legs.

In the middle distance stood a long, narrow, thatched roof supported on

poles. Beneath this, the Captain told me, were the beehives. They proved

later to be in charge of a mild-eyed religious fanatic who believed the

world to be flat.

We took a cursory glance at a barn filled to the brim with prunes; and

the gushing, beautiful artesian well; at the men's quarters; the

blacksmith shop, and all the rest. So we rounded the circle and came to

the most important single feature of the ranch--the quarters for the

horses.

A very long, deep shed, open on all sides, contained a double row of

mangers facing each other, and divided into stalls. Here stood and were

fed the working horses. By that I mean not only the mule and horse

teams, but also the utility driving teams and the saddle horses used by

the cowboys. Between each two stalls was a heavy pillar supporting the

roof, and well supplied with facilities for hanging up the harness and

equipments. As is usual in California, the sides and ends were open to

the air; and the floor was simply the earth well bedded.

But over against this shed stood a big barn of the Eastern type. Here

were the private equipments.

The Captain is a horseman. He breeds polo ponies after a formula of his

own; and so successfully that many of them cross the Atlantic. On the

ranch are always several hundred head of beautiful animals; and of

these the best are kept up for the use of the Captain and his friends.

We looked at them in their clean, commodious stalls; we inspected the

harness and saddle room, glistening and satiny with polished metal and

well-oiled leather; we examined the half dozen or so of vehicles of all

descriptions. The hostess told with relish of her one attempt to be

stylish.

"We had such beautiful horses," said she, "that I thought we ought to

have something to go with them, so I sent up to the city for my

brougham. It made a very neat turnout; and Tom was as proud of it as I

was, but when it came to a question of proper garb for Tom I ran up

against a deadlock. Tom refused point blank to wear a livery or anything

approaching a livery. He was perfectly respectful about it; but he

refused. Well, I drove around all that winter, when the weather was bad,

in a well-appointed brougham drawn by a good team in a proper harness;

and on the box sat a lean-faced cow puncher in sombrero, red

handkerchief, and blue jeans!"

Tom led forth the horses one after the other--Kingmaker, the Fiddler,

Pittapat, and the others. We spent a delightful two hours. The sun

dropped; the shadows lengthened. From the fields the men began to come

in. They drove the wagons and hay ricks into the spacious enclosure, and

set leisurely about the task of caring for their animals. Chinese and

Japanese drifted from the orchards, and began to manipulate the

grindstone on their pruning knives. Presently a cowboy jogged in, his

spurs and bit jingling. From the cook house a bell began to clang.

We turned back to the house. Before going in I faced the west. The sky

had turned a light green full of lucence. The minor sounds of the ranch

near by seemed to be surrounded by a sea of silence outside. Single

sounds came very clearly across it. And behind everything, after a few

moments, I made out a queer, monotonous background of half-croaking

calling. For some time this puzzled me. Then at last my groping

recollection came to my assistance. I was hearing the calling of myriads

of snow geese.

CHAPTER IV

THE EARLY BIRD

I was awakened rather early by Redmond, who silently entered the room,

lit a kerosene stove, closed the windows, and departed. As I was now

beneath two blankets and an eiderdown quilt, and my nose was cold, I was

duly grateful. Mistaking the rite for a signal to arise, I did so; and

shortly descended. The three fireplaces were crackling away merrily, but

they had done little to mitigate the atmosphere as yet. Maids were

dusting and sweeping. The table was not yet set. Inquiry telling that

breakfast was more than an hour later, I took a gun from the rack,

pocketed the only five shells in sight, and departed to see what I could

see.

The outer world was crisp with frost. I clambered over the corral fence,

made my way through a hundred acres or so of slumbering pigs, and so

emerged into the open country.

In the middle distance and perhaps a mile away was a low fringe of

brush; to the left an equal distance a group of willows; and almost

behind me a clump of cottonwoods. I resolved to walk over to the brush,

swing around to the willows, turn to the cottonwoods, and so back to the

ranch. It looked like about four miles or so. Perhaps with my five

shells I might get something. At any rate, I would have a good walk.

The mountains were turning from the rose pink of early morning. I could

hear again the bickering cries of the snow geese and sandhill cranes

away in an unknown distance, the homelier calls of barnyard fowl nearer

at hand. Cattle trotted before me and to right and left, their heads

high, their gait swinging with the freedom of the half-wild animals of

the ranges. After a few steps they turned to stare at me, eyes and

nostrils wide, before making up their minds whether or not it would be

wise to put a greater distance between me and them. The close sod was

green and strong. It covered the slightly rounding irrigation "checks"

that followed in many a curve and double the lines of contours on the

flat plain.

The fringe of brush did not amount to anything; it was merely a

convenient turning mark for my little walk. Arrived there, I executed a

sharp "column left----"

Seven ducks leaped into the air apparently from the bare, open, and dry

ground!

Every sportsman knows the scattering effect on the wits of the

absolutely unexpected appearance of game. Every sportsman knows also the

instinctive reactions that long habit will bring about. Thus,

figuratively, I stood with open mouth, heart beating slightly faster,

and mind making to itself such imbecile remarks as: "Well, _what_ do you

think of that! Who in blazes would have expected ducks here?" and other

futile remarks. In the meantime, the trained part of me had jerked the

gun off my shoulder, pushed forward the safety catch, and prepared for

one hasty long shot at the last and slowest of the ducks. Now the

instinctive part of one can do the preparations, but the actual

shooting requires a more ordered frame of mind. By this time my wits

had snapped back into place. I had the satisfaction of seeing the duck's

outstretched neck wilt; of hearing him hit the ground with a thud

somewhere beyond.

Marking the line of his fall, I stepped confidently forward, and without

any warning whatever found myself standing on the bank of an irrigation

ditch. It was filled to the brim with placid water on which floated a

few downy feathers. On this side was dry sod; and on the other was dry

sod. Nothing indicated the presence of that straight band of silvery

water until one stood fairly at its brink. To the right I could see its

sides narrow to the point of a remote perspective. To the left it ran

for a few hundred yards, then apparently came to an abrupt stop where it

turned at an angle.

In the meantime, my duck was on the other side; I was in my citizen's

clothes.

No solution offered in sight, so I made my way to the left where I could

look around the bend. Nearing the bend I was seized with a bright idea.

I dropped back below the line of sight, sneaked quietly to the bank,

and, my eye almost level with the water, peered down the new vista. Sure

enough, not a hundred and fifty yards away floated another band of

ducks.

I watched them for a moment until I was sure, by various small

landmarks, of their exact location. Then I dropped back far enough so

that, even standing erect, I would be below the line of vision of those

ducks; strolled along until opposite my landmarks; then, bolt upright,

walked directly forward, the gun at ready. When within twenty yards the

ducks arose. It was, of course, easy shooting. Both fell across the

ditch. That did not worry me; if worst came to worst I could strip and

wade.

This seemed to be an exceedingly unique and interesting way to shoot

ducks. To be sure, I had only two shells left; but then, it must be

almost breakfast time. I repeated the feat a half mile farther on,

discovered a flood gate over which I could get to the other side,

collected my five ducks, and cut across country to the ranch. The sun

was just getting in its work on the frost. Long files of wagons and men

could be seen disappearing in the distance. I entered proudly, only ten

minutes late.

CHAPTER V

QUAIL

The family assembled took my statement with extraordinary calm,

contenting themselves with a general inquiry as to the species. I was

just a trifle crestfallen at this indifference. You see at this time I

was not accustomed to the casual duck. My shooting heretofore had been a

very strenuous matter. It had involved arising many hours before sun-up,

and venturing forth miles into wild marshes; and much endurance of cold

and discomfort. To make a bag of any sort we were in the field before

the folk knew the night had passed. Upland shooting meant driving long

distances, and walking through the heavy hardwood swamps and slashes

from dusk to dusk. Therefore I had considered myself in great luck to

have blundered upon my ducks so casually; and, furthermore, from the

family's general air of leisure and unpreparedness, jumped to the

conclusion that no field sport was projected for that day.

Mrs. Kitty presided beside a copper coffee pot with a bell-shaped glass

top. As this was also an institution, it merits attention. A small

alcohol lamp beneath was lighted. For a long time nothing happened. Then

all at once the glass dome clouded, was filled with frantic brown and

racing bubbling. Thereupon the hostess turned over a sand glass. When

the last grains had run through, the alcohol lamp was turned off.

Immediately the glass dome was empty again. From a spigot one drew off

coffee.

But if perchance the Captain and I wished to get up before anybody else

could be hired to get up, the Dingbat could be so loaded as to give down

an automatic breakfast. The evening before the maid charged the affair

as usual, and at the last popped four eggs into the glass dome. After

the mysterious alchemical perturbations had ceased, we fished out those

eggs soft boiled to the second! One day the maid mistook the gasoline

bottle for the alcohol bottle. That is a sad tale having to do with

running flames, and burned table pieces, not to speak of a melted-down

connection or so on the Dingbat. We did not know what was the matter;

and our attitude was not so much that of alarm, as of grief and

indignation that our good old tried and trained Dingbat should in his

old age cut up any such didoes. Especially as there were new guests

present.

After breakfast we wandered out on the verandah. Nobody seemed to be in

any hurry to start anything. The hostess made remarks to

Pollymckittrick; the General read a newspaper; the Captain sauntered

about enjoying the sun. After fifteen minutes, as though the notion had

just occurred, somebody suggested that we go shooting.

"How about it?" the Captain asked me.

"Surely," I agreed, and added with some surprise out of my other

experience, "Isn't it a little late?"

But the Captain misunderstood me.

"I don't mean blind shooting," said he, "just ram around."

He seized a megaphone and bellowed through it at the stables.

"Better get on your war paint," he suggested to me.

I changed hastily into my shooting clothes, and returned to the

verandah. After some few moments the Captain joined me. After some few

moments more a tremendous rattling came from the stable. A fine bay team

swung into the driveway, rounded the circle, and halted. It drew the

source of the tremendous rattling.

Thus I became acquainted with the Liver Invigorator. The Invigorator was

a buckboard high, wide, and long. It had one wide seat. Aft of that seat

was a cage with bars, in which old Ben rode. Astern was a deep box

wherein one carried rubber boots, shells, decoys, lunch, game, and the

like. The Invigorator was very old, very noisy, and very able. With it

we drove cheerfully anywhere we pleased--over plowed land, irrigation

checks, through brush thick enough to lift our wheels right off the

ground, and down into and out of water ditches so steep that we

alternately stood the affair on its head and its tail, and so deep that

we had to hold all our belongings in our arms, while old Ben stuck his

nose out the top bars of his cage for a breath of air. It could not be

tipped over; at least we never upset it. To offset these virtues it

rattled like a runaway milk wagon; and it certainly hit the high spots

and hit them _hard_. Nevertheless, in a long and strenuous sporting

career the Invigorator became endeared through association to many

friends. When the Captain proposed a new vehicle with easier springs and

less noise, a wail of protest arose from many and distant places. The

Invigorator still fulfills its function.

Now there are three major topics on the Ranch: namely, ducks, quail, and

ponies. In addition to these are five of minor interest: the mail,

cattle, jackrabbits, coons, and wildcats.

I was already familiar with the valley quail, for I had hunted him since

I was a small boy with the first sixteen-gauge gun ever brought to the

coast. I knew him for a very speedy bird, much faster than our bob

white, dwelling in the rounded sagebrush hills, travelling in flocks of

from twenty to several thousand, exceedingly given to rapid leg work. We

had to climb hard after him, and shoot like lightning from insecure

footing. His idiosyncrasies were as strongly impressed on me as the fact

that human beings walk upright. Here, however, I had to revise my ideas.

We drove down the avenue of palms, pursued by four or five yapping

dachshunds, and so out into a long, narrow lane between pasture fences.

Herds of ponies, fuzzy in their long winter coats, came gently to look

at us. The sun was high now, so the fur of their backs lay flat. Later,

in the chill of evening, the hair would stand out like the nap of

velvet, thus providing for additional warmth by the extra air space

between the outside of the coat and the skin. It must be very handy to

carry this invisible overcoat, ready for the moment's need. Here, too,

were cattle standing about. On many of them I recognized the familiar

J-I brand of many of my Arizona experiences. Arizona bred and raised

them; California fattened them for market. We met a cowboy jingling by

at his fox trot; then came to the country road.

Along this we drove for some miles. The country was perfectly flat, but

variegated by patches of greasewood, of sagebrush, of Egyptian-corn

fields, and occasionally by a long, narrow fringe of trees. Here, too,

were many examples of that phenomenon so vigorously doubted by most

Easterners: the long rows of trees grown from original cotton wood or

poplar fence posts. In the distance always were the mountains. Overhead

the sky was very blue. A number of buzzards circled.

After a time we turned off the road and into a country covered over with

tumbleweed, a fine umber red growth six or eight inches high, and

scattered sagebrush. Inlets, bays, and estuaries of bare ground ran

everywhere. The Captain stood up to drive, watching for the game to

cross these bare places.

I stood up, too. It is no idle feat to ride the Invigorator thus over

hummocky ground. It lurched and bumped and dropped into and out of

trouble; and in correspondence I alternately rose up and sat down again,

hard. The Captain rode the storm without difficulty. He was accustomed

to the Invigorator; and, too, he had the reins to hang on by.

"There they go!" said he, suddenly, bringing the team to a halt.

I looked ahead. Across a ten-foot barren ran the quail, their crests

cocked forward, their trim figures held close as a sprinter goes, rank

after rank, their heads high in the alert manner of quail.

The Captain sat down, jerked off the brake, and spoke to his horses. I

sat down, too; mainly because I had to. The Invigorator leaped from hump

to hump. Before those quail knew it we were among them. Right, left, all

around us they roared into the air. Some doubled back; some buzzed low

to right or left; others rose straight ahead to fly a quarter mile, and

then, wings set, to sail another quarter until finally they pitched down

into some bit of inviting cover.

The Captain brought his horses to a stand with great satisfaction. We

congratulated each other gleefully; and even old Ben, somewhat shaken up

in his cage astern, wagged his tail in appreciation of the situation.

For, you see, we had scattered the covey, and now they would lie. If the

band had flushed, flown, and lighted as one body, immediately on hitting

the ground they would have put their exceedingly competent little legs

into action, and would have run so well and so far that, by the time we

had arrived on the spot, they would have been a good half mile away. But

now that the covey was broken, the individuals and small bands would

stay put. If they ran at all, it would be for but a short distance. On

this preliminary scattering depends the success of a chase after

California quail. I have seen six or eight men empty both barrels of

their guns at a range of more than a hundred yards. They were not insane

enough to think they would get anything. Merely they hoped that the

racket and the dropping of the spent shot would break the distant covey.

We hitched the horses to a tree, released old Ben, and started forth.

For a half hour we had the most glorious sport, beating back and forth

over the ground again and again. The birds lay well in the low cover,

and the shooting was clean and open. I soon found that the edges of the

bare ground were the most likely places. Apparently the birds worked

slowly through the cover ahead of us, but hesitated to cross the open

spots, and so bunched at the edge. By walking in a zigzag along some of

these borders, we gathered in many scattered birds and small bunches.

Why the zigzag? Naturally it covers a trifle more ground than a straight

course, but principally it seems to confuse the game. If you walk in a

straight line, so the quail can foretell your course, it is very apt

either to flush wild or to hide so close that you pass it by. The zigzag

fools it.

Thus, with varying luck, we made a slow circle back to the wagon. Here

we found Mrs. Kitty and Carrie and the lunch awaiting us with the

ponies.

These robust little animals were not miniature horses, but genuine

ponies, with all the deviltry, endurance, and speed of their kind. They

were jet-black, about waist high, and of great intelligence. They drew a

neat little rig, capable of accommodating two, at a persistent rapid

patter that somehow got over the road at a great gait. And they could

keep it up all day. Although perfectly gentle, they were as alert as

gamins for mischief, and delighted hugely in adding to the general row

and confusion if anything happened to go wrong. Mrs. Kitty drove them

everywhere. One day she attempted to cross an irrigation ditch that

proved to be deeper than she had thought it. The ponies disappeared

utterly, leaving Mrs. Kitty very much astonished. Horses would have

drowned in like circumstances, but the ponies, nothing daunted, dug in

their hoofs and scrambled out like a pair of dogs, incidentally dipping

their mistress on the way.

In the shade of a high greasewood we unpacked the pony carriage. This

was before the days of thermos bottles, so we had a most elaborate

wicker basket whose sides let down to form a wind shield protecting an

alcohol burner and a kettle. When the water boiled, we made hot tea, and

so came to lunch.

Strangely enough this was my first experience at having lunch brought

out to the field. Ordinarily we had been accustomed to carry a sandwich

or so in the side pockets of our shooting coats, which same we ate at

any odd moment that offered. Now was disclosed an astonishing variety.

There were sandwiches, of course, and a salad, and the tea, but

wonderful to contemplate was a deep dish of potted quail, row after row

of them, with delicious white sauce. In place of the frugal bite or so

that would have left us alert and fit for an afternoon's work, we ate

until nothing remained. Then we lit pipes and lay on our backs, and

contemplated a cloudless sky. It was the warm time of day. The horses

snoozed, a hind leg tucked up; old Ben lay outstretched in doggy

content; Mrs. Kitty knit or crocheted or something of that sort; and

Carrie and the Captain and I took cat naps. At length, the sun's rays no

longer striking warm from overhead, the Captain aroused us sternly.

"You're a nice, energetic, able lot of sportsmen!" he cried with

indignation. "Have I got to wait until sunset for you lazy chumps to get

a full night's rest?"

"Don't mind him," Mrs. Kitty told me, placidly; "he was sound asleep

himself; and the only reason he waked is because he snored and I

_punched_ him."

She folded up her fancy work, shook out her skirts, and turned to the

ponies.

It was now late in the afternoon. We had disgracefully wasted our time,

and enjoyed doing it. The Captain decided it to be too late to hunt up a

new covey, so we reversed to pick up some of those that had originally

doubled back. We flushed forty or fifty of them at the edge of the road.

They scattered ahead of us in a forty-acre plowed field.

Until twilight, then, we walked leisurely back and forth, which is the

only way to walk in a plowed field, after all. The birds had pitched

down into the old furrows, and whenever a tuft of grass, a piece of

tumbleweed, or a shallow grassy ditch offered a handful of cover, there

the game was to be found. Mrs. Kitty followed at the Captain's elbow,

and Carrie at mine. Carrie made a first-rate dog, marking down the birds

unerringly. The quail flew low and hard, offering in the gathering

twilight and against the neutral-coloured earth marks worthy of good

shooting. At last we turned back to our waiting team. The dusk was

coming over the land, and the "shadow of the earth" was marking its

strange blue arc in the east. As usual the covey was now securely

scattered. Of a thousand or so birds we had bagged forty-odd; and yet of

the remainder we would have had difficulty in flushing another dozen. It

is the mystery of the quail, and one that the sportsman can never

completely comprehend. As we clambered into the Invigorator we could

hear from all directions the birds signalling each other. Near, far, to

right, to left, the call sounded, repeating over and over again a

parting, defiant denial that the victory was ours.

"You _can't_ shoot! You _can't_ shoot! You _can't_ shoot!"

And nearer at hand the contented chirping twitter as the covey found

itself.

CHAPTER VI

PONIES

Next morning the Captain decided that he had various affairs to attend

to, so we put on our riding clothes and went down to the stables.

The Captain had always forty or fifty polo ponies in the course of

education, and he was delighted to have them ridden, once he was

convinced of your seat and hands. They were beautiful ponies, generally

iron gray in colour, very friendly, very eager, and very lively. Riding

them was like flying through the air, for they sailed over rough ground,

irrigation checks, and the like without a break in their stride, and

without a jar. By the same token it was necessary to ride them. At odd

moments they were quite likely to give a wide sidewise bound or a

stiff-legged buck from sheer joy of life. One got genuine "horse

exercise" out of them.

The Captain, as perhaps I have said, invented these ponies himself. From

Chihuahua he brought in some of the best mustang mares he could find;

and, in case you have Frederick Remington's pictures of starved

winter-range animals in mind, let me tell you a good mustang is a very

handsome animal indeed. These he bred to a thoroughbred. The resulting

half-breeds grew to the proper age. Then he started to have them broken

to the saddle. A start was as far as he ever got, for nobody could ride

them. They combined the intelligence and vice of the mustang with the

endurance and nervous instability of the thoroughbred. The Captain tried

all sorts of men, even sending at last to Arizona for a good bronco

buster on the J-I. Only one or two of the many could back the animals at

all, though many aspirants made a try at it. After a long series of

experiments, the Captain came to the reluctant conclusion that the cross

was no good. It seemed a pity, for they were beautiful animals, up to

full polo size, deep chested, strong shouldered, close coupled, and

speedy.

Then, by way of idleness, he bred some of the half-bred mares. The

three-quarter cross proved to be ideal. They were gentle, easily broken,

and to the eye differed in no particular from their pure-blooded

brothers. So, ever since, the Captain has been raising these most

excellent polo ponies to his great honour and profit and the incidental

pleasure of his friends who like riding.

One of these ponies was known as the Merry Jest. He had a terrifying but

harmless trick. The moment the saddle was cinched, down went his head

and he began to buck in the most vicious style. This he would keep up

until further orders. In order to put an end to the performance all one

had to do was to haul in on the rope, thrust one's foot in the stirrup,

and clamber aboard. For, mark you this, Merry Jest in the course of a

long and useful life never failed to buck under the empty saddle--and

_never_ bucked under a rider!

This, of course, constituted the Merry Jest. Its beauty was that it was

so safe.

"Want to ride?" asked the Captain.

"Surely," replied the unsuspecting stranger.

The Merry Jest was saddled, brought forth, and exhibited in action.

"There's your horse," remarked the Captain in a matter-of-course tone.

We rode out the corral gate and directly into the open country. The

animals chafed to be away; and when we loosened the reins, leaped

forward in long bounds. Over the rough country they skimmed like

swallows, their hoofs hardly seeming to touch the ground, the powerful

muscles playing smoothly beneath us like engines. After a mile of this

we pulled up, and set about the serious business of the day.

One after another we oversaw all the major activities of such a ranch;

outside, I mean, of the ranch enclosure proper where were the fowls, the

vegetable gardens, and the like. Here an immense hay rick was being

driven slowly along while two men pitched off the hay to right and left.

After it followed a long line of cattle. This manner of feeding obviated

the crowding that would have taken place had the hay not been thus

scattered. The more aggressive followed close after the rick, snatching

mouthfuls of the hay as it fell. The more peaceful, or subdued, or

philosophical strung out in a long, thin line, eating steadily at one

spot. They got more hay with less trouble, but the other fellows had to

maintain reputations for letting nobody get ahead of _them_!

At another point an exceedingly rackety engine ran a hay press, where

the constituents of one of the enormous house-like haystacks were fed

into a hopper and came out neatly baled. A dozen or so men oversaw the

activities of this noisy and dusty machine.

Down by the northerly cottonwoods two miles away we found other men with

scrapers throwing up the irrigation checks along the predetermined

contour lines. By means of these irregular meandering earthworks the

water, admitted from the ditch to the upper end of the field, would work

its way slowly from level to level instead of running off or making

channels for itself. This job, too, was a dusty one. We could see the

smoke of it rising from a long distance; and the horses and men were

brown with it.

And again we rode softly for miles over greensward through the cattle,

at a gentle fox trot, so as not to disturb them. At several points stood

great blue herons, like sentinels, decorative as a Japanese screen,

absolutely motionless. The Captain explained that they were "fishing"

for gophers; and blessed them deeply. Sometimes our mounts splashed for

a long distance through water five or six inches shallow. Underneath the

surface we could see the short green grass of the turf that thus

received its refreshment. Then somewhere near, silhouetted against the

sky or distant mountains, on the slight elevation of the irrigation

ditch bank, we were sure to see some of the irrigation Chinamen. They

were strange, exotic figures, their skins sunburned and dark, their

queues wound around their heads; wearing always the same uniform of blue

jeans cut China-fashion, rubber boots, and the wide, inverted bowl

Chinese sun hat of straw. By means of shovels wherewith to dig, and iron

bars wherewith to raise and lower flood gates, they controlled the

artificial rainfall of the region. So accustomed did the ducks become

to these amphibious people that they hardly troubled themselves to get

out of the way, and were utterly careless of how near they flew. Uncle

Jim once disguised himself as an irrigation Chinaman and got all kinds

of shooting--until the ducks found him out. Now they seem able to

distinguish accurately between a Chinaman with a long shovel and a white

man with a shotgun, no matter how the latter is dressed. Ducks, tame and

wild, have a lot of sense. It must bore the former to be forced to

associate with chickens.

Over in the orchard, of a thousand acres or so, were many more

Orientals, and hundreds of wild doves. These Chinese were all of the

lower coolie orders, and primitive, not to say drastic in their medical

ideas. One evening the Captain heard a fine caterwauling and drum

beating over in the quarters, and sallied forth to investigate. In one

of the huts he found four men sitting on the outspread legs and arms of

a fifth. The latter had been stripped stark naked. A sixth was engaged

in placing live coals on the patient's belly, while assorted assistants

furnished appropriate music and lamentation. The Captain put a stop to

the proceedings and bundled the victim to a hospital where he promptly

died. It was considered among Chinese circles that the Captain had

killed him by ill-timed interference!

Everywhere we went, and wherever a small clump of trees or even large

brush offered space, hung the carcasses of coyotes, wildcats, and lynx.

Some were quite new, while others had completely mummified in the dry

air of these interior plains. These were the trophies of the

professional "varmint killer," a man hired by the month. Of course it

would be only too easy for such an official to loaf on his job, so this

one had adopted the unique method of proving his activity. Everywhere

the Captain rode he could see that his man had been busy.

All this time we had been working steadily away from the ranch. Long

zigzags and side trips carried us little forward, and a constant

leftward tendency swung us always around, until we had completed a half

circle of which the ranch itself was the centre. The irrigated fields

had given place to open country of a semi-desert character grown high

with patches of greasewood, sagebrush, thorn-bush; with wide patches of

scattered bunch grass; and stretches of alkali waste. Here, unexpectedly

to me, we stumbled on a strange but necessary industry incidental to so

large an estate. Our nostrils were assailed by a mighty stink. We came

around the corner of some high brush directly on a small two-story

affair with a factory smokestack. It was fenced in, and the fence was

covered with drying hides. I will spare you details, but the function of

the place was to make glue, soap, and the like of those cattle whose

term of life was marked by misfortune rather than by the butcher's

knife. The sole workman at this economical and useful occupation did not

seem to mind it. The Captain claimed he was as good as a buzzard at

locating the newly demised.

Our ponies did not like the place either. They snorted violently, and

pricked their ears back and forth, and were especially relieved and

eager to obey when we turned their heads away.

We rode on out into the desert, our ponies skipping expertly through

the low brush and gingerly over the alkali crust of the open spaces

beneath which might be holes. Jackrabbits by the thousand, literally,

hopped away in front of us, spreading in all directions as along the

sticks of a fan. They were not particularly afraid, so they loped easily

in high-bounding leaps, their ears erect. Many of them sat bolt upright,

looking at least two feet high. Occasionally we managed really to scare

one, and then it was a grand sight to see him open the throttle and scud

away, his ears flat back, in the classical and correct attitude of the

constantly recurring phrase of the ancients: "belly to earth he flew!"

Jackrabbits are a great nuisance. The Captain had to enclose his

precious alfalfa fields with rabbit-proof wire to prevent utter

destruction. There was a good deal of fence, naturally, and occasionally

the inquiring rabbit would find a hole and crawl through. Then he was in

alfalfa, which is, as every Californian knows, much better than being in

clover. He ate at first greedily, then more daintily, wandering always

farther afield in search of dessert. Never, however, did he forget the

precise location of the opening by which he had entered, as was wise of

him. For now, behold, enter the dogs. Ordinarily these dogs, who were

also wise beasts, passed by the jackrabbit in his abundance with only

inhibited longing. Their experience had taught them that to chase

jackrabbits in the open with any motive ulterior to that of healthful

exercise and the joy of seeing the blame things run was as vain and as

puppish as chasing one's tail. But in the alfalfa fields was a chance,

for it must be remembered that such fields were surrounded by the

rabbit-proof wire in which but a single opening was known to the jack in

question. Therefore, with huge delight, the dogs gave chase. Mr. Rabbit

bolted back for his opening, his enemies fairly at his heels. Now comes

the curious part of the episode. The dogs knew perfectly well that if

the rabbit hit the hole in the fence he was safe for all of them; and

they had learned, further, that if the rabbit missed his plunge for

safety he would collide strongly with that tight-strung wire. When

within twenty feet or so of the fence they stopped short in expectation.

Probably three times out of five the game made his plunge in safety and

scudded away over the open plain outside. Then the dogs turned and

trotted philosophically back to the ranch. But the other two times the

rabbit would miss. At full speed he would hit the tight-strung mesh,

only to be hurled back by its resiliency fairly into the jaws of his

waiting pursuers. Though thousands may consider this another

nature-fake, I shall always have the comfort of thinking that the

Captain and the dogs know it for the truth.

At times jackrabbits get some sort of a plague and die in great numbers.

Indeed some years at the ranch they seemed almost to have disappeared.

Their carcasses are destroyed almost immediately by the carrion

creatures, and their delicate bones, scattered by the ravens, buzzards,

and coyotes, soon disintegrate and pass into the soil. One does not find

many evidences of the destruction that has been at work; yet he will see

tens instead of myriads. I have been at the ranch when one was never out

of sight of jackrabbits, in droves, and again I have been there when

one would not see a half dozen in a morning's ride. They recover their

numbers fast enough, and the chances are that this "narrow-gauge mule"

will be always with us. The ranchman would like nothing better than to

bid him a last fond but genuine farewell; but I should certainly miss

him.

The greasewood and thorn-bush grew in long, narrow patches. The ragweed

grew everywhere it pleased, affording grand cover for the quail. The

sagebrush occurred singly at spaced intervals, with tiny bare spaces

between across which the plumed little rascals scurried hurriedly. The

tumbleweed banked high wherever, in the mysterious dispensations of

Providence, a call for tumbleweed had made itself heard.

The tumbleweed is a curious vegetable. It grows and flourishes amain,

and becomes great even as a sagebrush, and puts forth its blossoms and

seeds, and finally turns brown and brittle. Just about as you would

conclude it has reached a respectable old age and should settle down by

its chimney corner, it decides to go travelling. The first breath of

wind that comes along snaps it off close to the ground. The next turns

it over. And then, inasmuch as the tumbleweed is roughly globular in

shape, some three or four feet in diameter, and exceedingly light in

structure, over and over it rolls across the plain! If the wind happens

to increase, the whole flock migrates, bounding merrily along at a good

rate of speed. Nothing more terrifying to the unaccustomed equine can be

imagined than thirty or forty of these formidable-looking monsters

charging down upon him, bouncing several feet from the surface of the

earth. The experienced horse treats them with the contempt such

light-minded senility deserves, and wades through their phantom attack

indifferent. After the breeze has died the debauched old tumbleweeds are

everywhere to be seen, piled up against brush, choking the ditches,

filling the roads. Their beautiful spherical shapes have been frayed out

so that they look sodden and weary and done up. But their seeds have

been scattered abroad over the land.

Wherever we found water, there we found ducks. The irrigating ditches

contained many bands of a dozen or fifteen; the overflow ponds had each

its little flock. The sky, too, was rarely empty of them; and the cries

of the snow geese and the calls of sandhill cranes were rarely still. I

remarked on this abundance.

"Ducks!" replied the Captain, wonderingly. "Why, you haven't _begun_ to

see ducks! Come with me."

Thereupon we turned sharp to the left. After ten minutes I made out from

a slight rise above the plain a black patch lying across the distance.

It seemed to cover a hundred acres or so, and to represent a sort of

growth we had not before encountered.

"That," said the Captain, indicating, "is a pond covered with ducks."

I did not believe it. We dropped below the line of sight and rode

steadily forward.

All at once a mighty roar burst on our ears, like the rush of a heavy

train over a high trestle; and immediately the air ahead of us was

filled with ducks towering. They mounted, and wheeled, and circled back

or darted away. The sky became fairly obscured with them in the sense

that it seemed inconceivable that hither space could contain another

bird. Before the retina of the eye they swarmed exactly as a nearer

cloud of mosquitoes would appear.

Hardly had the shock of this first stupendous rise of wildfowl spent

itself before another and larger flight roared up. It seemed that all

the ducks in the world must be a-wing; and yet, even after that, a third

body arose, its rush sounding like the abrupt, overwhelming noise of a

cataract in a sudden shift of wind. I should be afraid to guess how many

ducks had been on that lake. Its surface was literally covered, so that

nowhere did a glint of water show. I suppose it would be a simple matter

to compute within a few thousand how many ducks would occupy so much

space; but of what avail? Mere numbers would convey no impression of the

effect. Rather fill the cup of heaven with myriads thick as a swarm of

gnats against the sun. They swung and circled back and forth before

making up their minds to be off, crossing and recrossing the various

lines of flight. The first thrice-repeated roar of rising had given

place to the clear, sustained whistling of wings, low, penetrating,

inspiring. In the last flight had been a band of several hundred snow

geese; and against the whiteness of their plumage the sun shone.

"That," observed the Captain with conviction, "is what you might call

ducks."

By now it was the middle of the afternoon. We had not thought of lunch.

At the ranch lunch was either a major or a minor consideration; there

was no middle ground. If possible, we ate largely of many most delicious

things. If, on the other hand, we happened to be out somewhere at noon,

we cheerfully omitted lunch. So, when we returned to the ranch, the

Captain, after glancing at his watch and remarking that it was rather

late to eat, proposed that we try out two other ponies with the polo

mallets.

This we proceeded to do. After an hour's pleasant exercise on the flat

in the "Enclosure," we jogged contentedly back into the corral.

Around the corner of the barn sailed a distracted and utterly stampeded

hen. After her, yapping eagerly, came five dachshunds.

Pause and consider the various elements of outrage the situation

presented. (A) Dachshunds are, as before quoted, a bunch of useless,

bandylegged, snip-nosed, waggle-eared----, anyway, and represent an

amiable good-natured weakness on the part of Mrs. Kitty. (B) Dachshunds

in general are _not_ supposed to run wild all over the place, but to

remain in their perfectly good, sufficiently large, entirely comfortable

corral, Pete and Pup excepted. (C) Chickens are valuable. (D) Confound

'em! This sort of a performance will be a bad example for Young Ben.

First thing we'll know, he'll be chasing chickens, too!

The Captain dropped from his pony and joined the procession. The hen

could run just a trifle faster than the dachshunds; and the dachshunds

just a trifle faster than the Captain. I always claimed they circled the

barn three times, in the order named. The Captain insists with dignity

that I exaggerate three hundred per cent. At any rate, the hen finally

blundered, the dachshunds fell upon her--and the Captain swung his polo

mallet.

Five typical "sickening thuds" were heard; five dachshunds literally

sailed through the air to fall in quivering heaps. The Captain, his

anger cooled, came back, shaking his head.

"I wouldn't have killed those dogs for anything in the world!" he

muttered half to me, half to himself as we took the path to the house.

"I don't know what Mrs. Kitty will say to this! I certainly am sorry

about it!" and so on, at length.

We turned the corner of the hedge. There in a row on the top step of the

verandah sat five dachshunds, their mouths open in a happy smile, six

inches of pink tongue hanging, their eyes half closed in good-humoured

appreciation.

The Captain approached softly and looked them over with great care. He

felt of their ribs. He stared up at me incredulously.

"Is this the same outfit?" he whispered.

"It is," said I, "I know the blaze-face brute."

"But--but----"

"They played 'possum on you, Captain."

The Captain arose and his wrath exploded.