Then, With Oaths And The
Sound Of Rent Underwood, A Yoke Of Mighty Bulls Would Swing Down
A "Skid" Road, Hauling A Forty-Foot Log Along A Rudely Made
Slide.
A valley full of wheat and cherry-trees succeeded, and halting at
a house, we bought ten-pound weight of luscious black cherries
for something less than a rupee, and got a drink of icy-cold
water for nothing, while the untended team browsed sagaciously by
the road-side.
Once we found a way-side camp of horse-dealers
lounging by a pool, ready for a sale or a swap, and once two
sun-tanned youngsters shot down a hill on Indian ponies, their
full creels banging from the high-pommelled saddle. They had
been fishing, and were our brethren, therefore. We shouted aloud
in chorus to scare a wild cat; we squabbled over the reasons that
had led a snake to cross a road; we heaved bits of bark at a
venturesome chipmunk, who was really the little gray squirrel of
India, and had come to call on me; we lost our way, and got the
wagon so beautifully fixed on a khud-bound road that we had to
tie the two hind wheels to get it down.
Above all, California told tales of Nevada and Arizona, of lonely
nights spent out prospecting, the slaughter of deer and the chase
of men, of woman - lovely woman - who is a firebrand in a Western
city and leads to the popping of pistols, and of the sudden
changes and chances of Fortune, who delights in making the miner
or the lumber-man a quadruplicate millionaire and in "busting"
the railroad king.
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