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@@ -0,0 +1,3641 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Land of Little Rain, by Mary Austin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Land of Little Rain + +Author: Mary Austin + +Release Date: July 6, 2008 [EBook #365] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND OF LITTLE RAIN *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss + + + + + +THE LAND OF LITTLE RAIN + +by Mary Austin + + +TO EVE + +"The Comfortress of Unsuccess" + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Preface + The Land of Little Rain + Water Trails of the Ceriso + The Scavengers + The Pocket Hunter + Shoshone Land + Jimville--A Bret Harte Town + My Neighbor's Field + The Mesa Trail + The Basket Maker + The Streets of the Mountains + Water Borders + Other Water Borders + Nurslings of the Sky + The Little Town of the Grape Vines + + + + +PREFACE + +I confess to a great liking for the Indian fashion of name-giving: every +man known by that phrase which best expresses him to whoso names him. +Thus he may be Mighty-Hunter, or Man-Afraid-of-a-Bear, according as he +is called by friend or enemy, and Scar-Face to those who knew him by +the eye's grasp only. No other fashion, I think, sets so well with the +various natures that inhabit in us, and if you agree with me you will +understand why so few names are written here as they appear in the +geography. For if I love a lake known by the name of the man who +discovered it, which endears itself by reason of the close-locked pines +it nourishes about its borders, you may look in my account to find it so +described. But if the Indians have been there before me, you shall have +their name, which is always beautifully fit and does not originate in +the poor human desire for perpetuity. + +Nevertheless there are certain peaks, canons, and clear meadow spaces +which are above all compassing of words, and have a certain fame as of +the nobly great to whom we give no familiar names. Guided by these you +may reach my country and find or not find, according as it lieth in you, +much that is set down here. And more. The earth is no wanton to give up +all her best to every comer, but keeps a sweet, separate intimacy +for each. But if you do not find it all as I write, think me not less +dependable nor yourself less clever. There is a sort of pretense allowed +in matters of the heart, as one should say by way of illustration, +"I know a man who..." and so give up his dearest experience without +betrayal. And I am in no mind to direct you to delectable places toward +which you will hold yourself less tenderly than I. So by this fashion +of naming I keep faith with the land and annex to my own estate a very +great territory to which none has a surer title. + +The country where you may have sight and touch of that which is written +lies between the high Sierras south from Yosemite--east and south over +a very great assemblage of broken ranges beyond Death Valley, and on +illimitably into the Mojave Desert. You may come into the borders of +it from the south by a stage journey that has the effect of involving +a great lapse of time, or from the north by rail, dropping out of the +overland route at Reno. The best of all ways is over the Sierra passes +by pack and trail, seeing and believing. But the real heart and core of +the country are not to be come at in a month's vacation. One must summer +and winter with the land and wait its occasions. Pine woods that take +two and three seasons to the ripening of cones, roots that lie by in +the sand seven years awaiting a growing rain, firs that grow fifty years +before flowering,--these do not scrape acquaintance. But if ever you +come beyond the borders as far as the town that lies in a hill dimple at +the foot of Kearsarge, never leave it until you have knocked at the +door of the brown house under the willow-tree at the end of the village +street, and there you shall have such news of the land, of its trails +and what is astir in them, as one lover of it can give to another. + + + + +THE LAND OF LITTLE RAIN + +East away from the Sierras, south from Panamint and Amargosa, east and +south many an uncounted mile, is the Country of Lost Borders. + +Ute, Paiute, Mojave, and Shoshone inhabit its frontiers, and as far into +the heart of it as a man dare go. Not the law, but the land sets the +limit. Desert is the name it wears upon the maps, but the Indian's is +the better word. Desert is a loose term to indicate land that supports +no man; whether the land can be bitted and broken to that purpose is not +proven. Void of life it never is, however dry the air and villainous the +soil. + +This is the nature of that country. There are hills, rounded, blunt, +burned, squeezed up out of chaos, chrome and vermilion painted, aspiring +to the snowline. Between the hills lie high level-looking plains full +of intolerable sun glare, or narrow valleys drowned in a blue haze. +The hill surface is streaked with ash drift and black, unweathered lava +flows. After rains water accumulates in the hollows of small closed +valleys, and, evaporating, leaves hard dry levels of pure desertness +that get the local name of dry lakes. Where the mountains are steep +and the rains heavy, the pool is never quite dry, but dark and bitter, +rimmed about with the efflorescence of alkaline deposits. A thin crust +of it lies along the marsh over the vegetating area, which has neither +beauty nor freshness. In the broad wastes open to the wind the sand +drifts in hummocks about the stubby shrubs, and between them the soil +shows saline traces. The sculpture of the hills here is more wind than +water work, though the quick storms do sometimes scar them past many a +year's redeeming. In all the Western desert edges there are essays in +miniature at the famed, terrible Grand Canon, to which, if you keep on +long enough in this country, you will come at last. + +Since this is a hill country one expects to find springs, but not +to depend upon them; for when found they are often brackish and +unwholesome, or maddening, slow dribbles in a thirsty soil. Here you +find the hot sink of Death Valley, or high rolling districts where +the air has always a tang of frost. Here are the long heavy winds and +breathless calms on the tilted mesas where dust devils dance, whirling +up into a wide, pale sky. Here you have no rain when all the earth cries +for it, or quick downpours called cloud-bursts for violence. A land of +lost rivers, with little in it to love; yet a land that once visited +must be come back to inevitably. If it were not so there would be little +told of it. + +This is the country of three seasons. From June on to November it lies +hot, still, and unbearable, sick with violent unrelieving storms; then +on until April, chill, quiescent, drinking its scant rain and scanter +snows; from April to the hot season again, blossoming, radiant, and +seductive. These months are only approximate; later or earlier the +rain-laden wind may drift up the water gate of the Colorado from the +Gulf, and the land sets its seasons by the rain. + +The desert floras shame us with their cheerful adaptations to the +seasonal limitations. Their whole duty is to flower and fruit, and they +do it hardly, or with tropical luxuriance, as the rain admits. It is +recorded in the report of the Death Valley expedition that after a +year of abundant rains, on the Colorado desert was found a specimen +of Amaranthus ten feet high. A year later the same species in the same +place matured in the drought at four inches. One hopes the land may +breed like qualities in her human offspring, not tritely to "try," but +to do. Seldom does the desert herb attain the full stature of the type. +Extreme aridity and extreme altitude have the same dwarfing effect, so +that we find in the high Sierras and in Death Valley related species in +miniature that reach a comely growth in mean temperatures. Very fertile +are the desert plants in expedients to prevent evaporation, turning +their foliage edge-wise toward the sun, growing silky hairs, exuding +viscid gum. The wind, which has a long sweep, harries and helps them. It +rolls up dunes about the stocky stems, encompassing and protective, and +above the dunes, which may be, as with the mesquite, three times as high +as a man, the blossoming twigs flourish and bear fruit. + +There are many areas in the desert where drinkable water lies within a +few feet of the surface, indicated by the mesquite and the bunch grass +(Sporobolus airoides). It is this nearness of unimagined help that makes +the tragedy of desert deaths. It is related that the final breakdown of +that hapless party that gave Death Valley its forbidding name occurred +in a locality where shallow wells would have saved them. But how were +they to know that? Properly equipped it is possible to go safely across +that ghastly sink, yet every year it takes its toll of death, and yet +men find there sun-dried mummies, of whom no trace or recollection is +preserved. To underestimate one's thirst, to pass a given landmark to +the right or left, to find a dry spring where one looked for running +water--there is no help for any of these things. + +Along springs and sunken watercourses one is surprised to find such +water-loving plants as grow widely in moist ground, but the true desert +breeds its own kind, each in its particular habitat. The angle of the +slope, the frontage of a hill, the structure of the soil determines +the plant. South-looking hills are nearly bare, and the lower tree-line +higher here by a thousand feet. Canons running east and west will have +one wall naked and one clothed. Around dry lakes and marshes the herbage +preserves a set and orderly arrangement. Most species have well-defined +areas of growth, the best index the voiceless land can give the traveler +of his whereabouts. + +If you have any doubt about it, know that the desert begins with the +creosote. This immortal shrub spreads down into Death Valley and up to +the lower timberline, odorous and medicinal as you might guess from +the name, wandlike, with shining fretted foliage. Its vivid green is +grateful to the eye in a wilderness of gray and greenish white shrubs. +In the spring it exudes a resinous gum which the Indians of those parts +know how to use with pulverized rock for cementing arrow points to +shafts. Trust Indians not to miss any virtues of the plant world! + +Nothing the desert produces expresses it better than the unhappy growth +of the tree yuccas. Tormented, thin forests of it stalk drearily in the +high mesas, particularly in that triangular slip that fans out eastward +from the meeting of the Sierras and coastwise hills where the first +swings across the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. The yucca +bristles with bayonet-pointed leaves, dull green, growing shaggy with +age, tipped with panicles of fetid, greenish bloom. After death, which +is slow, the ghostly hollow network of its woody skeleton, with hardly +power to rot, makes the moonlight fearful. Before the yucca has come to +flower, while yet its bloom is a creamy cone-shaped bud of the size of +a small cabbage, full of sugary sap, the Indians twist it deftly out of +its fence of daggers and roast it for their own delectation. + +So it is that in those parts where man inhabits one sees young plants +of Yucca arborensis infrequently. Other yuccas, cacti, low herbs, a +thousand sorts, one finds journeying east from the coastwise hills. +There is neither poverty of soil nor species to account for the +sparseness of desert growth, but simply that each plant requires more +room. So much earth must be preempted to extract so much moisture. +The real struggle for existence, the real brain of the plant, is +underground; above there is room for a rounded perfect growth. In Death +Valley, reputed the very core of desolation, are nearly two hundred +identified species. + +Above the lower tree-line, which is also the snowline, mapped out +abruptly by the sun, one finds spreading growth of pinon, juniper, +branched nearly to the ground, lilac and sage, and scattering white +pines. + +There is no special preponderance of self-fertilized or wind-fertilized +plants, but everywhere the demand for and evidence of insect life. Now +where there are seeds and insects there will be birds and small mammals +and where these are, will come the slinking, sharp-toothed kind that +prey on them. Go as far as you dare in the heart of a lonely land, you +cannot go so far that life and death are not before you. Painted lizards +slip in and out of rock crevices, and pant on the white hot sands. +Birds, hummingbirds even, nest in the cactus scrub; woodpeckers befriend +the demoniac yuccas; out of the stark, treeless waste rings the music +of the night-singing mockingbird. If it be summer and the sun well down, +there will be a burrowing owl to call. Strange, furry, tricksy things +dart across the open places, or sit motionless in the conning towers of +the creosote. The poet may have "named all the birds without a gun," +but not the fairy-footed, ground-inhabiting, furtive, small folk of the +rainless regions. They are too many and too swift; how many you would +not believe without seeing the footprint tracings in the sand. They +are nearly all night workers, finding the days too hot and white. In +mid-desert where there are no cattle, there are no birds of carrion, +but if you go far in that direction the chances are that you will find +yourself shadowed by their tilted wings. Nothing so large as a man can +move unspied upon in that country, and they know well how the land deals +with strangers. There are hints to be had here of the way in which a +land forces new habits on its dwellers. The quick increase of suns at +the end of spring sometimes overtakes birds in their nesting and effects +a reversal of the ordinary manner of incubation. It becomes necessary to +keep eggs cool rather than warm. One hot, stifling spring in the Little +Antelope I had occasion to pass and repass frequently the nest of a pair +of meadowlarks, located unhappily in the shelter of a very slender +weed. I never caught them sitting except near night, but at mid-day they +stood, or drooped above it, half fainting with pitifully parted bills, +between their treasure and the sun. Sometimes both of them together with +wings spread and half lifted continued a spot of shade in a temperature +that constrained me at last in a fellow feeling to spare them a bit of +canvas for permanent shelter. There was a fence in that country shutting +in a cattle range, and along its fifteen miles of posts one could be +sure of finding a bird or two in every strip of shadow; sometimes the +sparrow and the hawk, with wings trailed and beaks parted, drooping in +the white truce of noon. + +If one is inclined to wonder at first how so many dwellers came to be in +the loneliest land that ever came out of God's hands, what they do there +and why stay, one does not wonder so much after having lived there. None +other than this long brown land lays such a hold on the affections. The +rainbow hills, the tender bluish mists, the luminous radiance of the +spring, have the lotus charm. They trick the sense of time, so that once +inhabiting there you always mean to go away without quite realizing that +you have not done it. Men who have lived there, miners and cattlemen, +will tell you this, not so fluently, but emphatically, cursing the land +and going back to it. For one thing there is the divinest, cleanest +air to be breathed anywhere in God's world. Some day the world will +understand that, and the little oases on the windy tops of hills will +harbor for healing its ailing, house-weary broods. There is promise +there of great wealth in ores and earths, which is no wealth by reason +of being so far removed from water and workable conditions, but men are +bewitched by it and tempted to try the impossible. + +You should hear Salty Williams tell how he used to drive eighteen and +twenty-mule teams from the borax marsh to Mojave, ninety miles, with the +trail wagon full of water barrels. Hot days the mules would go so mad +for drink that the clank of the water bucket set them into an uproar +of hideous, maimed noises, and a tangle of harness chains, while Salty +would sit on the high seat with the sun glare heavy in his eyes, dealing +out curses of pacification in a level, uninterested voice until the +clamor fell off from sheer exhaustion. There was a line of shallow +graves along that road; they used to count on dropping a man or two of +every new gang of coolies brought out in the hot season. But when he +lost his swamper, smitten without warning at the noon halt, Salty quit +his job; he said it was "too durn hot." The swamper he buried by the way +with stones upon him to keep the coyotes from digging him up, and seven +years later I read the penciled lines on the pine head-board, still +bright and unweathered. + +But before that, driving up on the Mojave stage, I met Salty again +crossing Indian Wells, his face from the high seat, tanned and ruddy +as a harvest moon, looming through the golden dust above his eighteen +mules. The land had called him. + +The palpable sense of mystery in the desert air breeds fables, chiefly +of lost treasure. Somewhere within its stark borders, if one believes +report, is a hill strewn with nuggets; one seamed with virgin silver; an +old clayey water-bed where Indians scooped up earth to make cooking pots +and shaped them reeking with grains of pure gold. Old miners drifting +about the desert edges, weathered into the semblance of the tawny hills, +will tell you tales like these convincingly. After a little sojourn in +that land you will believe them on their own account. It is a question +whether it is not better to be bitten by the little horned snake of +the desert that goes sidewise and strikes without coiling, than by the +tradition of a lost mine. + +And yet--and yet--is it not perhaps to satisfy expectation that one +falls into the tragic key in writing of desertness? The more you wish of +it the more you get, and in the mean time lose much of pleasantness. In +that country which begins at the foot of the east slope of the Sierras +and spreads out by less and less lofty hill ranges toward the Great +Basin, it is possible to live with great zest, to have red blood and +delicate joys, to pass and repass about one's daily performance an area +that would make an Atlantic seaboard State, and that with no peril, and, +according to our way of thought, no particular difficulty. At any rate, +it was not people who went into the desert merely to write it up who +invented the fabled Hassaympa, of whose waters, if any drink, they +can no more see fact as naked fact, but all radiant with the color +of romance. I, who must have drunk of it in my twice seven years' +wanderings, am assured that it is worth while. + +For all the toll the desert takes of a man it gives compensations, deep +breaths, deep sleep, and the communion of the stars. It comes upon one +with new force in the pauses of the night that the Chaldeans were a +desert-bred people. It is hard to escape the sense of mastery as the +stars move in the wide clear heavens to risings and settings unobscured. +They look large and near and palpitant; as if they moved on some stately +service not needful to declare. Wheeling to their stations in the sky, +they make the poor world-fret of no account. Of no account you who lie +out there watching, nor the lean coyote that stands off in the scrub +from you and howls and howls. + + + + +WATER TRAILS OF THE CERISO + +By the end of the dry season the water trails of the Ceriso are worn to +a white ribbon in the leaning grass, spread out faint and fanwise toward +the homes of gopher and ground rat and squirrel. But however faint to +man-sight, they are sufficiently plain to the furred and feathered folk +who travel them. Getting down to the eye level of rat and squirrel kind, +one perceives what might easily be wide and winding roads to us if they +occurred in thick plantations of trees three times the height of a man. +It needs but a slender thread of barrenness to make a mouse trail in the +forest of the sod. To the little people the water trails are as country +roads, with scents as signboards. + +It seems that man-height is the least fortunate of all heights from +which to study trails. It is better to go up the front of some tall +hill, say the spur of Black Mountain, looking back and down across the +hollow of the Ceriso. Strange how long the soil keeps the impression of +any continuous treading, even after grass has overgrown it. Twenty years +since, a brief heyday of mining at Black Mountain made a stage road +across the Ceriso, yet the parallel lines that are the wheel traces show +from the height dark and well defined. Afoot in the Ceriso one looks in +vain for any sign of it. So all the paths that wild creatures use going +down to the Lone Tree Spring are mapped out whitely from this level, +which is also the level of the hawks. + +There is little water in the Ceriso at the best of times, and that +little brackish and smelling vilely, but by a lone juniper where the +rim of the Ceriso breaks away to the lower country, there is a perpetual +rill of fresh sweet drink in the midst of lush grass and watercress. In +the dry season there is no water else for a man's long journey of a +day. East to the foot of Black Mountain, and north and south without +counting, are the burrows of small rodents, rat and squirrel kind. Under +the sage are the shallow forms of the jackrabbits, and in the dry +banks of washes, and among the strewn fragments of black rock, lairs of +bobcat, fox, and coyote. + +The coyote is your true water-witch, one who snuffs and paws, snuffs and +paws again at the smallest spot of moisture-scented earth until he has +freed the blind water from the soil. Many water-holes are no more than +this detected by the lean hobo of the hills in localities where not even +an Indian would look for it. + +It is the opinion of many wise and busy people that the hill-folk pass +the ten-month interval between the end and renewal of winter rains, with +no drink; but your true idler, with days and nights to spend beside the +water trails, will not subscribe to it. The trails begin, as I said, +very far back in the Ceriso, faintly, and converge in one span broad, +white, hard-trodden way in the gully of the spring. And why trails if +there are no travelers in that direction? + +I have yet to find the land not scarred by the thin, far roadways of +rabbits and what not of furry folks that run in them. Venture to look +for some seldom-touched water-hole, and so long as the trails run with +your general direction make sure you are right, but if they begin to +cross yours at never so slight an angle, to converge toward a point left +or right of your objective, no matter what the maps say, or your memory, +trust them; they know. + +It is very still in the Ceriso by day, so that were it not for the +evidence of those white beaten ways, it might be the desert it looks. +The sun is hot in the dry season, and the days are filled with the +glare of it. Now and again some unseen coyote signals his pack in a +long-drawn, dolorous whine that comes from no determinate point, but +nothing stirs much before mid-afternoon. It is a sign when there begin +to be hawks skimming above the sage that the little people are going +about their business. + +We have fallen on a very careless usage, speaking of wild creatures as +if they were bound by some such limitation as hampers clockwork. When we +say of one and another, they are night prowlers, it is perhaps true only +as the things they feed upon are more easily come by in the dark, and +they know well how to adjust themselves to conditions wherein food is +more plentiful by day. And their accustomed performance is very much +a matter of keen eye, keener scent, quick ear, and a better memory of +sights and sounds than man dares boast. Watch a coyote come out of his +lair and cast about in his mind where he will go for his daily killing. +You cannot very well tell what decides him, but very easily that he has +decided. He trots or breaks into short gallops, with very perceptible +pauses to look up and about at landmarks, alters his tack a little, +looking forward and back to steer his proper course. + +I am persuaded that the coyotes in my valley, which is narrow and beset +with steep, sharp hills, in long passages steer by the pinnacles of +the sky-line, going with head cocked to one side to keep to the left or +right of such and such a promontory. + +I have trailed a coyote often, going across country, perhaps to where +some slant-winged scavenger hanging in the air signaled prospect of +a dinner, and found his track such as a man, a very intelligent man +accustomed to a hill country, and a little cautious, would make to the +same point. Here a detour to avoid a stretch of too little cover, there +a pause on the rim of a gully to pick the better way,--and it is usually +the best way,--and making his point with the greatest economy of effort. +Since the time of Seyavi the deer have shifted their feeding ground +across the valley at the beginning of deep snows, by way of the Black +Rock, fording the river at Charley's Butte, and making straight for the +mouth of the canon that is the easiest going to the winter pastures on +Waban. So they still cross, though whatever trail they had has been long +broken by ploughed ground; but from the mouth of Tinpah Creek, where +the deer come out of the Sierras, it is easily seen that the creek, the +point of Black Rock, and Charley's Butte are in line with the wide bulk +of shade that is the foot of Waban Pass. And along with this the deer +have learned that Charley's Butte is almost the only possible ford, +and all the shortest crossing of the valley. It seems that the wild +creatures have learned all that is important to their way of life +except the changes of the moon. I have seen some prowling fox or coyote, +surprised by its sudden rising from behind the mountain wall, slink in +its increasing glow, watch it furtively from the cover of near-by brush, +unprepared and half uncertain of its identity until it rode clear of the +peaks, and finally make off with all the air of one caught napping by an +ancient joke. The moon in its wanderings must be a sort of exasperation +to cunning beasts, likely to spoil by untimely risings some fore-planned +mischief. + +But to take the trail again; the coyotes that are astir in the Ceriso of +late afternoons, harrying the rabbits from their shallow forms, and the +hawks that sweep and swing above them, are not there from any mechanical +promptings of instinct, but because they know of old experience that the +small fry are about to take to seed gathering and the water trails. The +rabbits begin it, taking the trail with long, light leaps, one eye and +ear cocked to the hills from whence a coyote might descend upon them at +any moment. Rabbits are a foolish people. They do not fight except with +their own kind, nor use their paws except for feet, and appear to have +no reason for existence but to furnish meals for meat-eaters. In flight +they seem to rebound from the earth of their own elasticity, but keep a +sober pace going to the spring. It is the young watercress that tempts +them and the pleasures of society, for they seldom drink. Even in +localities where there are flowing streams they seem to prefer the +moisture that collects on herbage, and after rains may be seen rising on +their haunches to drink delicately the clear drops caught in the tops of +the young sage. But drink they must, as I have often seen them mornings +and evenings at the rill that goes by my door. Wait long enough at the +Lone Tree Spring and sooner or later they will all come in. But here +their matings are accomplished, and though they are fearful of so little +as a cloud shadow or blown leaf, they contrive to have some playful +hours. At the spring the bobcat drops down upon them from the black +rock, and the red fox picks them up returning in the dark. By day the +hawk and eagle overshadow them, and the coyote has all times and seasons +for his own. + +Cattle, when there are any in the Ceriso, drink morning and evening, +spending the night on the warm last lighted slopes of neighboring hills, +stirring with the peep o' day. In these half wild spotted steers the +habits of an earlier lineage persist. It must be long since they have +made beds for themselves, but before lying down they turn themselves +round and round as dogs do. They choose bare and stony ground, exposed +fronts of westward facing hills, and lie down in companies. Usually by +the end of the summer the cattle have been driven or gone of their own +choosing to the mountain meadows. One year a maverick yearling, strayed +or overlooked by the vaqueros, kept on until the season's end, and so +betrayed another visitor to the spring that else I might have missed. +On a certain morning the half-eaten carcass lay at the foot of the black +rock, and in moist earth by the rill of the spring, the foot-pads of a +cougar, puma, mountain lion, or whatever the beast is rightly called. +The kill must have been made early in the evening, for it appeared that +the cougar had been twice to the spring; and since the meat-eater drinks +little until he has eaten, he must have fed and drunk, and after an +interval of lying up in the black rock, had eaten and drunk again. There +was no knowing how far he had come, but if he came again the second +night he found that the coyotes had left him very little of his kill. + +Nobody ventures to say how infrequently and at what hour the small fry +visit the spring. There are such numbers of them that if each came once +between the last of spring and the first of winter rains, there would +still be water trails. I have seen badgers drinking about the hour when +the light takes on the yellow tinge it has from coming slantwise through +the hills. They find out shallow places, and are loath to wet their +feet. Rats and chipmunks have been observed visiting the spring as late +as nine o'clock mornings. + +The larger spermophiles that live near the spring and keep awake to work +all day, come and go at no particular hour, drinking sparingly. At long +intervals on half-lighted days, meadow and field mice steal delicately +along the trail. These visitors are all too small to be watched +carefully at night, but for evidence of their frequent coming there are +the trails that may be traced miles out among the crisping grasses. On +rare nights, in the places where no grass grows between the shrubs, and +the sand silvers whitely to the moon, one sees them whisking to and fro +on innumerable errands of seed gathering, but the chief witnesses of +their presence near the spring are the elf owls. Those burrow-haunting, +speckled fluffs of greediness begin a twilight flitting toward the +spring, feeding as they go on grasshoppers, lizards, and small, swift +creatures, diving into burrows to catch field mice asleep, battling with +chipmunks at their own doors, and getting down in great numbers toward +the long juniper. Now owls do not love water greatly on its own account. +Not to my knowledge have I caught one drinking or bathing, though on +night wanderings across the mesa they flit up from under the horse's +feet along stream borders. Their presence near the spring in great +numbers would indicate the presence of the things they feed upon. All +night the rustle and soft hooting keeps on in the neighborhood of the +spring, with seldom small shrieks of mortal agony. It is clear day +before they have all gotten back to their particular hummocks, and if +one follows cautiously, not to frighten them into some near-by burrow, +it is possible to trail them far up the slope. + +The crested quail that troop in the Ceriso are the happiest frequenters +of the water trails. There is no furtiveness about their morning drink. +About the time the burrowers and all that feed upon them are addressing +themselves to sleep, great flocks pour down the trails with that +peculiar melting motion of moving quail, twittering, shoving, and +shouldering. They splatter into the shallows, drink daintily, shake out +small showers over their perfect coats, and melt away again into the +scrub, preening and pranking, with soft contented noises. + +After the quail, sparrows and ground-inhabiting birds bathe with the +utmost frankness and a great deal of splutter; and here in the heart of +noon hawks resort, sitting panting, with wings aslant, and a truce to +all hostilities because of the heat. One summer there came a road-runner +up from the lower valley, peeking and prying, and he had never any +patience with the water baths of the sparrows. His own ablutions were +performed in the clean, hopeful dust of the chaparral; and whenever +he happened on their morning splatterings, he would depress his glossy +crest, slant his shining tail to the level of his body, until he looked +most like some bright venomous snake, daunting them with shrill abuse +and feint of battle. Then suddenly he would go tilting and balancing +down the gully in fine disdain, only to return in a day or two to make +sure the foolish bodies were still at it. + +Out on the Ceriso about five miles, and wholly out of sight of it, near +where the immemorial foot trail goes up from Saline Flat toward Black +Mountain, is a water sign worth turning out of the trail to see. It is +a laid circle of stones large enough not to be disturbed by any ordinary +hap, with an opening flanked by two parallel rows of similar stones, +between which were an arrow placed, touching the opposite rim of the +circle, thus it would point as the crow flies to the spring. It is the +old, indubitable water mark of the Shoshones. One still finds it in the +desert ranges in Salt Wells and Mesquite valleys, and along the slopes +of Waban. On the other side of Ceriso, where the black rock begins, +about a mile from the spring, is the work of an older, forgotten people. +The rock hereabout is all volcanic, fracturing with a crystalline +whitish surface, but weathered outside to furnace blackness. Around +the spring, where must have been a gathering place of the tribes, it is +scored over with strange pictures and symbols that have no meaning to +the Indians of the present day; but out where the rock begins, there is +carved into the white heart of it a pointing arrow over the symbol +for distance and a circle full of wavy lines reading thus: "In this +direction three [units of measurement unknown] is a spring of sweet +water; look for it." + + + + +THE SCAVENGERS + +Fifty-seven buzzards, one on each of fifty-seven fence posts at the +rancho El Tejon, on a mirage-breeding September morning, sat solemnly +while the white tilted travelers' vans lumbered down the Canada de los +Uvas. After three hours they had only clapped their wings, or exchanged +posts. The season's end in the vast dim valley of the San Joaquin is +palpitatingly hot, and the air breathes like cotton wool. Through it +all the buzzards sit on the fences and low hummocks, with wings spread +fanwise for air. There is no end to them, and they smell to heaven. +Their heads droop, and all their communication is a rare, horrid croak. + +The increase of wild creatures is in proportion to the things they +feed upon: the more carrion the more buzzards. The end of the third +successive dry year bred them beyond belief. The first year quail mated +sparingly; the second year the wild oats matured no seed; the third, +cattle died in their tracks with their heads towards the stopped +watercourses. And that year the scavengers were as black as the plague +all across the mesa and up the treeless, tumbled hills. On clear days +they betook themselves to the upper air, where they hung motionless for +hours. That year there were vultures among them, distinguished by the +white patches under the wings. All their offensiveness notwithstanding, +they have a stately flight. They must also have what pass for good +qualities among themselves, for they are social, not to say clannish. + +It is a very squalid tragedy,--that of the dying brutes and the +scavenger birds. Death by starvation is slow. The heavy-headed, +rack-boned cattle totter in the fruitless trails; they stand for long, +patient intervals; they lie down and do not rise. There is fear in +their eyes when they are first stricken, but afterward only intolerable +weariness. I suppose the dumb creatures know nearly as much of death +as do their betters, who have only the more imagination. Their +even-breathing submission after the first agony is their tribute to +its inevitableness. It needs a nice discrimination to say which of +the basket-ribbed cattle is likest to afford the next meal, but the +scavengers make few mistakes. One stoops to the quarry and the flock +follows. + +Cattle once down may be days in dying. They stretch out their necks +along the ground, and roll up their slow eyes at longer intervals. The +buzzards have all the time, and no beak is dropped or talon struck until +the breath is wholly passed. It is doubtless the economy of nature to +have the scavengers by to clean up the carrion, but a wolf at the throat +would be a shorter agony than the long stalking and sometime perchings +of these loathsome watchers. Suppose now it were a man in this +long-drawn, hungrily spied upon distress! When Timmie O'Shea was lost on +Armogosa Flats for three days without water, Long Tom Basset found him, +not by any trail, but by making straight away for the points where he +saw buzzards stooping. He could hear the beat of their wings, Tom said, +and trod on their shadows, but O'Shea was past recalling what he thought +about things after the second day. My friend Ewan told me, among other +things, when he came back from San Juan Hill, that not all the carnage +of battle turned his bowels as the sight of slant black wings rising +flockwise before the burial squad. + +There are three kinds of noises buzzards make,--it is impossible to call +them notes,--raucous and elemental. There is a short croak of alarm, +and the same syllable in a modified tone to serve all the purposes of +ordinary conversation. The old birds make a kind of throaty chuckling +to their young, but if they have any love song I have not heard it. +The young yawp in the nest a little, with more breath than noise. It is +seldom one finds a buzzard's nest, seldom that grown-ups find a nest of +any sort; it is only children to whom these things happen by right. But +by making a business of it one may come upon them in wide, quiet canons, +or on the lookouts of lonely, table-topped mountains, three or four +together, in the tops of stubby trees or on rotten cliffs well open to +the sky. + +It is probable that the buzzard is gregarious, but it seems unlikely +from the small number of young noted at any time that every female +incubates each year. The young birds are easily distinguished by their +size when feeding, and high up in air by the worn primaries of the older +birds. It is when the young go out of the nest on their first foraging +that the parents, full of a crass and simple pride, make their +indescribable chucklings of gobbling, gluttonous delight. The little +ones would be amusing as they tug and tussle, if one could forget what +it is they feed upon. + +One never comes any nearer to the vulture's nest or nestlings than +hearsay. They keep to the southerly Sierras, and are bold enough, it +seems, to do killing on their own account when no carrion is at hand. +They dog the shepherd from camp to camp, the hunter home from the hill, +and will even carry away offal from under his hand. + +The vulture merits respect for his bigness and for his bandit airs, but +he is a sombre bird, with none of the buzzard's frank satisfaction in +his offensiveness. + +The least objectionable of the inland scavengers is the raven, +frequenter of the desert ranges, the same called locally "carrion crow." +He is handsomer and has such an air. He is nice in his habits and is +said to have likable traits. A tame one in a Shoshone camp was the butt +of much sport and enjoyed it. He could all but talk and was another with +the children, but an arrant thief. The raven will eat most things that +come his way,--eggs and young of ground-nesting birds, seeds even, +lizards and grasshoppers, which he catches cleverly; and whatever he +is about, let a coyote trot never so softly by, the raven flaps up and +after; for whatever the coyote can pull down or nose out is meat also +for the carrion crow. + +And never a coyote comes out of his lair for killing, in the country +of the carrion crows, but looks up first to see where they may be +gathering. It is a sufficient occupation for a windy morning, on +the lineless, level mesa, to watch the pair of them eying each other +furtively, with a tolerable assumption of unconcern, but no doubt with +a certain amount of good understanding about it. Once at Red Rock, in +a year of green pasture, which is a bad time for the scavengers, we saw +two buzzards, five ravens, and a coyote feeding on the same carrion, and +only the coyote seemed ashamed of the company. + +Probably we never fully credit the interdependence of wild creatures, +and their cognizance of the affairs of their own kind. When the five +coyotes that range the Tejon from Pasteria to Tunawai planned a relay +race to bring down an antelope strayed from the band, beside myself to +watch, an eagle swung down from Mt. Pinos, buzzards materialized out +of invisible ether, and hawks came trooping like small boys to a street +fight. Rabbits sat up in the chaparral and cocked their ears, feeling +themselves quite safe for the once as the hunt swung near them. Nothing +happens in the deep wood that the blue jays are not all agog to tell. +The hawk follows the badger, the coyote the carrion crow, and from +their aerial stations the buzzards watch each other. What would be worth +knowing is how much of their neighbor's affairs the new generations +learn for themselves, and how much they are taught of their elders. + +So wide is the range of the scavengers that it is never safe to say, +eyewitness to the contrary, that there are few or many in such a place. +Where the carrion is, there will the buzzards be gathered together, and +in three days' journey you will not sight another one. The way up from +Mojave to Red Butte is all desertness, affording no pasture and scarcely +a rill of water. In a year of little rain in the south, flocks and herds +were driven to the number of thousands along this road to the perennial +pastures of the high ranges. It is a long, slow trail, ankle deep in +bitter dust that gets up in the slow wind and moves along the backs of +the crawling cattle. In the worst of times one in three will pine and +fall out by the way. In the defiles of Red Rock, the sheep piled up a +stinking lane; it was the sun smiting by day. To these shambles came +buzzards, vultures, and coyotes from all the country round, so that on +the Tejon, the Ceriso, and the Little Antelope there were not scavengers +enough to keep the country clean. All that summer the dead mummified in +the open or dropped slowly back to earth in the quagmires of the bitter +springs. Meanwhile from Red Rock to Coyote Holes, and from Coyote Holes +to Haiwai the scavengers gorged and gorged. + +The coyote is not a scavenger by choice, preferring his own kill, +but being on the whole a lazy dog, is apt to fall into carrion eating +because it is easier. The red fox and bobcat, a little pressed by +hunger, will eat of any other animal's kill, but will not ordinarily +touch what dies of itself, and are exceedingly shy of food that has been +man-handled. + +Very clean and handsome, quite belying his relationship in appearance, +is Clark's crow, that scavenger and plunderer of mountain camps. It is +permissible to call him by his common name, "Camp Robber:" he has earned +it. Not content with refuse, he pecks open meal sacks, filches whole +potatoes, is a gormand for bacon, drills holes in packing cases, and is +daunted by nothing short of tin. All the while he does not neglect to +vituperate the chipmunks and sparrows that whisk off crumbs of comfort +from under the camper's feet. The Camp Robber's gray coat, black and +white barred wings, and slender bill, with certain tricks of perching, +accuse him of attempts to pass himself off among woodpeckers; but his +behavior is all crow. He frequents the higher pine belts, and has a +noisy strident call like a jay's, and how clean he and the frisk-tailed +chipmunks keep the camp! No crumb or paring or bit of eggshell goes +amiss. + +High as the camp may be, so it is not above timberline, it is not too +high for the coyote, the bobcat, or the wolf. It is the complaint of the +ordinary camper that the woods are too still, depleted of wild life. But +what dead body of wild thing, or neglected game untouched by its kind, +do you find? And put out offal away from camp over night, and look next +day at the foot tracks where it lay. + +Man is a great blunderer going about in the woods, and there is no other +except the bear makes so much noise. Being so well warned beforehand, +it is a very stupid animal, or a very bold one, that cannot keep safely +hid. The cunningest hunter is hunted in turn, and what he leaves of his +kill is meat for some other. That is the economy of nature, but with it +all there is not sufficient account taken of the works of man. There +is no scavenger that eats tin cans, and no wild thing leaves a like +disfigurement on the forest floor. + + + + +THE POCKET HUNTER + +I remember very well when I first met him. Walking in the evening glow +to spy the marriages of the white gilias, I sniffed the unmistakable +odor of burning sage. It is a smell that carries far and indicates +usually the nearness of a campoodie, but on the level mesa nothing +taller showed than Diana's sage. Over the tops of it, beginning to dusk +under a young white moon, trailed a wavering ghost of smoke, and at +the end of it I came upon the Pocket Hunter making a dry camp in the +friendly scrub. He sat tailor-wise in the sand, with his coffee-pot on +the coals, his supper ready to hand in the frying-pan, and himself in +a mood for talk. His pack burros in hobbles strayed off to hunt for a +wetter mouthful than the sage afforded, and gave him no concern. + +We came upon him often after that, threading the windy passes, or by +water-holes in the desert hills, and got to know much of his way of +life. He was a small, bowed man, with a face and manner and speech of +no character at all, as if he had that faculty of small hunted things of +taking on the protective color of his surroundings. His clothes were of +no fashion that I could remember, except that they bore liberal markings +of pot black, and he had a curious fashion of going about with his +mouth open, which gave him a vacant look until you came near enough to +perceive him busy about an endless hummed, wordless tune. He traveled +far and took a long time to it, but the simplicity of his kitchen +arrangements was elemental. A pot for beans, a coffee-pot, a frying-pan, +a tin to mix bread in--he fed the burros in this when there was +need--with these he had been half round our western world and back. He +explained to me very early in our acquaintance what was good to take to +the hills for food: nothing sticky, for that "dirtied the pots;" nothing +with "juice" to it, for that would not pack to advantage; and nothing +likely to ferment. He used no gun, but he would set snares by the +water-holes for quail and doves, and in the trout country he carried a +line. Burros he kept, one or two according to his pack, for this chief +excellence, that they would eat potato parings and firewood. He had +owned a horse in the foothill country, but when he came to the desert +with no forage but mesquite, he found himself under the necessity of +picking the beans from the briers, a labor that drove him to the use of +pack animals to whom thorns were a relish. + +I suppose no man becomes a pocket hunter by first intention. He must be +born with the faculty, and along comes the occasion, like the tap on +the test tube that induces crystallization. My friend had been several +things of no moment until he struck a thousand-dollar pocket in the Lee +District and came into his vocation. A pocket, you must know, is a small +body of rich ore occurring by itself, or in a vein of poorer stuff. +Nearly every mineral ledge contains such, if only one has the luck to +hit upon them without too much labor. The sensible thing for a man to +do who has found a good pocket is to buy himself into business and keep +away from the hills. The logical thing is to set out looking for another +one. My friend the Pocket Hunter had been looking twenty years. His +working outfit was a shovel, a pick, a gold pan which he kept cleaner +than his plate, and a pocket magnifier. When he came to a watercourse +he would pan out the gravel of its bed for "colors," and under the glass +determine if they had come from far or near, and so spying he would work +up the stream until he found where the drift of the gold-bearing outcrop +fanned out into the creek; then up the side of the canon till he came +to the proper vein. I think he said the best indication of small pockets +was an iron stain, but I could never get the run of miner's talk enough +to feel instructed for pocket hunting. He had another method in the +waterless hills, where he would work in and out of blind gullies and all +windings of the manifold strata that appeared not to have cooled since +they had been heaved up. His itinerary began with the east slope of the +Sierras of the Snows, where that range swings across to meet the coast +hills, and all up that slope to the Truckee River country, where the +long cold forbade his progress north. Then he worked back down one or +another of the nearly parallel ranges that lie out desertward, and +so down to the sink of the Mojave River, burrowing to oblivion in the +sand,--a big mysterious land, a lonely, inhospitable land, beautiful, +terrible. But he came to no harm in it; the land tolerated him as it +might a gopher or a badger. Of all its inhabitants it has the least +concern for man. + +There are many strange sorts of humans bred in a mining country, each +sort despising the queernesses of the other, but of them all I found the +Pocket Hunter most acceptable for his clean, companionable talk. There +was more color to his reminiscences than the faded sandy old miners +"kyoteing," that is, tunneling like a coyote (kyote in the vernacular) +in the core of a lonesome hill. Such a one has found, perhaps, a body of +tolerable ore in a poor lead,--remember that I can never be depended on +to get the terms right,--and followed it into the heart of country rock +to no profit, hoping, burrowing, and hoping. These men go harmlessly mad +in time, believing themselves just behind the wall of fortune--most +likable and simple men, for whom it is well to do any kindly thing that +occurs to you except lend them money. I have known "grub stakers" too, +those persuasive sinners to whom you make allowances of flour and pork +and coffee in consideration of the ledges they are about to find; but +none of these proved so much worth while as the Pocket Hunter. He wanted +nothing of you and maintained a cheerful preference for his own way of +life. It was an excellent way if you had the constitution for it. The +Pocket Hunter had gotten to that point where he knew no bad weather, and +all places were equally happy so long as they were out of doors. I do +not know just how long it takes to become saturated with the elements so +that one takes no account of them. Myself can never get past the glow +and exhilaration of a storm, the wrestle of long dust-heavy winds, the +play of live thunder on the rocks, nor past the keen fret of fatigue +when the storm outlasts physical endurance. But prospectors and Indians +get a kind of a weather shell that remains on the body until death. + +The Pocket Hunter had seen destruction by the violence of nature and +the violence of men, and felt himself in the grip of an All-wisdom that +killed men or spared them as seemed for their good; but of death by +sickness he knew nothing except that he believed he should never suffer +it. He had been in Grape-vine Canon the year of storms that changed the +whole front of the mountain. All day he had come down under the wing +of the storm, hoping to win past it, but finding it traveling with him +until night. It kept on after that, he supposed, a steady downpour, +but could not with certainty say, being securely deep in sleep. But the +weather instinct does not sleep. In the night the heavens behind the +hill dissolved in rain, and the roar of the storm was borne in and mixed +with his dreaming, so that it moved him, still asleep, to get up and out +of the path of it. What finally woke him was the crash of pine logs as +they went down before the unbridled flood, and the swirl of foam that +lashed him where he clung in the tangle of scrub while the wall of +water went by. It went on against the cabin of Bill Gerry and laid Bill +stripped and broken on a sand bar at the mouth of the Grape-vine, seven +miles away. There, when the sun was up and the wrath of the rain spent, +the Pocket Hunter found and buried him; but he never laid his own escape +at any door but the unintelligible favor of the Powers. + +The journeyings of the Pocket Hunter led him often into that mysterious +country beyond Hot Creek where a hidden force works mischief, mole-like, +under the crust of the earth. Whatever agency is at work in that +neighborhood, and it is popularly supposed to be the devil, it changes +means and direction without time or season. It creeps up whole hillsides +with insidious heat, unguessed until one notes the pine woods dying at +the top, and having scorched out a good block of timber returns to steam +and spout in caked, forgotten crevices of years before. It will break up +sometimes blue-hot and bubbling, in the midst of a clear creek, or make +a sucking, scalding quicksand at the ford. These outbreaks had the +kind of morbid interest for the Pocket Hunter that a house of unsavory +reputation has in a respectable neighborhood, but I always found the +accounts he brought me more interesting than his explanations, which +were compounded of fag ends of miner's talk and superstition. He was a +perfect gossip of the woods, this Pocket Hunter, and when I could get +him away from "leads" and "strikes" and "contacts," full of fascinating +small talk about the ebb and flood of creeks, the pinon crop on Black +Mountain, and the wolves of Mesquite Valley. I suppose he never knew how +much he depended for the necessary sense of home and companionship +on the beasts and trees, meeting and finding them in their wonted +places,--the bear that used to come down Pine Creek in the spring, +pawing out trout from the shelters of sod banks, the juniper at Lone +Tree Spring, and the quail at Paddy Jack's. + +There is a place on Waban, south of White Mountain, where flat, +wind-tilted cedars make low tents and coves of shade and shelter, where +the wild sheep winter in the snow. Woodcutters and prospectors had +brought me word of that, but the Pocket Hunter was accessory to the +fact. About the opening of winter, when one looks for sudden big storms, +he had attempted a crossing by the nearest path, beginning the ascent at +noon. It grew cold, the snow came on thick and blinding, and wiped +out the trail in a white smudge; the storm drift blew in and cut off +landmarks, the early dark obscured the rising drifts. According to the +Pocket Hunter's account, he knew where he was, but couldn't exactly say. +Three days before he had been in the west arm of Death Valley on a short +water allowance, ankle-deep in shifty sand; now he was on the rise +of Waban, knee-deep in sodden snow, and in both cases he did the +only allowable thing--he walked on. That is the only thing to do in a +snowstorm in any case. It might have been the creature instinct, which +in his way of life had room to grow, that led him to the cedar shelter; +at any rate he found it about four hours after dark, and heard the +heavy breathing of the flock. He said that if he thought at all at this +juncture he must have thought that he had stumbled on a storm-belated +shepherd with his silly sheep; but in fact he took no note of anything +but the warmth of packed fleeces, and snuggled in between them dead with +sleep. If the flock stirred in the night he stirred drowsily to keep +close and let the storm go by. That was all until morning woke him +shining on a white world. Then the very soul of him shook to see the +wild sheep of God stand up about him, nodding their great horns beneath +the cedar roof, looking out on the wonder of the snow. They had moved a +little away from him with the coming of the light, but paid him no more +heed. The light broadened and the white pavilions of the snow swam in +the heavenly blueness of the sea from which they rose. The cloud drift +scattered and broke billowing in the canons. The leader stamped lightly +on the litter to put the flock in motion, suddenly they took the drifts +in those long light leaps that are nearest to flight, down and away on +the slopes of Waban. Think of that to happen to a Pocket Hunter! But +though he had fallen on many a wished-for hap, he was curiously inapt at +getting the truth about beasts in general. He believed in the venom of +toads, and charms for snake bites, and--for this I could never forgive +him--had all the miner's prejudices against my friend the coyote. Thief, +sneak, and son of a thief were the friendliest words he had for this +little gray dog of the wilderness. + +Of course with so much seeking he came occasionally upon pockets of more +or less value, otherwise he could not have kept up his way of life; but +he had as much luck in missing great ledges as in finding small ones. +He had been all over the Tonopah country, and brought away float without +happening upon anything that gave promise of what that district was +to become in a few years. He claimed to have chipped bits off the very +outcrop of the California Rand, without finding it worth while to bring +away, but none of these things put him out of countenance. + +It was once in roving weather, when we found him shifting pack on a +steep trail, that I observed certain of his belongings done up in green +canvas bags, the veritable "green bag" of English novels. It seemed +so incongruous a reminder in this untenanted West that I dropped down +beside the trail overlooking the vast dim valley, to hear about the +green canvas. He had gotten it, he said, in London years before, and +that was the first I had known of his having been abroad. It was after +one of his "big strikes" that he had made the Grand Tour, and had +brought nothing away from it but the green canvas bags, which he +conceived would fit his needs, and an ambition. This last was nothing +less than to strike it rich and set himself up among the eminently +bourgeois of London. It seemed that the situation of the wealthy +English middle class, with just enough gentility above to aspire to, +and sufficient smaller fry to bully and patronize, appealed to his +imagination, though of course he did not put it so crudely as that. + +It was no news to me then, two or three years after, to learn that he +had taken ten thousand dollars from an abandoned claim, just the sort +of luck to have pleased him, and gone to London to spend it. The land +seemed not to miss him any more than it had minded him, but I missed +him and could not forget the trick of expecting him in least likely +situations. Therefore it was with a pricking sense of the familiar that +I followed a twilight trail of smoke, a year or two later, to the swale +of a dripping spring, and came upon a man by the fire with a coffee-pot +and frying-pan. I was not surprised to find it was the Pocket Hunter. No +man can be stronger than his destiny. + + + + +SHOSHONE LAND + +It is true I have been in Shoshone Land, but before that, long before, +I had seen it through the eyes of Winnenap' in a rosy mist of +reminiscence, and must always see it with a sense of intimacy in the +light that never was. Sitting on the golden slope at the campoodie, +looking across the Bitter Lake to the purple tops of Mutarango, the +medicine-man drew up its happy places one by one, like little blessed +islands in a sea of talk. For he was born a Shoshone, was Winnenap'; and +though his name, his wife, his children, and his tribal relations were +of the Paiutes, his thoughts turned homesickly toward Shoshone Land. +Once a Shoshone always a Shoshone. Winnenap' lived gingerly among the +Paiutes and in his heart despised them. But he could speak a tolerable +English when he would, and he always would if it were of Shoshone Land. + +He had come into the keeping of the Paiutes as a hostage for the long +peace which the authority of the whites made interminable, and, though +there was now no order in the tribe, nor any power that could have +lawfully restrained him, kept on in the old usage, to save his honor and +the word of his vanished kin. He had seen his children's children in +the borders of the Paiutes, but loved best his own miles of sand and +rainbow-painted hills. Professedly he had not seen them since the +beginning of his hostage; but every year about the end of the rains +and before the strength of the sun had come upon us from the south, the +medicine-man went apart on the mountains to gather herbs, and when he +came again I knew by the new fortitude of his countenance and the new +color of his reminiscences that he had been alone and unspied upon in +Shoshone Land. + +To reach that country from the campoodie, one goes south and south, +within hearing of the lip-lip-lapping of the great tideless lake, and +south by east over a high rolling district, miles and miles of sage and +nothing else. So one comes to the country of the painted hills,--old red +cones of craters, wasteful beds of mineral earths, hot, acrid springs, +and steam jets issuing from a leprous soil. After the hills the black +rock, after the craters the spewed lava, ash strewn, of incredible +thickness, and full of sharp, winding rifts. There are picture writings +carved deep in the face of the cliffs to mark the way for those who do +not know it. On the very edge of the black rock the earth falls away in +a wide sweeping hollow, which is Shoshone Land. + +South the land rises in very blue hills, blue because thickly wooded +with ceanothus and manzanita, the haunt of deer and the border of the +Shoshones. Eastward the land goes very far by broken ranges, narrow +valleys of pure desertness, and huge mesas uplifted to the sky-line, +east and east, and no man knows the end of it. + +It is the country of the bighorn, the wapiti, and the wolf, nesting +place of buzzards, land of cloud-nourished trees and wild things that +live without drink. Above all, it is the land of the creosote and the +mesquite. The mesquite is God's best thought in all this desertness. It +grows in the open, is thorny, stocky, close grown, and iron-rooted. Long +winds move in the draughty valleys, blown sand fills and fills about +the lower branches, piling pyramidal dunes, from the top of which the +mesquite twigs flourish greenly. Fifteen or twenty feet under the drift, +where it seems no rain could penetrate, the main trunk grows, attaining +often a yard's thickness, resistant as oak. In Shoshone Land one digs +for large timber; that is in the southerly, sandy exposures. Higher on +the table-topped ranges low trees of juniper and pinon stand each apart, +rounded and spreading heaps of greenness. Between them, but each to +itself in smooth clear spaces, tufts of tall feathered grass. + +This is the sense of the desert hills, that there is room enough and +time enough. Trees grow to consummate domes; every plant has its perfect +work. Noxious weeds such as come up thickly in crowded fields do not +flourish in the free spaces. Live long enough with an Indian, and he or +the wild things will show you a use for everything that grows in these +borders. + +The manner of the country makes the usage of life there, and the land +will not be lived in except in its own fashion. The Shoshones live +like their trees, with great spaces between, and in pairs and in family +groups they set up wattled huts by the infrequent springs. More wickiups +than two make a very great number. Their shelters are lightly built, for +they travel much and far, following where deer feed and seeds ripen, but +they are not more lonely than other creatures that inhabit there. + +The year's round is somewhat in this fashion. After the pinon harvest +the clans foregather on a warm southward slope for the annual adjustment +of tribal difficulties and the medicine dance, for marriage and mourning +and vengeance, and the exchange of serviceable information; if, for +example, the deer have shifted their feeding ground, if the wild sheep +have come back to Waban, or certain springs run full or dry. Here the +Shoshones winter flockwise, weaving baskets and hunting big game driven +down from the country of the deep snow. And this brief intercourse is +all the use they have of their kind, for now there are no wars, and many +of their ancient crafts have fallen into disuse. The solitariness of the +life breeds in the men, as in the plants, a certain well-roundedness +and sufficiency to its own ends. Any Shoshone family has in itself the +man-seed, power to multiply and replenish, potentialities for food and +clothing and shelter, for healing and beautifying. + +When the rain is over and gone they are stirred by the instinct of those +that journeyed eastward from Eden, and go up each with his mate and +young brood, like birds to old nesting places. The beginning of spring +in Shoshone Land--oh the soft wonder of it!--is a mistiness as of +incense smoke, a veil of greenness over the whitish stubby shrubs, a web +of color on the silver sanded soil. No counting covers the multitude of +rayed blossoms that break suddenly underfoot in the brief season of the +winter rains, with silky furred or prickly viscid foliage, or no foliage +at all. They are morning and evening bloomers chiefly, and strong +seeders. Years of scant rains they lie shut and safe in the winnowed +sands, so that some species appear to be extinct. Years of long storms +they break so thickly into bloom that no horse treads without crushing +them. These years the gullies of the hills are rank with fern and a +great tangle of climbing vines. + +Just as the mesa twilights have their vocal note in the love call of +the burrowing owl, so the desert spring is voiced by the mourning doves. +Welcome and sweet they sound in the smoky mornings before breeding time, +and where they frequent in any great numbers water is confidently looked +for. Still by the springs one finds the cunning brush shelters from +which the Shoshones shot arrows at them when the doves came to drink. + +Now as to these same Shoshones there are some who claim that they have +no right to the name, which belongs to a more northerly tribe; but that +is the word they will be called by, and there is no greater offense than +to call an Indian out of his name. According to their traditions and all +proper evidence, they were a great people occupying far north and east +of their present bounds, driven thence by the Paiutes. Between the two +tribes is the residuum of old hostilities. + +Winnenap', whose memory ran to the time when the boundary of the Paiute +country was a dead-line to Shoshones, told me once how himself and +another lad, in an unforgotten spring, discovered a nesting place of +buzzards a bit of a way beyond the borders. And they two burned to +rob those nests. Oh, for no purpose at all except as boys rob nests +immemorially, for the fun of it, to have and handle and show to other +lads as an exceeding treasure, and afterwards discard. So, not quite +meaning to, but breathless with daring, they crept up a gully, across +a sage brush flat and through a waste of boulders, to the rugged pines +where their sharp eyes had made out the buzzards settling. + +The medicine-man told me, always with a quaking relish at this point, +that while they, grown bold by success, were still in the tree, they +sighted a Paiute hunting party crossing between them and their own land. +That was mid-morning, and all day on into the dark the boys crept and +crawled and slid, from boulder to bush, and bush to boulder, in cactus +scrub and on naked sand, always in a sweat of fear, until the dust caked +in the nostrils and the breath sobbed in the body, around and away +many a mile until they came to their own land again. And all the time +Winnenap' carried those buzzard's eggs in the slack of his single +buckskin garment! Young Shoshones are like young quail, knowing without +teaching about feeding and hiding, and learning what civilized children +never learn, to be still and to keep on being still, at the first hint +of danger or strangeness. + +As for food, that appears to be chiefly a matter of being willing. +Desert Indians all eat chuckwallas, big black and white lizards that +have delicate white flesh savored like chicken. Both the Shoshones and +the coyotes are fond of the flesh of Gopherus agassizii, the turtle +that by feeding on buds, going without drink, and burrowing in the sand +through the winter, contrives to live a known period of twenty-five +years. It seems that most seeds are foodful in the arid regions, most +berries edible, and many shrubs good for firewood with the sap in them. +The mesquite bean, whether the screw or straight pod, pounded to a +meal, boiled to a kind of mush, and dried in cakes, sulphur-colored +and needing an axe to cut it, is an excellent food for long journeys. +Fermented in water with wild honey and the honeycomb, it makes a +pleasant, mildly intoxicating drink. + +Next to spring, the best time to visit Shoshone Land is when the +deer-star hangs low and white like a torch over the morning hills. Go +up past Winnedumah and down Saline and up again to the rim of Mesquite +Valley. Take no tent, but if you will, have an Indian build you a +wickiup, willows planted in a circle, drawn over to an arch, and bound +cunningly with withes, all the leaves on, and chinks to count the stars +through. But there was never any but Winnenap' who could tell and make +it worth telling about Shoshone Land. + +And Winnenap' will not any more. He died, as do most medicine-men of the +Paiutes. + +Where the lot falls when the campoodie chooses a medicine-man there it +rests. It is an honor a man seldom seeks but must wear, an honor with +a condition. When three patients die under his ministrations, the +medicine-man must yield his life and his office. + +Wounds do not count; broken bones and bullet holes the Indian can +understand, but measles, pneumonia, and smallpox are witchcraft. +Winnenap' was medicine-man for fifteen years. Besides considerable skill +in healing herbs, he used his prerogatives cunningly. It is permitted +the medicine-man to decline the case when the patient has had treatment +from any other, say the white doctor, whom many of the younger +generation consult. Or, if before having seen the patient, he can +definitely refer his disorder to some supernatural cause wholly out +of the medicine-man's jurisdiction, say to the spite of an evil spirit +going about in the form of a coyote, and states the case convincingly, +he may avoid the penalty. But this must not be pushed too far. All +else failing, he can hide. Winnenap' did this the time of the measles +epidemic. Returning from his yearly herb gathering, he heard of it at +Black Rock, and turning aside, he was not to be found, nor did he +return to his own place until the disease had spent itself, and half +the children of the campoodie were in their shallow graves with beads +sprinkled over them. + +It is possible the tale of Winnenap's patients had not been strictly +kept. There had not been a medicine-man killed in the valley for twelve +years, and for that the perpetrators had been severely punished by the +whites. The winter of the Big Snow an epidemic of pneumonia carried off +the Indians with scarcely a warning; from the lake northward to the +lava flats they died in the sweathouses, and under the hands of the +medicine-men. Even the drugs of the white physician had no power. + +After two weeks of this plague the Paiutes drew to council to consider +the remissness of their medicine-men. They were sore with grief +and afraid for themselves; as a result of the council, one in every +campoodie was sentenced to the ancient penalty. But schooling and native +shrewdness had raised up in the younger men an unfaith in old usages, +so judgment halted between sentence and execution. At Three Pines the +government teacher brought out influential whites to threaten and cajole +the stubborn tribes. At Tunawai the conservatives sent into Nevada for +that pacific old humbug, Johnson Sides, most notable of Paiute orators, +to harangue his people. Citizens of the towns turned out with food and +comforts, and so after a season the trouble passed. + +But here at Maverick there was no school, no oratory, and no +alleviation. One third of the campoodie died, and the rest killed the +medicine-men. Winnenap' expected it, and for days walked and sat a +little apart from his family that he might meet it as became a Shoshone, +no doubt suffering the agony of dread deferred. When finally three men +came and sat at his fire without greeting he knew his time. He turned a +little from them, dropped his chin upon his knees, and looked out over +Shoshone Land, breathing evenly. The women went into the wickiup and +covered their heads with their blankets. + +So much has the Indian lost of savageness by merely desisting from +killing, that the executioners braved themselves to their work +by drinking and a show of quarrelsomeness. In the end a sharp +hatchet-stroke discharged the duty of the campoodie. Afterward his women +buried him, and a warm wind coming out of the south, the force of the +disease was broken, and even they acquiesced in the wisdom of the tribe. +That summer they told me all except the names of the Three. + +Since it appears that we make our own heaven here, no doubt we shall +have a hand in the heaven of hereafter; and I know what Winnenap's will +be like: worth going to if one has leave to live in it according to +his liking. It will be tawny gold underfoot, walled up with jacinth and +jasper, ribbed with chalcedony, and yet no hymnbook heaven, but the free +air and free spaces of Shoshone Land. + + + + +JIMVILLE + +A BRET HARTE TOWN + +When Mr. Harte found himself with a fresh palette and his particular +local color fading from the West, he did what he considered the only +safe thing, and carried his young impression away to be worked out +untroubled by any newer fact. He should have gone to Jimville. There he +would have found cast up on the ore-ribbed hills the bleached timbers of +more tales, and better ones. + +You could not think of Jimville as anything more than a survival, like +the herb-eating, bony-cased old tortoise that pokes cheerfully about +those borders some thousands of years beyond his proper epoch. Not that +Jimville is old, but it has an atmosphere favorable to the type of a +half century back, if not "forty-niners," of that breed. It is said +of Jimville that getting away from it is such a piece of work that it +encourages permanence in the population; the fact is that most have been +drawn there by some real likeness or liking. Not however that I would +deny the difficulty of getting into or out of that cove of reminder, I +who have made the journey so many times at great pains of a poor body. +Any way you go at it, Jimville is about three days from anywhere in +particular. North or south, after the railroad there is a stage journey +of such interminable monotony as induces forgetfulness of all previous +states of existence. + +The road to Jimville is the happy hunting ground of old stage-coaches +bought up from superseded routes the West over, rocking, lumbering, wide +vehicles far gone in the odor of romance, coaches that Vasquez has held +up, from whose high seats express messengers have shot or been shot as +their luck held. This is to comfort you when the driver stops to rummage +for wire to mend a failing bolt. There is enough of this sort of thing +to quite prepare you to believe what the driver insists, namely, that +all that country and Jimville are held together by wire. + +First on the way to Jimville you cross a lonely open land, with a hint +in the sky of things going on under the horizon, a palpitant, white, hot +land where the wheels gird at the sand and the midday heaven shuts it in +breathlessly like a tent. So in still weather; and when the wind blows +there is occupation enough for the passengers, shifting seats to hold +down the windward side of the wagging coach. This is a mere trifle. The +Jimville stage is built for five passengers, but when you have seven, +with four trunks, several parcels, three sacks of grain, the mail and +express, you begin to understand that proverb about the road which has +been reported to you. In time you learn to engage the high seat beside +the driver, where you get good air and the best company. Beyond the +desert rise the lava flats, scoriae strewn; sharp-cutting walls of +narrow canons; league-wide, frozen puddles of black rock, intolerable +and forbidding. Beyond the lava the mouths that spewed it out, +ragged-lipped, ruined craters shouldering to the cloud-line, mostly of +red earth, as red as a red heifer. These have some comforting of shrubs +and grass. You get the very spirit of the meaning of that country when +you see Little Pete feeding his sheep in the red, choked maw of an old +vent,--a kind of silly pastoral gentleness that glozes over an elemental +violence. Beyond the craters rise worn, auriferous hills of a quiet +sort, tumbled together; a valley full of mists; whitish green scrub; and +bright, small, panting lizards; then Jimville. + +The town looks to have spilled out of Squaw Gulch, and that, in fact, +is the sequence of its growth. It began around the Bully Boy and Theresa +group of mines midway up Squaw Gulch, spreading down to the smelter at +the mouth of the ravine. The freight wagons dumped their loads as near +to the mill as the slope allowed, and Jimville grew in between. Above +the Gulch begins a pine wood with sparsely grown thickets of lilac, +azalea, and odorous blossoming shrubs. + +Squaw Gulch is a very sharp, steep, ragged-walled ravine, and that part +of Jimville which is built in it has only one street,--in summer paved +with bone-white cobbles, in the wet months a frothy yellow flood. All +between the ore dumps and solitary small cabins, pieced out with tin +cans and packing cases, run footpaths drawing down to the Silver Dollar +saloon. When Jimville was having the time of its life the Silver +Dollar had those same coins let into the bar top for a border, but +the proprietor pried them out when the glory departed. There are three +hundred inhabitants in Jimville and four bars, though you are not to +argue anything from that. + +Hear now how Jimville came by its name. Jim Calkins discovered the +Bully Boy, Jim Baker located the Theresa. When Jim Jenkins opened an +eating-house in his tent he chalked up on the flap, "Best meals in +Jimville, $1.00," and the name stuck. + +There was more human interest in the origin of Squaw Gulch, though it +tickled no humor. It was Dimmick's squaw from Aurora way. If Dimmick had +been anything except New Englander he would have called her a mahala, +but that would not have bettered his behavior. Dimmick made a strike, +went East, and the squaw who had been to him as his wife took to drink. +That was the bald way of stating it in the Aurora country. The milk of +human kindness, like some wine, must not be uncorked too much in speech +lest it lose savor. This is what they did. The woman would have returned +to her own people, being far gone with child, but the drink worked her +bane. By the river of this ravine her pains overtook her. There Jim +Calkins, prospecting, found her dying with a three days' babe nozzling +at her breast. Jim heartened her for the end, buried her, and walked +back to Poso, eighteen miles, the child poking in the folds of his +denim shirt with small mewing noises, and won support for it from the +rough-handed folks of that place. Then he came back to Squaw Gulch, so +named from that day, and discovered the Bully Boy. Jim humbly regarded +this piece of luck as interposed for his reward, and I for one believed +him. If it had been in mediaeval times you would have had a legend or +a ballad. Bret Harte would have given you a tale. You see in me a mere +recorder, for I know what is best for you; you shall blow out this +bubble from your own breath. + +You could never get into any proper relation to Jimville unless you +could slough off and swallow your acquired prejudices as a lizard does +his skin. Once wanting some womanly attentions, the stage-driver assured +me I might have them at the Nine-Mile House from the lady barkeeper. +The phrase tickled all my after-dinner-coffee sense of humor into an +anticipation of Poker Flat. The stage-driver proved himself really +right, though you are not to suppose from this that Jimville had no +conventions and no caste. They work out these things in the personal +equation largely. Almost every latitude of behavior is allowed a good +fellow, one no liar, a free spender, and a backer of his friends' +quarrels. You are respected in as much ground as you can shoot over, in +as many pretensions as you can make good. + +That probably explains Mr. Fanshawe, the gentlemanly faro dealer of +those parts, built for the role of Oakhurst, going white-shirted +and frock-coated in a community of overalls; and persuading you that +whatever shifts and tricks of the game were laid to his deal, he could +not practice them on a person of your penetration. But he does. By +his own account and the evidence of his manners he had been bred for a +clergyman, and he certainly has gifts for the part. You find him always +in possession of your point of view, and with an evident though not +obtrusive desire to stand well with you. For an account of his killings, +for his way with women and the way of women with him, I refer you to +Brown of Calaveras and some others of that stripe. His improprieties had +a certain sanction of long standing not accorded to the gay ladies who +wore Mr. Fanshawe's favors. There were perhaps too many of them. On the +whole, the point of the moral distinctions of Jimville appears to be a +point of honor, with an absence of humorous appreciation that strangers +mistake for dullness. At Jimville they see behavior as history and judge +it by facts, untroubled by invention and the dramatic sense. You glimpse +a crude equity in their dealings with Wilkins, who had shot a man at +Lone Tree, fairly, in an open quarrel. Rumor of it reached Jimville +before Wilkins rested there in flight. I saw Wilkins, all Jimville saw +him; in fact, he came into the Silver Dollar when we were holding a +church fair and bought a pink silk pincushion. I have often wondered +what became of it. Some of us shook hands with him, not because we did +not know, but because we had not been officially notified, and there +were those present who knew how it was themselves. When the sheriff +arrived Wilkins had moved on, and Jimville organized a posse and brought +him back, because the sheriff was a Jimville man and we had to stand by +him. + +I said we had the church fair at the Silver Dollar. We had most things +there, dances, town meetings, and the kinetoscope exhibition of the +Passion Play. The Silver Dollar had been built when the borders of +Jimville spread from Minton to the red hill the Defiance twisted +through. "Side-Winder" Smith scrubbed the floor for us and moved the bar +to the back room. The fair was designed for the support of the circuit +rider who preached to the few that would hear, and buried us all in +turn. He was the symbol of Jimville's respectability, although he was of +a sect that held dancing among the cardinal sins. The management took +no chances on offending the minister; at 11.30 they tendered him the +receipts of the evening in the chairman's hat, as a delicate intimation +that the fair was closed. The company filed out of the front door and +around to the back. Then the dance began formally with no feelings +hurt. These were the sort of courtesies, common enough in Jimville, that +brought tears of delicate inner laughter. + +There were others besides Mr. Fanshawe who had walked out of Mr. Harte's +demesne to Jimville and wore names that smacked of the soil,--"Alkali +Bill," "Pike" Wilson, "Three Finger," and "Mono Jim;" fierce, shy, +profane, sun-dried derelicts of the windy hills, who each owned, or had +owned, a mine and was wishful to own one again. They laid up on the worn +benches of the Silver Dollar or the Same Old Luck like beached vessels, +and their talk ran on endlessly of "strike" and "contact" and "mother +lode," and worked around to fights and hold-ups, villainy, haunts, and +the hoodoo of the Minietta, told austerely without imagination. + +Do not suppose I am going to repeat it all; you who want these things +written up from the point of view of people who do not do them every day +would get no savor in their speech. + +Says Three Finger, relating the history of the Mariposa, "I took it +off'n Tom Beatty, cheap, after his brother Bill was shot." + +Says Jim Jenkins, "What was the matter of him?" + +"Who? Bill? Abe Johnson shot him; he was fooling around Johnson's wife, +an' Tom sold me the mine dirt cheap." + +"Why didn't he work it himself?" + +"Him? Oh, he was laying for Abe and calculated to have to leave the +country pretty quick." + +"Huh!" says Jim Jenkins, and the tale flows smoothly on. + +Yearly the spring fret floats the loose population of Jimville out into +the desolate waste hot lands, guiding by the peaks and a few rarely +touched water-holes, always, always with the golden hope. They develop +prospects and grow rich, develop others and grow poor but never +embittered. Say the hills, It is all one, there is gold enough, +time enough, and men enough to come after you. And at Jimville they +understand the language of the hills. + +Jimville does not know a great deal about the crust of the earth, it +prefers a "hunch." That is an intimation from the gods that if you go +over a brown back of the hills, by a dripping spring, up Coso way, you +will find what is worth while. I have never heard that the failure of +any particular hunch disproved the principle. Somehow the rawness of the +land favors the sense of personal relation to the supernatural. There is +not much intervention of crops, cities, clothes, and manners between you +and the organizing forces to cut off communication. All this begets +in Jimville a state that passes explanation unless you will accept an +explanation that passes belief. Along with killing and drunkenness, +coveting of women, charity, simplicity, there is a certain indifference, +blankness, emptiness if you will, of all vaporings, no bubbling of the +pot,--it wants the German to coin a word for that,--no bread-envy, no +brother-fervor. Western writers have not sensed it yet; they smack the +savor of lawlessness too much upon their tongues, but you have these +to witness it is not mean-spiritedness. It is pure Greek in that it +represents the courage to sheer off what is not worth while. Beyond +that it endures without sniveling, renounces without self-pity, fears no +death, rates itself not too great in the scheme of things; so do beasts, +so did St. Jerome in the desert, so also in the elder day did gods. +Life, its performance, cessation, is no new thing to gape and wonder at. + +Here you have the repose of the perfectly accepted instinct which +includes passion and death in its perquisites. I suppose that the end of +all our hammering and yawping will be something like the point of view +of Jimville. The only difference will be in the decorations. + + + + +MY NEIGHBOR'S FIELD + +It is one of those places God must have meant for a field from all +time, lying very level at the foot of the slope that crowds up against +Kearsarge, falling slightly toward the town. North and south it is +fenced by low old glacial ridges, boulder strewn and untenable. Eastward +it butts on orchard closes and the village gardens, brimming over into +them by wild brier and creeping grass. The village street, with its +double row of unlike houses, breaks off abruptly at the edge of the +field in a footpath that goes up the streamside, beyond it, to the +source of waters. + +The field is not greatly esteemed of the town, not being put to the +plough nor affording firewood, but breeding all manner of wild seeds +that go down in the irrigating ditches to come up as weeds in the +gardens and grass plots. But when I had no more than seen it in the +charm of its spring smiling, I knew I should have no peace until I had +bought ground and built me a house beside it, with a little wicket to go +in and out at all hours, as afterward came about. + +Edswick, Roeder, Connor, and Ruffin owned the field before it fell to my +neighbor. But before that the Paiutes, mesne lords of the soil, made a +campoodie by the rill of Pine Creek; and after, contesting the soil +with them, cattle-men, who found its foodful pastures greatly to their +advantage; and bands of blethering flocks shepherded by wild, hairy men +of little speech, who attested their rights to the feeding ground with +their long staves upon each other's skulls. Edswick homesteaded the +field about the time the wild tide of mining life was roaring and +rioting up Kearsarge, and where the village now stands built a stone +hut, with loopholes to make good his claim against cattlemen or Indians. +But Edswick died and Roeder became master of the field. Roeder owned +cattle on a thousand hills, and made it a recruiting ground for his +bellowing herds before beginning the long drive to market across a +shifty desert. He kept the field fifteen years, and afterward falling +into difficulties, put it out as security against certain sums. Connor, +who held the securities, was cleverer than Roeder and not so busy. The +money fell due the winter of the Big Snow, when all the trails were +forty feet under drifts, and Roeder was away in San Francisco selling +his cattle. At the set time Connor took the law by the forelock and was +adjudged possession of the field. Eighteen days later Roeder arrived on +snowshoes, both feet frozen, and the money in his pack. In the long suit +at law ensuing, the field fell to Ruffin, that clever one-armed lawyer +with the tongue to wile a bird out of the bush, Connor's counsel, and +was sold by him to my neighbor, whom from envying his possession I call +Naboth. + +Curiously, all this human occupancy of greed and mischief left no mark +on the field, but the Indians did, and the unthinking sheep. Round its +corners children pick up chipped arrow points of obsidian, scattered +through it are kitchen middens and pits of old sweat-houses. By the +south corner, where the campoodie stood, is a single shrub of "hoopee" +(Lycium andersonii), maintaining itself hardly among alien shrubs, and +near by, three low rakish trees of hackberry, so far from home that no +prying of mine has been able to find another in any canon east or west. +But the berries of both were food for the Paiutes, eagerly sought and +traded for as far south as Shoshone Land. By the fork of the creek where +the shepherds camp is a single clump of mesquite of the variety called +"screw bean." The seed must have shaken there from some sheep's coat, +for this is not the habitat of mesquite, and except for other single +shrubs at sheep camps, none grows freely for a hundred and fifty miles +south or east. + +Naboth has put a fence about the best of the field, but neither the +Indians nor the shepherds can quite forego it. They make camp and build +their wattled huts about the borders of it, and no doubt they have some +sense of home in its familiar aspect. + +As I have said, it is a low-lying field, between the mesa and the town, +with no hillocks in it, but a gentle swale where the waste water of the +creek goes down to certain farms, and the hackberry-trees, of which the +tallest might be three times the height of a man, are the tallest things +in it. A mile up from the water gate that turns the creek into supply +pipes for the town, begins a row of long-leaved pines, threading the +watercourse to the foot of Kearsarge. These are the pines that puzzle +the local botanist, not easily determined, and unrelated to other +conifers of the Sierra slope; the same pines of which the Indians relate +a legend mixed of brotherliness and the retribution of God. Once +the pines possessed the field, as the worn stumps of them along the +streamside show, and it would seem their secret purpose to regain their +old footing. Now and then some seedling escapes the devastating sheep a +rod or two down-stream. Since I came to live by the field one of these +has tiptoed above the gully of the creek, beckoning the procession +from the hills, as if in fact they would make back toward that +skyward-pointing finger of granite on the opposite range, from which, +according to the legend, when they were bad Indians and it a great +chief, they ran away. This year the summer floods brought the round, +brown, fruitful cones to my very door, and I look, if I live long +enough, to see them come up greenly in my neighbor's field. + +It is interesting to watch this retaking of old ground by the wild +plants, banished by human use. Since Naboth drew his fence about the +field and restricted it to a few wild-eyed steers, halting between the +hills and the shambles, many old habitues of the field have come back +to their haunts. The willow and brown birch, long ago cut off by the +Indians for wattles, have come back to the streamside, slender and +virginal in their spring greenness, and leaving long stretches of the +brown water open to the sky. In stony places where no grass grows, +wild olives sprawl; close-twigged, blue-gray patches in winter, more +translucent greenish gold in spring than any aureole. Along with willow +and birch and brier, the clematis, that shyest plant of water borders, +slips down season by season to within a hundred yards of the village +street. Convinced after three years that it would come no nearer, we +spent time fruitlessly pulling up roots to plant in the garden. All this +while, when no coaxing or care prevailed upon any transplanted slip +to grow, one was coming up silently outside the fence near the wicket, +coiling so secretly in the rabbit-brush that its presence was never +suspected until it flowered delicately along its twining length. The +horehound comes through the fence and under it, shouldering the pickets +off the railings; the brier rose mines under the horehound; and no care, +though I own I am not a close weeder, keeps the small pale moons of the +primrose from rising to the night moth under my apple-trees. The +first summer in the new place, a clump of cypripediums came up by the +irrigating ditch at the bottom of the lawn. But the clematis will not +come inside, nor the wild almond. + +I have forgotten to find out, though I meant to, whether the wild almond +grew in that country where Moses kept the flocks of his father-in-law, +but if so one can account for the burning bush. It comes upon one with +a flame-burst as of revelation; little hard red buds on leafless twigs, +swelling unnoticeably, then one, two, or three strong suns, and from tip +to tip one soft fiery glow, whispering with bees as a singing flame. A +twig of finger size will be furred to the thickness of one's wrist by +pink five-petaled bloom, so close that only the blunt-faced wild bees +find their way in it. In this latitude late frosts cut off the hope of +fruit too often for the wild almond to multiply greatly, but the spiny, +tap-rooted shrubs are resistant to most plant evils. + +It is not easy always to be attentive to the maturing of wild fruit. +Plants are so unobtrusive in their material processes, and always at the +significant moment some other bloom has reached its perfect hour. One +can never fix the precise moment when the rosy tint the field has from +the wild almond passes into the inspiring blue of lupines. One notices +here and there a spike of bloom, and a day later the whole field royal +and ruffling lightly to the wind. Part of the charm of the lupine is the +continual stir of its plumes to airs not suspected otherwhere. Go and +stand by any crown of bloom and the tall stalks do but rock a little as +for drowsiness, but look off across the field, and on the stillest days +there is always a trepidation in the purple patches. + +From midsummer until frost the prevailing note of the field is clear +gold, passing into the rusty tone of bigelovia going into a decline, +a succession of color schemes more admirably managed than the +transformation scene at the theatre. Under my window a colony of cleome +made a soft web of bloom that drew me every morning for a long still +time; and one day I discovered that I was looking into a rare fretwork +of fawn and straw colored twigs from which both bloom and leaf had gone, +and I could not say if it had been for a matter of weeks or days. The +time to plant cucumbers and set out cabbages may be set down in the +almanac, but never seed-time nor blossom in Naboth's field. + +Certain winged and mailed denizens of the field seem to reach their +heyday along with the plants they most affect. In June the leaning +towers of the white milkweed are jeweled over with red and gold beetles, +climbing dizzily. This is that milkweed from whose stems the Indians +flayed fibre to make snares for small game, but what use the beetles put +it to except for a displaying ground for their gay coats, I could never +discover. The white butterfly crop comes on with the bigelovia bloom, +and on warm mornings makes an airy twinkling all across the field. In +September young linnets grow out of the rabbit-brush in the night. All +the nests discoverable in the neighboring orchards will not account for +the numbers of them. Somewhere, by the same secret process by which +the field matures a million more seeds than it needs, it is maturing +red-hooded linnets for their devouring. All the purlieus of bigelovia +and artemisia are noisy with them for a month. Suddenly as they come as +suddenly go the fly-by-nights, that pitch and toss on dusky barred wings +above the field of summer twilights. + +Never one of these nighthawks will you see after linnet time, though the +hurtle of their wings makes a pleasant sound across the dusk in their +season. + +For two summers a great red-tailed hawk has visited the field every +afternoon between three and four o'clock, swooping and soaring with +the airs of a gentleman adventurer. What he finds there is chiefly +conjectured, so secretive are the little people of Naboth's field. Only +when leaves fall and the light is low and slant, one sees the long +clean flanks of the jackrabbits, leaping like small deer, and of late +afternoons little cotton-tails scamper in the runways. But the most one +sees of the burrowers, gophers, and mice is the fresh earthwork of their +newly opened doors, or the pitiful small shreds the butcher-bird hangs +on spiny shrubs. + +It is a still field, this of my neighbor's, though so busy, and +admirably compounded for variety and pleasantness,--a little sand, a +little loam, a grassy plot, a stony rise or two, a full brown stream, a +little touch of humanness, a footpath trodden out by moccasins. Naboth +expects to make town lots of it and his fortune in one and the same day; +but when I take the trail to talk with old Seyavi at the campoodie, it +occurs to me that though the field may serve a good turn in those days +it will hardly be happier. No, certainly not happier. + + + + +THE MESA TRAIL + +The mesa trail begins in the campoodie at the corner of Naboth's field, +though one may drop into it from the wood road toward the canon, or from +any of the cattle paths that go up along the streamside; a clean, pale, +smooth-trodden way between spiny shrubs, comfortably wide for a horse +or an Indian. It begins, I say, at the campoodie, and goes on toward the +twilight hills and the borders of Shoshone Land. It strikes diagonally +across the foot of the hill-slope from the field until it reaches the +larkspur level, and holds south along the front of Oppapago, having the +high ranges to the right and the foothills and the great Bitter Lake +below it on the left. The mesa holds very level here, cut across at +intervals by the deep washes of dwindling streams, and its treeless +spaces uncramp the soul. + +Mesa trails were meant to be traveled on horseback, at the jigging +coyote trot that only western-bred horses learn successfully. A +foot-pace carries one too slowly past the units in a decorative scheme +that is on a scale with the country round for bigness. It takes days' +journeys to give a note of variety to the country of the social +shrubs. These chiefly clothe the benches and eastern foot-slopes of the +Sierras,--great spreads of artemisia, coleogyne, and spinosa, suffering +no other woody stemmed thing in their purlieus; this by election +apparently, with no elbowing; and the several shrubs have each their +clientele of flowering herbs. It would be worth knowing how much the +devastating sheep have had to do with driving the tender plants to the +shelter of the prickle-bushes. It might have begun earlier, in the time +Seyavi of the campoodie tells of, when antelope ran on the mesa like +sheep for numbers, but scarcely any foot-high herb rears itself except +from the midst of some stout twigged shrub; larkspur in the coleogyne, +and for every spinosa the purpling coils of phacelia. In the shrub +shelter, in the season, flock the little stemless things whose blossom +time is as short as a marriage song. The larkspurs make the best +showing, being tall and sweet, swaying a little above the shrubbery, +scattering pollen dust which Navajo brides gather to fill their marriage +baskets. This were an easier task than to find two of them of a shade. +Larkspurs in the botany are blue, but if you were to slip rein to the +stub of some black sage and set about proving it you would be still +at it by the hour when the white gilias set their pale disks to the +westering sun. This is the gilia the children call "evening snow," and +it is no use trying to improve on children's names for wild flowers. + +From the height of a horse you look down to clean spaces in a shifty +yellow soil, bare to the eye as a newly sanded floor. Then as soon as +ever the hill shadows begin to swell out from the sidelong ranges, come +little flakes of whiteness fluttering at the edge of the sand. By dusk +there are tiny drifts in the lee of every strong shrub, rosy-tipped +corollas as riotous in the sliding mesa wind as if they were real flakes +shaken out of a cloud, not sprung from the ground on wiry three-inch +stems. They keep awake all night, and all the air is heavy and musky +sweet because of them. + +Farther south on the trail there will be poppies meeting ankle deep, and +singly, peacock-painted bubbles of calochortus blown out at the tops of +tall stems. But before the season is in tune for the gayer blossoms the +best display of color is in the lupin wash. There is always a lupin wash +somewhere on the mesa trail,--a broad, shallow, cobble-paved sink of +vanished waters, where the hummocks of Lupinus ornatus run a delicate +gamut from silvery green of spring to silvery white of winter foliage. +They look in fullest leaf, except for color, most like the huddled huts +of the campoodie, and the largest of them might be a man's length in +diameter. In their season, which is after the gilias are at their best, +and before the larkspurs are ripe for pollen gathering, every terminal +whorl of the lupin sends up its blossom stalk, not holding any constant +blue, but paling and purpling to guide the friendly bee to virginal +honey sips, or away from the perfected and depleted flower. The length +of the blossom stalk conforms to the rounded contour of the plant, +and of these there will be a million moving indescribably in the airy +current that flows down the swale of the wash. + +There is always a little wind on the mesa, a sliding current of cooler +air going down the face of the mountain of its own momentum, but not to +disturb the silence of great space. Passing the wide mouths of canons, +one gets the effect of whatever is doing in them, openly or behind a +screen of cloud,--thunder of falls, wind in the pine leaves, or rush +and roar of rain. The rumor of tumult grows and dies in passing, as +from open doors gaping on a village street, but does not impinge on the +effect of solitariness. + +In quiet weather mesa days have no parallel for stillness, but the night +silence breaks into certain mellow or poignant notes. Late afternoons +the burrowing owls may be seen blinking at the doors of their hummocks +with perhaps four or five elfish nestlings arow, and by twilight begin a +soft whoo-oo-ing, rounder, sweeter, more incessant in mating time. It is +not possible to disassociate the call of the burrowing owl from the +late slant light of the mesa. If the fine vibrations which are the +golden-violet glow of spring twilights were to tremble into sound, it +would be just that mellow double note breaking along the blossom-tops. +While the glow holds one sees the thistle-down flights and pouncings +after prey, and on into the dark hears their soft pus-ssh! clearing out +of the trail ahead. Maybe the pinpoint shriek of field mouse or kangaroo +rat that pricks the wakeful pauses of the night is extorted by these +mellow-voiced plunderers, though it is just as like to be the work of +the red fox on his twenty-mile constitutional. + +Both the red fox and the coyote are free of the night hours, and both +killers for the pure love of slaughter. The fox is no great talker, but +the coyote goes garrulously through the dark in twenty keys at once, +gossip, warning, and abuse. They are light treaders, the split-feet, +so that the solitary camper sees their eyes about him in the dark +sometimes, and hears the soft intake of breath when no leaf has stirred +and no twig snapped underfoot. The coyote is your real lord of the mesa, +and so he makes sure you are armed with no long black instrument to +spit your teeth into his vitals at a thousand yards, is both bold +and curious. Not so bold, however, as the badger and not so much of a +curmudgeon. This short-legged meat-eater loves half lights and lowering +days, has no friends, no enemies, and disowns his offspring. Very likely +if he knew how hawk and crow dog him for dinners, he would resent it. +But the badger is not very well contrived for looking up or far to +either side. Dull afternoons he may be met nosing a trail hot-foot to +the home of ground rat or squirrel, and is with difficulty persuaded to +give the right of way. The badger is a pot-hunter and no sportsman. Once +at the hill, he dives for the central chamber, his sharp-clawed, splayey +feet splashing up the sand like a bather in the surf. He is a swift +trailer, but not so swift or secretive but some small sailing hawk +or lazy crow, perhaps one or two of each, has spied upon him and come +drifting down the wind to the killing. + +No burrower is so unwise as not to have several exits from his dwelling +under protecting shrubs. When the badger goes down, as many of the furry +people as are not caught napping come up by the back doors, and the +hawks make short work of them. I suspect that the crows get nothing but +the gratification of curiosity and the pickings of some secret store +of seeds unearthed by the badger. Once the excavation begins they walk +about expectantly, but the little gray hawks beat slow circles about +the doors of exit, and are wiser in their generation, though they do not +look it. + +There are always solitary hawks sailing above the mesa, and where some +blue tower of silence lifts out of the neighboring range, an eagle +hanging dizzily, and always buzzards high up in the thin, translucent +air making a merry-go-round. Between the coyote and the birds of carrion +the mesa is kept clear of miserable dead. + +The wind, too, is a besom over the treeless spaces, whisking new sand +over the litter of the scant-leaved shrubs, and the little doorways +of the burrowers are as trim as city fronts. It takes man to leave +unsightly scars on the face of the earth. Here on the mesa the abandoned +campoodies of the Paiutes are spots of desolation long after the wattles +of the huts have warped in the brush heaps. The campoodies are near the +watercourses, but never in the swale of the stream. The Paiute seeks +rising ground, depending on air and sun for purification of his +dwelling, and when it becomes wholly untenable, moves. + +A campoodie at noontime, when there is no smoke rising and no stir of +life, resembles nothing so much as a collection of prodigious wasps' +nests. The huts are squat and brown and chimneyless, facing east, and +the inhabitants have the faculty of quail for making themselves scarce +in the underbrush at the approach of strangers. But they are really not +often at home during midday, only the blind and incompetent left to keep +the camp. These are working hours, and all across the mesa one sees +the women whisking seeds of chia into their spoon-shaped baskets, these +emptied again into the huge conical carriers, supported on the shoulders +by a leather band about the forehead. + +Mornings and late afternoons one meets the men singly and afoot on +unguessable errands, or riding shaggy, browbeaten ponies, with game +slung across the saddle-bows. This might be deer or even antelope, +rabbits, or, very far south towards Shoshone Land, lizards. + +There are myriads of lizards on the mesa, little gray darts, or larger +salmon-sided ones that may be found swallowing their skins in the safety +of a prickle-bush in early spring. Now and then a palm's breadth of +the trail gathers itself together and scurries off with a little +rustle under the brush, to resolve itself into sand again. This is pure +witchcraft. If you succeed in catching it in transit, it loses its +power and becomes a flat, horned, toad-like creature, horrid-looking and +harmless, of the color of the soil; and the curio dealer will give you +two bits for it, to stuff. Men have their season on the mesa as much as +plants and four-footed things, and one is not like to meet them out of +their time. For example, at the time of rodeos, which is perhaps April, +one meets free riding vaqueros who need no trails and can find cattle +where to the layman no cattle exist. As early as February bands of sheep +work up from the south to the high Sierra pastures. It appears that +shepherds have not changed more than sheep in the process of time. The +shy hairy men who herd the tractile flocks might be, except for some +added clothing, the very brethren of David. Of necessity they are hardy, +simple livers, superstitious, fearful, given to seeing visions, and +almost without speech. It needs the bustle of shearings and copious +libations of sour, weak wine to restore the human faculty. Petite Pete, +who works a circuit up from the Ceriso to Red Butte and around by way of +Salt Flats, passes year by year on the mesa trail, his thick hairy chest +thrown open to all weathers, twirling his long staff, and dealing +brotherly with his dogs, who are possibly as intelligent, certainly +handsomer. + +A flock's journey is seven miles, ten if pasture fails, in a windless +blur of dust, feeding as it goes, and resting at noons. Such hours Pete +weaves a little screen of twigs between his head and the sun--the rest +of him is as impervious as one of his own sheep--and sleeps while his +dogs have the flocks upon their consciences. At night, wherever he may +be, there Pete camps, and fortunate the trail-weary traveler who falls +in with him. When the fire kindles and savory meat seethes in the pot, +when there is a drowsy blether from the flock, and far down the mesa +the twilight twinkle of shepherd fires, when there is a hint of blossom +underfoot and a heavenly whiteness on the hills, one harks back without +effort to Judaea and the Nativity. But one feels by day anything but +good will to note the shorn shrubs and cropped blossom-tops. So many +seasons' effort, so many suns and rains to make a pound of wool! And +then there is the loss of ground-inhabiting birds that must fail from +the mesa when few herbs ripen seed. + +Out West, the west of the mesas and the unpatented hills, there is more +sky than any place in the world. It does not sit flatly on the rim +of earth, but begins somewhere out in the space in which the earth is +poised, hollows more, and is full of clean winey winds. There are some +odors, too, that get into the blood. There is the spring smell of sage +that is the warning that sap is beginning to work in a soil that looks +to have none of the juices of life in it; it is the sort of smell that +sets one thinking what a long furrow the plough would turn up here, +the sort of smell that is the beginning of new leafage, is best at the +plant's best, and leaves a pungent trail where wild cattle crop. There +is the smell of sage at sundown, burning sage from campoodies and sheep +camps, that travels on the thin blue wraiths of smoke; the kind of smell +that gets into the hair and garments, is not much liked except upon long +acquaintance, and every Paiute and shepherd smells of it indubitably. +There is the palpable smell of the bitter dust that comes up from the +alkali flats at the end of the dry seasons, and the smell of rain from +the wide-mouthed canons. And last the smell of the salt grass country, +which is the beginning of other things that are the end of the mesa +trail. + + + + +THE BASKET MAKER + +"A man," says Seyavi of the campoodie, "must have a woman, but a woman +who has a child will do very well." + +That was perhaps why, when she lost her mate in the dying struggle of +his race, she never took another, but set her wit to fend for herself +and her young son. No doubt she was often put to it in the beginning to +find food for them both. The Paiutes had made their last stand at the +border of the Bitter Lake; battle-driven they died in its waters, and +the land filled with cattle-men and adventurers for gold: this while +Seyavi and the boy lay up in the caverns of the Black Rock and ate tule +roots and fresh-water clams that they dug out of the slough bottoms with +their toes. In the interim, while the tribes swallowed their defeat, and +before the rumor of war died out, they must have come very near to the +bare core of things. That was the time Seyavi learned the sufficiency of +mother wit, and how much more easily one can do without a man than might +at first be supposed. + +To understand the fashion of any life, one must know the land it is +lived in and the procession of the year. This valley is a narrow one, a +mere trough between hills, a draught for storms, hardly a crow's flight +from the sharp Sierras of the Snows to the curled, red and ochre, +uncomforted, bare ribs of Waban. Midway of the groove runs a burrowing, +dull river, nearly a hundred miles from where it cuts the lava flats +of the north to its widening in a thick, tideless pool of a lake. +Hereabouts the ranges have no foothills, but rise up steeply from the +bench lands above the river. Down from the Sierras, for the east ranges +have almost no rain, pour glancing white floods toward the lowest land, +and all beside them lie the campoodies, brown wattled brush heaps, +looking east. + +In the river are mussels, and reeds that have edible white roots, and in +the soddy meadows tubers of joint grass; all these at their best in the +spring. On the slope the summer growth affords seeds; up the steep the +one-leafed pines, an oily nut. That was really all they could depend +upon, and that only at the mercy of the little gods of frost and rain. +For the rest it was cunning against cunning, caution against skill, +against quacking hordes of wild-fowl in the tulares, against pronghorn +and bighorn and deer. You can guess, however, that all this warring of +rifles and bowstrings, this influx of overlording whites, had made game +wilder and hunters fearful of being hunted. You can surmise also, for it +was a crude time and the land was raw, that the women became in turn the +game of the conquerors. + +There used to be in the Little Antelope a she dog, stray or outcast, +that had a litter in some forsaken lair, and ranged and foraged for +them, slinking savage and afraid, remembering and mistrusting humankind, +wistful, lean, and sufficient for her young. + +I have thought Seyavi might have had days like that, and have had +perfect leave to think, since she will not talk of it. Paiutes have +the art of reducing life to its lowest ebb and yet saving it alive on +grasshoppers, lizards, and strange herbs; and that time must have left +no shift untried. It lasted long enough for Seyavi to have evolved the +philosophy of life which I have set down at the beginning. She had +gone beyond learning to do for her son, and learned to believe it worth +while. + +In our kind of society, when a woman ceases to alter the fashion of her +hair, you guess that she has passed the crisis of her experience. If she +goes on crimping and uncrimping with the changing mode, it is safe to +suppose she has never come up against anything too big for her. The +Indian woman gets nearly the same personal note in the pattern of her +baskets. Not that she does not make all kinds, carriers, water-bottles, +and cradles,--these are kitchen ware,--but her works of art are all of +the same piece. Seyavi made flaring, flat-bottomed bowls, cooking pots +really, when cooking was done by dropping hot stones into water-tight +food baskets, and for decoration a design in colored bark of the +procession of plumed crests of the valley quail. In this pattern she +had made cooking pots in the golden spring of her wedding year, when +the quail went up two and two to their resting places about the foot +of Oppapago. In this fashion she made them when, after pillage, it was +possible to reinstate the housewifely crafts. Quail ran then in the +Black Rock by hundreds,--so you will still find them in fortunate +years,--and in the famine time the women cut their long hair to make +snares when the flocks came morning and evening to the springs. + +Seyavi made baskets for love and sold them for money, in a generation +that preferred iron pots for utility. Every Indian woman is an +artist,--sees, feels, creates, but does not philosophize about her +processes. Seyavi's bowls are wonders of technical precision, inside and +out, the palm finds no fault with them, but the subtlest appeal is in +the sense that warns us of humanness in the way the design spreads into +the flare of the bowl. + +There used to be an Indian woman at Olancha who made bottle-neck trinket +baskets in the rattlesnake pattern, and could accommodate the design +to the swelling bowl and flat shoulder of the basket without sensible +disproportion, and so cleverly that you might own one a year without +thinking how it was done; but Seyavi's baskets had a touch beyond +cleverness. The weaver and the warp lived next to the earth and were +saturated with the same elements. Twice a year, in the time of white +butterflies and again when young quail ran neck and neck in the +chaparral, Seyavi cut willows for basketry by the creek where it wound +toward the river against the sun and sucking winds. It never quite +reached the river except in far-between times of summer flood, but it +always tried, and the willows encouraged it as much as they could. You +nearly always found them a little farther down than the trickle of eager +water. The Paiute fashion of counting time appeals to me more than any +other calendar. They have no stamp of heathen gods nor great ones, nor +any succession of moons as have red men of the East and North, but count +forward and back by the progress of the season; the time of taboose, +before the trout begin to leap, the end of the pinon harvest, about the +beginning of deep snows. So they get nearer the sense of the season, +which runs early or late according as the rains are forward or delayed. +But whenever Seyavi cut willows for baskets was always a golden time, +and the soul of the weather went into the wood. If you had ever owned +one of Seyavi's golden russet cooking bowls with the pattern of plumed +quail, you would understand all this without saying anything. + +Before Seyavi made baskets for the satisfaction of desire,--for that is +a house-bred theory of art that makes anything more of it,--she danced +and dressed her hair. In those days, when the spring was at flood and +the blood pricked to the mating fever, the maids chose their flowers, +wreathed themselves, and danced in the twilights, young desire crying +out to young desire. They sang what the heart prompted, what the flower +expressed, what boded in the mating weather. + +"And what flower did you wear, Seyavi?" + +"I, ah,--the white flower of twining (clematis), on my body and my hair, +and so I sang:-- + + "I am the white flower of twining, + Little white flower by the river, + Oh, flower that twines close by the river; + Oh, trembling flower! + So trembles the maiden heart." + +So sang Seyavi of the campoodie before she made baskets, and in her +later days laid her arms upon her knees and laughed in them at the +recollection. But it was not often she would say so much, never +understanding the keen hunger I had for bits of lore and the "fool talk" +of her people. She had fed her young son with meadowlarks' tongues, +to make him quick of speech; but in late years was loath to admit it, +though she had come through the period of unfaith in the lore of the +clan with a fine appreciation of its beauty and significance. + +"What good will your dead get, Seyavi, of the baskets you burn?" said I, +coveting them for my own collection. + +Thus Seyavi, "As much good as yours of the flowers you strew." + +Oppapago looks on Waban, and Waban on Coso and the Bitter Lake, and the +campoodie looks on these three; and more, it sees the beginning of winds +along the foot of Coso, the gathering of clouds behind the high ridges, +the spring flush, the soft spread of wild almond bloom on the mesa. +These first, you understand, are the Paiute's walls, the other his +furnishings. Not the wattled hut is his home, but the land, the winds, +the hill front, the stream. These he cannot duplicate at any furbisher's +shop as you who live within doors, who, if your purse allows, may have +the same home at Sitka and Samarcand. So you see how it is that the +homesickness of an Indian is often unto death, since he gets no relief +from it; neither wind nor weed nor sky-line, nor any aspect of the +hills of a strange land sufficiently like his own. So it was when the +government reached out for the Paiutes, they gathered into the Northern +Reservation only such poor tribes as could devise no other end of their +affairs. Here, all along the river, and south to Shoshone Land, live +the clans who owned the earth, fallen into the deplorable condition of +hangers-on. Yet you hear them laughing at the hour when they draw in to +the campoodie after labor, when there is a smell of meat and the steam +of the cooking pots goes up against the sun. Then the children lie with +their toes in the ashes to hear tales; then they are merry, and have the +joys of repletion and the nearness of their kind. They have their hills, +and though jostled are sufficiently free to get some fortitude for what +will come. For now you shall hear of the end of the basket maker. + +In her best days Seyavi was most like Deborah, deep bosomed, broad in +the hips, quick in counsel, slow of speech, esteemed of her people. This +was that Seyavi who reared a man by her own hand, her own wit, and none +other. When the townspeople began to take note of her--and it was some +years after the war before there began to be any towns--she was then in +the quick maturity of primitive women; but when I knew her she seemed +already old. Indian women do not often live to great age, though they +look incredibly steeped in years. They have the wit to win sustenance +from the raw material of life without intervention, but they have not +the sleek look of the women whom the social organization conspires to +nourish. Seyavi had somehow squeezed out of her daily round a spiritual +ichor that kept the skill in her knotted fingers along after the +accustomed time, but that also failed. By all counts she would have been +about sixty years old when it came her turn to sit in the dust on the +sunny side of the wickiup, with little strength left for anything but +looking. And in time she paid the toll of the smoky huts and became +blind. This is a thing so long expected by the Paiutes that when it +comes they find it neither bitter nor sweet, but tolerable because +common. There were three other blind women in the campoodie, withered +fruit on a bough, but they had memory and speech. By noon of the sun +there were never any left in the campoodie but these or some mother of +weanlings, and they sat to keep the ashes warm upon the hearth. If it +were cold, they burrowed in the blankets of the hut; if it were warm, +they followed the shadow of the wickiup around. Stir much out of their +places they hardly dared, since one might not help another; but they +called, in high, old cracked voices, gossip and reminder across the ash +heaps. + +Then, if they have your speech or you theirs, and have an hour to spare, +there are things to be learned of life not set down in any books, +folk tales, famine tales, love and long-suffering and desire, but no +whimpering. Now and then one or another of the blind keepers of the camp +will come across to where you sit gossiping, tapping her way among the +kitchen middens, guided by your voice that carries far in the clearness +and stillness of mesa afternoons. But suppose you find Seyavi retired +into the privacy of her blanket, you will get nothing for that day. +There is no other privacy possible in a campoodie. All the processes of +life are carried on out of doors or behind the thin, twig-woven walls +of the wickiup, and laughter is the only corrective for behavior. Very +early the Indian learns to possess his countenance in impassivity, to +cover his head with his blanket. Something to wrap around him is as +necessary to the Paiute as to you your closet to pray in. + +So in her blanket Seyavi, sometime basket maker, sits by the unlit +hearths of her tribe and digests her life, nourishing her spirit against +the time of the spirit's need, for she knows in fact quite as much of +these matters as you who have a larger hope, though she has none but the +certainty that having borne herself courageously to this end she will +not be reborn a coyote. + + + + +THE STREETS OF THE MOUNTAINS + +All streets of the mountains lead to the citadel; steep or slow they go +up to the core of the hills. Any trail that goes otherwhere must dip and +cross, sidle and take chances. Rifts of the hills open into each other, +and the high meadows are often wide enough to be called valleys by +courtesy; but one keeps this distinction in mind,--valleys are the +sunken places of the earth, canons are scored out by the glacier ploughs +of God. They have a better name in the Rockies for these hill-fenced +open glades of pleasantness; they call them parks. Here and there in +the hill country one comes upon blind gullies fronted by high stony +barriers. These head also for the heart of the mountains; their +distinction is that they never get anywhere. + +All mountain streets have streams to thread them, or deep grooves where +a stream might run. You would do well to avoid that range uncomforted by +singing floods. You will find it forsaken of most things but beauty and +madness and death and God. Many such lie east and north away from the +mid Sierras, and quicken the imagination with the sense of purposes not +revealed, but the ordinary traveler brings nothing away from them but an +intolerable thirst. + +The river canons of the Sierras of the Snows are better worth while than +most Broadways, though the choice of them is like the choice of streets, +not very well determined by their names. There is always an amount of +local history to be read in the names of mountain highways where one +touches the successive waves of occupation or discovery, as in the old +villages where the neighborhoods are not built but grow. Here you have +the Spanish Californian in Cero Gordo and pinon; Symmes and Shepherd, +pioneers both; Tunawai, probably Shoshone; Oak Creek, Kearsarge,--easy +to fix the date of that christening,--Tinpah, Paiute that; Mist Canon +and Paddy Jack's. The streets of the west Sierras sloping toward the +San Joaquin are long and winding, but from the east, my country, a day's +ride carries one to the lake regions. The next day reaches the passes +of the high divide, but whether one gets passage depends a little on +how many have gone that road before, and much on one's own powers. The +passes are steep and windy ridges, though not the highest. By two and +three thousand feet the snow-caps overtop them. It is even possible to +wind through the Sierras without having passed above timber-line, but +one misses a great exhilaration. + +The shape of a new mountain is roughly pyramidal, running out into +long shark-finned ridges that interfere and merge into other +thunder-splintered sierras. You get the saw-tooth effect from a +distance, but the near-by granite bulk glitters with the terrible keen +polish of old glacial ages. I say terrible; so it seems. When those +glossy domes swim into the alpenglow, wet after rain, you conceive how +long and imperturbable are the purposes of God. + +Never believe what you are told, that midsummer is the best time to go +up the streets of the mountain--well--perhaps for the merely idle or +sportsmanly or scientific; but for seeing and understanding, the best +time is when you have the longest leave to stay. And here is a hint if +you would attempt the stateliest approaches; travel light, and as much +as possible live off the land. Mulligatawny soup and tinned lobster will +not bring you the favor of the woodlanders. + +Every canon commends itself for some particular pleasantness; this +for pines, another for trout, one for pure bleak beauty of granite +buttresses, one for its far-flung irised falls; and as I say, though +some are easier going, leads each to the cloud shouldering citadel. +First, near the canon mouth you get the low-heading full-branched, +one-leaf pines. That is the sort of tree to know at sight, for the +globose, resin-dripping cones have palatable, nourishing kernels, the +main harvest of the Paiutes. That perhaps accounts for their growing +accommodatingly below the limit of deep snows, grouped sombrely on the +valley-ward slopes. The real procession of the pines begins in the rifts +with the long-leafed Pinus jeffreyi, sighing its soul away upon the +wind. And it ought not to sigh in such good company. Here begins the +manzanita, adjusting its tortuous stiff stems to the sharp waste of +boulders, its pale olive leaves twisting edgewise to the sleek, ruddy, +chestnut stems; begins also the meadowsweet, burnished laurel, and the +million unregarded trumpets of the coral-red pentstemon. Wild life is +likely to be busiest about the lower pine borders. One looks in hollow +trees and hiving rocks for wild honey. The drone of bees, the chatter of +jays, the hurry and stir of squirrels, is incessant; the air is odorous +and hot. The roar of the stream fills up the morning and evening +intervals, and at night the deer feed in the buckthorn thickets. It is +worth watching the year round in the purlieus of the long-leafed pines. +One month or another you set sight or trail of most roving mountain +dwellers as they follow the limit of forbidding snows, and more bloom +than you can properly appreciate. + +Whatever goes up or comes down the streets of the mountains, water has +the right of way; it takes the lowest ground and the shortest passage. +Where the rifts are narrow, and some of the Sierra canons are not a +stone's throw from wall to wall, the best trail for foot or horse winds +considerably above the watercourses; but in a country of cone-bearers +there is usually a good strip of swardy sod along the canon floor. Pine +woods, the short-leafed Balfour and Murryana of the high Sierras, are +sombre, rooted in the litter of a thousand years, hushed, and corrective +to the spirit. The trail passes insensibly into them from the black +pines and a thin belt of firs. You look back as you rise, and strain for +glimpses of the tawny valley, blue glints of the Bitter Lake, and tender +cloud films on the farther ranges. For such pictures the pine +branches make a noble frame. Presently they close in wholly; they +draw mysteriously near, covering your tracks, giving up the trail +indifferently, or with a secret grudge. You get a kind of impatience +with their locked ranks, until you come out lastly on some high, windy +dome and see what they are about. They troop thickly up the open ways, +river banks, and brook borders; up open swales of dribbling springs; +swarm over old moraines; circle the peaty swamps and part and meet about +clean still lakes; scale the stony gullies; tormented, bowed, persisting +to the door of the storm chambers, tall priests to pray for rain. The +spring winds lift clouds of pollen dust, finer than frankincense, and +trail it out over high altars, staining the snow. + +No doubt they understand this work better than we; in fact they know no +other. "Come," say the churches of the valleys, after a season of dry +years, "let us pray for rain." They would do better to plant more trees. + +It is a pity we have let the gift of lyric improvisation die out. +Sitting islanded on some gray peak above the encompassing wood, the soul +is lifted up to sing the Iliad of the pines. They have no voice but the +wind, and no sound of them rises up to the high places. But the waters, +the evidences of their power, that go down the steep and stony ways, the +outlets of ice-bordered pools, the young rivers swaying with the force +of their running, they sing and shout and trumpet at the falls, and the +noise of it far outreaches the forest spires. You see from these conning +towers how they call and find each other in the slender gorges; how +they fumble in the meadows, needing the sheer nearing walls to give them +countenance and show the way; and how the pine woods are made glad by +them. + +Nothing else in the streets of the mountains gives such a sense of +pageantry as the conifers; other trees, if they are any, are home +dwellers, like the tender fluttered, sisterhood of quaking asp. They +grow in clumps by spring borders, and all their stems have a permanent +curve toward the down slope, as you may also see in hillside pines, +where they have borne the weight of sagging drifts. + +Well up from the valley, at the confluence of canons, are delectable +summer meadows. Fireweed flames about them against the gray boulders; +streams are open, go smoothly about the glacier slips and make deep +bluish pools for trout. Pines raise statelier shafts and give themselves +room to grow,--gentians, shinleaf, and little grass of Parnassus in +their golden checkered shadows; the meadow is white with violets and all +outdoors keeps the clock. For example, when the ripples at the ford of +the creek raise a clear half tone,--sign that the snow water has come +down from the heated high ridges,--it is time to light the evening fire. +When it drops off a note--but you will not know it except the Douglas +squirrel tells you with his high, fluty chirrup from the pines' aerial +gloom--sign that some star watcher has caught the first far glint of the +nearing sun. Whitney cries it from his vantage tower; it flashes from +Oppapago to the front of Williamson; LeConte speeds it to the westering +peaks. The high rills wake and run, the birds begin. But down three +thousand feet in the canon, where you stir the fire under the cooking +pot, it will not be day for an hour. It goes on, the play of light +across the high places, rosy, purpling, tender, glint and glow, thunder +and windy flood, like the grave, exulting talk of elders above a merry +game. + +Who shall say what another will find most to his liking in the streets +of the mountains. As for me, once set above the country of the +silver firs, I must go on until I find white columbine. Around the +amphitheatres of the lake regions and above them to the limit of +perennial drifts they gather flock-wise in splintered rock wastes. The +crowds of them, the airy spread of sepals, the pale purity of the petal +spurs, the quivering swing of bloom, obsesses the sense. One must learn +to spare a little of the pang of inexpressible beauty, not to spend all +one's purse in one shop. There is always another year, and another. + +Lingering on in the alpine regions until the first full snow, which +is often before the cessation of bloom, one goes down in good company. +First snows are soft and clogging and make laborious paths. Then it is +the roving inhabitants range down to the edge of the wood, below the +limit of early storms. Early winter and early spring one may have sight +or track of deer and bear and bighorn, cougar and bobcat, about the +thickets of buckthorn on open slopes between the black pines. But when +the ice crust is firm above the twenty foot drifts, they range far and +forage where they will. Often in midwinter will come, now and then, a +long fall of soft snow piling three or four feet above the ice crust, +and work a real hardship for the dwellers of these streets. When such a +storm portends the weather-wise blacktail will go down across the valley +and up to the pastures of Waban where no more snow falls than suffices +to nourish the sparsely growing pines. But the bighorn, the wild sheep, +able to bear the bitterest storms with no signs of stress, cannot cope +with the loose shifty snow. Never such a storm goes over the mountains +that the Indians do not catch them floundering belly deep among the +lower rifts. I have a pair of horns, inconceivably heavy, that were +borne as late as a year ago by a very monarch of the flock whom death +overtook at the mouth of Oak Creek after a week of wet snow. He met it +as a king should, with no vain effort or trembling, and it was wholly +kind to take him so with four of his following rather than that the +night prowlers should find him. + +There is always more life abroad in the winter hills than one looks to +find, and much more in evidence than in summer weather. Light feet of +hare that make no print on the forest litter leave a wondrously plain +track in the snow. We used to look and look at the beginning of winter +for the birds to come down from the pine lands; looked in the orchard +and stubble; looked north and south on the mesa for their migratory +passing, and wondered that they never came. Busy little grosbeaks picked +about the kitchen doors, and woodpeckers tapped the eaves of the farm +buildings, but we saw hardly any other of the frequenters of the summer +canons. After a while when we grew bold to tempt the snow borders we +found them in the street of the mountains. In the thick pine woods where +the overlapping boughs hung with snow-wreaths make wind-proof shelter +tents, in a very community of dwelling, winter the bird-folk who get +their living from the persisting cones and the larvae harboring bark. +Ground inhabiting species seek the dim snow chambers of the chaparral. +Consider how it must be in a hill-slope overgrown with stout-twigged, +partly evergreen shrubs, more than man high, and as thick as a hedge. +Not all the canon's sifting of snow can fill the intricate spaces of +the hill tangles. Here and there an overhanging rock, or a stiff arch +of buckthorn, makes an opening to communicating rooms and runways deep +under the snow. + +The light filtering through the snow walls is blue and ghostly, +but serves to show seeds of shrubs and grass, and berries, and the +wind-built walls are warm against the wind. It seems that live plants, +especially if they are evergreen and growing, give off heat; the snow +wall melts earliest from within and hollows to thinnness before there is +a hint of spring in the air. But you think of these things afterward. +Up in the street it has the effect of being done consciously; the +buckthorns lean to each other and the drift to them, the little birds +run in and out of their appointed ways with the greatest cheerfulness. +They give almost no tokens of distress, and even if the winter tries +them too much you are not to pity them. You of the house habit can +hardly understand the sense of the hills. No doubt the labor of being +comfortable gives you an exaggerated opinion of yourself, an exaggerated +pain to be set aside. Whether the wild things understand it or not they +adapt themselves to its processes with the greater ease. The +business that goes on in the street of the mountain is tremendous, +world-formative. Here go birds, squirrels, and red deer, children crying +small wares and playing in the street, but they do not obstruct its +affairs. Summer is their holiday; "Come now," says the lord of the +street, "I have need of a great work and no more playing." + +But they are left borders and breathing-space out of pure kindness. They +are not pushed out except by the exigencies of the nobler plan which +they accept with a dignity the rest of us have not yet learned. + + + + +WATER BORDERS + +I like that name the Indians give to the mountain of Lone Pine, and find +it pertinent to my subject,--Oppapago, The Weeper. It sits eastward and +solitary from the lordliest ranks of the Sierras, and above a range of +little, old, blunt hills, and has a bowed, grave aspect as of some woman +you might have known, looking out across the grassy barrows of her dead. +From twin gray lakes under its noble brow stream down incessant white +and tumbling waters. "Mahala all time cry," said Winnenap', drawing +furrows in his rugged, wrinkled cheeks. + +The origin of mountain streams is like the origin of tears, patent to +the understanding but mysterious to the sense. They are always at it, +but one so seldom catches them in the act. Here in the valley there is +no cessation of waters even in the season when the niggard frost gives +them scant leave to run. They make the most of their midday hour, and +tinkle all night thinly under the ice. An ear laid to the snow catches a +muffled hint of their eternal busyness fifteen or twenty feet under the +canon drifts, and long before any appreciable spring thaw, the sagging +edges of the snow bridges mark out the place of their running. One +who ventures to look for it finds the immediate source of the spring +freshets--all the hill fronts furrowed with the reek of melting drifts, +all the gravelly flats in a swirl of waters. But later, in June or July, +when the camping season begins, there runs the stream away full and +singing, with no visible reinforcement other than an icy trickle from +some high, belated dot of snow. Oftenest the stream drops bodily from +the bleak bowl of some alpine lake; sometimes breaks out of a hillside +as a spring where the ear can trace it under the rubble of loose stones +to the neighborhood of some blind pool. But that leaves the lakes to be +accounted for. + +The lake is the eye of the mountain, jade green, placid, unwinking, also +unfathomable. Whatever goes on under the high and stony brows is guessed +at. It is always a favorite local tradition that one or another of the +blind lakes is bottomless. Often they lie in such deep cairns of broken +boulders that one never gets quite to them, or gets away unhurt. One +such drops below the plunging slope that the Kearsarge trail winds over, +perilously, nearing the pass. It lies still and wickedly green in its +sharp-lipped cap, and the guides of that region love to tell of the +packs and pack animals it has swallowed up. + +But the lakes of Oppapago are perhaps not so deep, less green than gray, +and better befriended. The ousel haunts them, while still hang about +their coasts the thin undercut drifts that never quite leave the high +altitudes. In and out of the bluish ice caves he flits and sings, and +his singing heard from above is sweet and uncanny like the Nixie's +chord. One finds butterflies, too, about these high, sharp regions which +might be called desolate, but will not by me who love them. This is +above timber-line but not too high for comforting by succulent small +herbs and golden tufted grass. A granite mountain does not crumble with +alacrity, but once resolved to soil makes the best of it. Every handful +of loose gravel not wholly water leached affords a plant footing, and +even in such unpromising surroundings there is a choice of locations. +There is never going to be any communism of mountain herbage, their +affinities are too sure. Full in the tunnels of snow water on gravelly, +open spaces in the shadow of a drift, one looks to find buttercups, +frozen knee-deep by night, and owning no desire but to ripen their fruit +above the icy bath. Soppy little plants of the portulaca and small, +fine ferns shiver under the drip of falls and in dribbling crevices. +The bleaker the situation, so it is near a stream border, the better +the cassiope loves it. Yet I have not found it on the polished glacier +slips, but where the country rock cleaves and splinters in the high +windy headlands that the wild sheep frequents, hordes and hordes of the +white bells swing over matted, mossy foliage. On Oppapago, which is also +called Sheep Mountain, one finds not far from the beds of cassiope the +ice-worn, stony hollows where the big-horns cradle their young. + +These are above the wolf's quest and the eagle's wont, and though the +heather beds are softer, they are neither so dry nor so warm, and here +only the stars go by. No other animal of any pretensions makes a habitat +of the alpine regions. Now and then one gets a hint of some small, brown +creature, rat or mouse kind, that slips secretly among the rocks; no +others adapt themselves to desertness of aridity or altitude so readily +as these ground inhabiting, graminivorous species. If there is an open +stream the trout go up the lake as far as the water breeds food for +them, but the ousel goes farthest, for pure love of it. + +Since no lake can be at the highest point, it is possible to find plant +life higher than the water borders; grasses perhaps the highest, gilias, +royal blue trusses of polymonium, rosy plats of Sierra primroses. What +one has to get used to in flowers at high altitudes is the bleaching +of the sun. Hardly do they hold their virgin color for a day, and this +early fading before their function is performed gives them a pitiful +appearance not according with their hardihood. The color scheme runs +along the high ridges from blue to rosy purple, carmine and coral red; +along the water borders it is chiefly white and yellow where the mimulus +makes a vivid note, running into red when the two schemes meet and mix +about the borders of the meadows, at the upper limit of the columbine. + +Here is the fashion in which a mountain stream gets down from the +perennial pastures of the snow to its proper level and identity as an +irrigating ditch. It slips stilly by the glacier scoured rim of an ice +bordered pool, drops over sheer, broken ledges to another pool, gathers +itself, plunges headlong on a rocky ripple slope, finds a lake again, +reinforced, roars downward to a pothole, foams and bridles, glides a +tranquil reach in some still meadow, tumbles into a sharp groove between +hill flanks, curdles under the stream tangles, and so arrives at the +open country and steadier going. Meadows, little strips of alpine +freshness, begin before the timberline is reached. Here one treads on +a carpet of dwarf willows, downy catkins of creditable size and the +greatest economy of foliage and stems. No other plant of high altitudes +knows its business so well. It hugs the ground, grows roots from stem +joints where no roots should be, grows a slender leaf or two and twice +as many erect full catkins that rarely, even in that short growing +season, fail of fruit. Dipping over banks in the inlets of the creeks, +the fortunate find the rosy apples of the miniature manzanita, barely, +but always quite sufficiently, borne above the spongy sod. It does not +do to be anything but humble in the alpine regions, but not fearful. I +have pawed about for hours in the chill sward of meadows where one might +properly expect to get one's death, and got no harm from it, except it +might be Oliver Twist's complaint. One comes soon after this to shrubby +willows, and where willows are trout may be confidently looked for in +most Sierra streams. There is no accounting for their distribution; +though provident anglers have assisted nature of late, one still comes +upon roaring brown waters where trout might very well be, but are not. + +The highest limit of conifers--in the middle Sierras, the white bark +pine--is not along the water border. They come to it about the level of +the heather, but they have no such affinity for dampness as the tamarack +pines. Scarcely any bird-note breaks the stillness of the timber-line, +but chipmunks inhabit here, as may be guessed by the gnawed ruddy cones +of the pines, and lowering hours the woodchucks come down to the water. +On a little spit of land running into Windy Lake we found one summer the +evidence of a tragedy; a pair of sheep's horns not fully grown caught in +the crotch of a pine where the living sheep must have lodged them. +The trunk of the tree had quite closed over them, and the skull bones +crumbled away from the weathered horn cases. We hoped it was not too +far out of the running of night prowlers to have put a speedy end to the +long agony, but we could not be sure. I never liked the spit of Windy +Lake again. + +It seems that all snow nourished plants count nothing so excellent in +their kind as to be forehanded with their bloom, working secretly to +that end under the high piled winters. The heathers begin by the lake +borders, while little sodden drifts still shelter under their branches. +I have seen the tiniest of them (Kalmia glauca) blooming, and with +well-formed fruit, a foot away from a snowbank from which it could +hardly have emerged within a week. Somehow the soul of the heather +has entered into the blood of the English-speaking. "And oh! is that +heather?" they say; and the most indifferent ends by picking a sprig of +it in a hushed, wondering way. One must suppose that the root of their +respective races issued from the glacial borders at about the same +epoch, and remember their origin. + +Among the pines where the slope of the land allows it, the streams run +into smooth, brown, trout-abounding rills across open flats that are +in reality filled lake basins. These are the displaying grounds of the +gentians--blue--blue--eye-blue, perhaps, virtuous and likable flowers. +One is not surprised to learn that they have tonic properties. But if +your meadow should be outside the forest reserve, and the sheep have +been there, you will find little but the shorter, paler G. newberryii, +and in the matted sods of the little tongues of greenness that lick +up among the pines along the watercourses, white, scentless, nearly +stemless, alpine violets. + +At about the nine thousand foot level and in the summer there will be +hosts of rosy-winged dodecatheon, called shooting-stars, outlining the +crystal tunnels in the sod. Single flowers have often a two-inch +spread of petal, and the full, twelve blossomed heads above the slender +pedicels have the airy effect of wings. + +It is about this level one looks to find the largest lakes with thick +ranks of pines bearing down on them, often swamped in the summer floods +and paying the inevitable penalty for such encroachment. Here in wet +coves of the hills harbors that crowd of bloom that makes the wonder of +the Sierra canons. + +They drift under the alternate flicker and gloom of the windy rooms +of pines, in gray rock shelters, and by the ooze of blind springs, and +their juxtapositions are the best imaginable. Lilies come up out of fern +beds, columbine swings over meadowsweet, white rein-orchids quake in the +leaning grass. Open swales, where in wet years may be running water, are +plantations of false hellebore (Veratrum californicum), tall, branched +candelabra of greenish bloom above the sessile, sheathing, boat-shaped +leaves, semi-translucent in the sun. A stately plant of the lily family, +but why "false?" It is frankly offensive in its character, and its young +juices deadly as any hellebore that ever grew. + +Like most mountain herbs, it has an uncanny haste to bloom. One hears +by night, when all the wood is still, the crepitatious rustle of the +unfolding leaves and the pushing flower-stalk within, that has open +blossoms before it has fairly uncramped from the sheath. It commends +itself by a certain exclusiveness of growth, taking enough room and +never elbowing; for if the flora of the lake region has a fault it is +that there is too much of it. We have more than three hundred species +from Kearsarge Canon alone, and if that does not include them all it is +because they were already collected otherwhere. + +One expects to find lakes down to about nine thousand feet, leading into +each other by comparatively open ripple slopes and white cascades. Below +the lakes are filled basins that are still spongy swamps, or substantial +meadows, as they get down and down. + +Here begin the stream tangles. On the east slopes of the middle Sierras +the pines, all but an occasional yellow variety, desert the stream +borders about the level of the lowest lakes, and the birches and +tree-willows begin. The firs hold on almost to the mesa levels,--there +are no foothills on this eastern slope,--and whoever has firs misses +nothing else. It goes without saying that a tree that can afford to take +fifty years to its first fruiting will repay acquaintance. It keeps, +too, all that half century, a virginal grace of outline, but having once +flowered, begins quietly to put away the things of its youth. Years by +year the lower rounds of boughs are shed, leaving no scar; year by year +the star-branched minarets approach the sky. A fir-tree loves a water +border, loves a long wind in a draughty canon, loves to spend itself +secretly on the inner finishings of its burnished, shapely cones. Broken +open in mid-season the petal-shaped scales show a crimson satin surface, +perfect as a rose. + +The birch--the brown-bark western birch characteristic of lower stream +tangles--is a spoil sport. It grows thickly to choke the stream that +feeds it; grudges it the sky and space for angler's rod and fly. The +willows do better; painted-cup, cypripedium, and the hollow stalks +of span-broad white umbels, find a footing among their stems. But in +general the steep plunges, the white swirls, green and tawny pools, the +gliding hush of waters between the meadows and the mesas afford little +fishing and few flowers. + +One looks for these to begin again when once free of the rifted canon +walls; the high note of babble and laughter falls off to the steadier +mellow tone of a stream that knows its purpose and reflects the sky. + + + + +OTHER WATER BORDERS + +It is the proper destiny of every considerable stream in the west to +become an irrigating ditch. It would seem the streams are willing. They +go as far as they can, or dare, toward the tillable lands in their own +boulder fenced gullies--but how much farther in the man-made waterways. +It is difficult to come into intimate relations with appropriated +waters; like very busy people they have no time to reveal themselves. +One needs to have known an irrigating ditch when it was a brook, and to +have lived by it, to mark the morning and evening tone of its crooning, +rising and falling to the excess of snow water; to have watched far +across the valley, south to the Eclipse and north to the Twisted Dyke, +the shining wall of the village water gate; to see still blue herons +stalking the little glinting weirs across the field. + +Perhaps to get into the mood of the waterways one needs to have seen +old Amos Judson asquat on the headgate with his gun, guarding his +water-right toward the end of a dry summer. Amos owned the half of Tule +Creek and the other half pertained to the neighboring Greenfields ranch. +Years of a "short water crop," that is, when too little snow fell on the +high pine ridges, or, falling, melted too early, Amos held that it took +all the water that came down to make his half, and maintained it with +a Winchester and a deadly aim. Jesus Montana, first proprietor +of Greenfields,--you can see at once that Judson had the racial +advantage,--contesting the right with him, walked into five of Judson's +bullets and his eternal possessions on the same occasion. That was the +Homeric age of settlement and passed into tradition. Twelve years later +one of the Clarks, holding Greenfields, not so very green by now, shot +one of the Judsons. Perhaps he hoped that also might become classic, but +the jury found for manslaughter. It had the effect of discouraging the +Greenfields claim, but Amos used to sit on the headgate just the same, +as quaint and lone a figure as the sandhill crane watching for water +toads below the Tule drop. + +Every subsequent owner of Greenfields bought it with Amos in full view. +The last of these was Diedrick. Along in August of that year came a week +of low water. Judson's ditch failed and he went out with his rifle to +learn why. There on the headgate sat Diedrick's frau with a long-handled +shovel across her lap and all the water turned into Diedrick's ditch; +there she sat knitting through the long sun, and the children brought +out her dinner. It was all up with Amos; he was too much of a gentleman +to fight a lady--that was the way he expressed it. She was a very large +lady, and a long-handled shovel is no mean weapon. The next year Judson +and Diedrick put in a modern water gauge and took the summer ebb in +equal inches. Some of the water-right difficulties are more squalid than +this, some more tragic; but unless you have known them you cannot very +well know what the water thinks as it slips past the gardens and in the +long slow sweeps of the canal. You get that sense of brooding from the +confined and sober floods, not all at once but by degrees, as one might +become aware of a middle-aged and serious neighbor who has had that in +his life to make him so. It is the repose of the completely accepted +instinct. + +With the water runs a certain following of thirsty herbs and shrubs. The +willows go as far as the stream goes, and a bit farther on the slightest +provocation. They will strike root in the leak of a flume, or the +dribble of an overfull bank, coaxing the water beyond its appointed +bounds. Given a new waterway in a barren land, and in three years the +willows have fringed all its miles of banks; three years more and they +will touch tops across it. It is perhaps due to the early usurpation +of the willows that so little else finds growing-room along the large +canals. The birch beginning far back in the canon tangles is more +conservative; it is shy of man haunts and needs to have the permanence +of its drink assured. It stops far short of the summer limit of waters, +and I have never known it to take up a position on the banks beyond +the ploughed lands. There is something almost like premeditation in the +avoidance of cultivated tracts by certain plants of water borders. The +clematis, mingling its foliage secretly with its host, comes down with +the stream tangles to the village fences, skips over to corners of +little used pasture lands and the plantations that spring up about +waste water pools; but never ventures a footing in the trail of spade or +plough; will not be persuaded to grow in any garden plot. On the other +hand, the horehound, the common European species imported with the +colonies, hankers after hedgerows and snug little borders. It is more +widely distributed than many native species, and may be always found +along the ditches in the village corners, where it is not appreciated. +The irrigating ditch is an impartial distributer. It gathers all the +alien weeds that come west in garden and grass seeds and affords +them harbor in its banks. There one finds the European mallow (Malva +rotundifolia) spreading out to the streets with the summer overflow, and +every spring a dandelion or two, brought in with the blue grass seed, +uncurls in the swardy soil. Farther than either of these have come the +lilies that the Chinese coolies cultivate in adjacent mud holes for +their foodful bulbs. The seegoo establishes itself very readily in +swampy borders, and the white blossom spikes among the arrow-pointed +leaves are quite as acceptable to the eye as any native species. + +In the neighborhood of towns founded by the Spanish Californians, +whether this plant is native to the locality or not, one can always find +aromatic clumps of yerba buena, the "good herb" (Micromeria douglassii). +The virtue of it as a febrifuge was taught to the mission fathers by the +neophytes, and wise old dames of my acquaintance have worked astonishing +cures with it and the succulent yerba mansa. This last is native to wet +meadows and distinguished enough to have a family all to itself. + +Where the irrigating ditches are shallow and a little neglected, they +choke quickly with watercress that multiplies about the lowest Sierra +springs. It is characteristic of the frequenters of water borders near +man haunts, that they are chiefly of the sorts that are useful to +man, as if they made their services an excuse for the intrusion. The +joint-grass of soggy pastures produces edible, nut-flavored tubers, +called by the Indians taboose. The common reed of the ultramontane +marshes (here Phragmites vulgaris), a very stately, whispering reed, +light and strong for shafts or arrows, affords sweet sap and pith which +makes a passable sugar. + +It seems the secrets of plant powers and influences yield themselves +most readily to primitive peoples, at least one never hears of the +knowledge coming from any other source. The Indian never concerns +himself, as the botanist and the poet, with the plant's appearances and +relations, but with what it can do for him. + +It can do much, but how do you suppose he finds it out; what instincts +or accidents guide him? How does a cat know when to eat catnip? Why do +western bred cattle avoid loco weed, and strangers eat it and go mad? +One might suppose that in a time of famine the Paiutes digged wild +parsnip in meadow corners and died from eating it, and so learned to +produce death swiftly and at will. But how did they learn, repenting in +the last agony, that animal fat is the best antidote for its virulence; +and who taught them that the essence of joint pine (Ephedra nevadensis), +which looks to have no juice in it of any sort, is efficacious in +stomachic disorders. But they so understand and so use. One believes +it to be a sort of instinct atrophied by disuse in a complexer +civilization. I remember very well when I came first upon a wet meadow +of yerba mansa, not knowing its name or use. It looked potent; the +cool, shiny leaves, the succulent, pink stems and fruity bloom. A little +touch, a hint, a word, and I should have known what use to put them to. +So I felt, unwilling to leave it until we had come to an understanding. +So a musician might have felt in the presence of an instrument known to +be within his province, but beyond his power. It was with the relieved +sense of having shaped a long surmise that I watched the Senora Romero +make a poultice of it for my burned hand. + +On, down from the lower lakes to the village weirs, the brown and golden +disks of helenum have beauty as a sufficient excuse for being. The +plants anchor out on tiny capes, or mid-stream islets, with the nearly +sessile radicle leaves submerged. The flowers keep up a constant +trepidation in time with the hasty water beating at their stems, +a quivering, instinct with life, that seems always at the point of +breaking into flight; just as the babble of the watercourses always +approaches articulation but never quite achieves it. Although of wide +range the helenum never makes itself common through profusion, and may +be looked for in the same places from year to year. Another lake +dweller that comes down to the ploughed lands is the red columbine. ( +C.truncata). It requires no encouragement other than shade, but grows +too rank in the summer heats and loses its wildwood grace. A common +enough orchid in these parts is the false lady's slipper (Epipactis +gigantea), one that springs up by any water where there is sufficient +growth of other sorts to give it countenance. It seems to thrive best in +an atmosphere of suffocation. + +The middle Sierras fall off abruptly eastward toward the high valleys. +Peaks of the fourteen thousand class, belted with sombre swathes +of pine, rise almost directly from the bench lands with no foothill +approaches. At the lower edge of the bench or mesa the land falls away, +often by a fault, to the river hollows, and along the drop one looks for +springs or intermittent swampy swales. Here the plant world resembles a +little the lake gardens, modified by altitude and the use the town folk +put it to for pasture. Here are cress, blue violets, potentilla, and, in +the damp of the willow fence-rows, white false asphodels. I am sure we +make too free use of this word FALSE in naming plants--false mallow, +false lupine, and the like. The asphodel is at least no falsifier, but +a true lily by all the heaven-set marks, though small of flower and +run mostly to leaves, and should have a name that gives it credit for +growing up in such celestial semblance. Native to the mesa meadows is a +pale iris, gardens of it acres wide, that in the spring season of full +bloom make an airy fluttering as of azure wings. Single flowers are +too thin and sketchy of outline to affect the imagination, but the full +fields have the misty blue of mirage waters rolled across desert sand, +and quicken the senses to the anticipation of things ethereal. A very +poet's flower, I thought; not fit for gathering up, and proving a +nuisance in the pastures, therefore needing to be the more loved. And +one day I caught Winnenap' drawing out from mid leaf a fine strong fibre +for making snares. The borders of the iris fields are pure gold, nearly +sessile buttercups and a creeping-stemmed composite of a redder hue. I +am convinced that English-speaking children will always have buttercups. +If they do not light upon the original companion of little frogs +they will take the next best and cherish it accordingly. I find +five unrelated species loved by that name, and as many more and as +inappropriately called cowslips. + +By every mesa spring one may expect to find a single shrub of the +buckthorn, called of old time Cascara sagrada--the sacred bark. Up +in the canons, within the limit of the rains, it seeks rather a stony +slope, but in the dry valleys is not found away from water borders. + +In all the valleys and along the desert edges of the west are +considerable areas of soil sickly with alkali-collecting pools, black +and evil-smelling like old blood. Very little grows hereabout but +thick-leaved pickle weed. Curiously enough, in this stiff mud, along +roadways where there is frequently a little leakage from canals, grows +the only western representative of the true heliotropes (Heliotropium +curassavicum). It has flowers of faded white, foliage of faded green, +resembling the "live-for-ever" of old gardens and graveyards, but even +less attractive. After so much schooling in the virtues of water-seeking +plants, one is not surprised to learn that its mucilaginous sap has +healing powers. + +Last and inevitable resort of overflow waters is the tulares, great +wastes of reeds (Juncus) in sickly, slow streams. The reeds, called +tules, are ghostly pale in winter, in summer deep poisonous-looking +green, the waters thick and brown; the reed beds breaking into dingy +pools, clumps of rotting willows, narrow winding water lanes and sinking +paths. The tules grow inconceivably thick in places, standing man-high +above the water; cattle, no, not any fish nor fowl can penetrate them. +Old stalks succumb slowly; the bed soil is quagmire, settling with the +weight as it fills and fills. Too slowly for counting they raise little +islands from the bog and reclaim the land. The waters pushed out cut +deeper channels, gnaw off the edges of the solid earth. + +The tulares are full of mystery and malaria. That is why we have meant +to explore them and have never done so. It must be a happy mystery. So +you would think to hear the redwinged blackbirds proclaim it clear March +mornings. Flocks of them, and every flock a myriad, shelter in the dry, +whispering stems. They make little arched runways deep into the heart +of the tule beds. Miles across the valley one hears the clamor of their +high, keen flutings in the mating weather. + +Wild fowl, quacking hordes of them, nest in the tulares. Any day's +venture will raise from open shallows the great blue heron on his hollow +wings. Chill evenings the mallard drakes cry continually from the glassy +pools, the bittern's hollow boom rolls along the water paths. Strange +and farflown fowl drop down against the saffron, autumn sky. All day +wings beat above it hazy with speed; long flights of cranes glimmer in +the twilight. By night one wakes to hear the clanging geese go over. +One wishes for, but gets no nearer speech from those the reedy fens have +swallowed up. What they do there, how fare, what find, is the secret of +the tulares. + + + + +NURSLINGS OF THE SKY + +Choose a hill country for storms. There all the business of the weather +is carried on above your horizon and loses its terror in familiarity. +When you come to think about it, the disastrous storms are on the +levels, sea or sand or plains. There you get only a hint of what is +about to happen, the fume of the gods rising from their meeting place +under the rim of the world; and when it breaks upon you there is no stay +nor shelter. The terrible mewings and mouthings of a Kansas wind have +the added terror of viewlessness. You are lapped in them like uprooted +grass; suspect them of a personal grudge. But the storms of hill +countries have other business. They scoop watercourses, manure the +pines, twist them to a finer fibre, fit the firs to be masts and spars, +and, if you keep reasonably out of the track of their affairs, do you no +harm. + +They have habits to be learned, appointed paths, seasons, and warnings, +and they leave you in no doubt about their performances. One who builds +his house on a water scar or the rubble of a steep slope must take +chances. So they did in Overtown who built in the wash of Argus water, +and at Kearsarge at the foot of a steep, treeless swale. After twenty +years Argus water rose in the wash against the frail houses, and the +piled snows of Kearsarge slid down at a thunder peal over the cabins and +the camp, but you could conceive that it was the fault of neither the +water nor the snow. + +The first effect of cloud study is a sense of presence and intention +in storm processes. Weather does not happen. It is the visible +manifestation of the Spirit moving itself in the void. It gathers itself +together under the heavens; rains, snows, yearns mightily in wind, +smiles; and the Weather Bureau, situated advantageously for that very +business, taps the record on his instruments and going out on the +streets denies his God, not having gathered the sense of what he has +seen. Hardly anybody takes account of the fact that John Muir, who knows +more of mountain storms than any other, is a devout man. + +Of the high Sierras choose the neighborhood of the splintered peaks +about the Kern and King's river divide for storm study, or the short, +wide-mouthed canons opening eastward on high valleys. Days when the +hollows are steeped in a warm, winey flood the clouds came walking on +the floor of heaven, flat and pearly gray beneath, rounded and pearly +white above. They gather flock-wise, moving on the level currents that +roll about the peaks, lock hands and settle with the cooler air, drawing +a veil about those places where they do their work. If their meeting or +parting takes place at sunrise or sunset, as it often does, one gets +the splendor of the apocalypse. There will be cloud pillars miles high, +snow-capped, glorified, and preserving an orderly perspective before the +unbarred door of the sun, or perhaps mere ghosts of clouds that dance +to some pied piper of an unfelt wind. But be it day or night, once they +have settled to their work, one sees from the valley only the blank wall +of their tents stretched along the ranges. To get the real effect of a +mountain storm you must be inside. + +One who goes often into a hill country learns not to say: What if it +should rain? It always does rain somewhere among the peaks: the unusual +thing is that one should escape it. You might suppose that if you took +any account of plant contrivances to save their pollen powder against +showers. Note how many there are deep-throated and bell-flowered like +the pentstemons, how many have nodding pedicels as the columbine, how +many grow in copse shelters and grow there only. There is keen delight +in the quick showers of summer canons, with the added comfort, born +of experience, of knowing that no harm comes of a wetting at high +altitudes. The day is warm; a white cloud spies over the canon wall, +slips up behind the ridge to cross it by some windy pass, obscures your +sun. Next you hear the rain drum on the broad-leaved hellebore, and beat +down the mimulus beside the brook. + +You shelter on the lee of some strong pine with shut-winged butterflies +and merry, fiddling creatures of the wood. Runnels of rain water from +the glacier-slips swirl through the pine needles into rivulets; the +streams froth and rise in their banks. The sky is white with cloud; the +sky is gray with rain; the sky is clear. The summer showers leave no +wake. + +Such as these follow each other day by day for weeks in August weather. +Sometimes they chill suddenly into wet snow that packs about the +lake gardens clear to the blossom frills, and melts away harmlessly. +Sometimes one has the good fortune from a heather-grown headland to +watch a rain-cloud forming in mid-air. Out over meadow or lake region +begins a little darkling of the sky,--no cloud, no wind, just a +smokiness such as spirits materialize from in witch stories. + +It rays out and draws to it some floating films from secret canons. +Rain begins, "slow dropping veil of thinnest lawn;" a wind comes up and +drives the formless thing across a meadow, or a dull lake pitted by the +glancing drops, dissolving as it drives. Such rains relieve like tears. + +The same season brings the rains that have work to do, ploughing storms +that alter the face of things. These come with thunder and the play of +live fire along the rocks. They come with great winds that try the pines +for their work upon the seas and strike out the unfit. They shake down +avalanches of splinters from sky-line pinnacles and raise up sudden +floods like battle fronts in the canons against towns, trees, and +boulders. They would be kind if they could, but have more important +matters. Such storms, called cloud-bursts by the country folk, are not +rain, rather the spillings of Thor's cup, jarred by the Thunderer. After +such a one the water that comes up in the village hydrants miles away is +white with forced bubbles from the wind-tormented streams. + +All that storms do to the face of the earth you may read in the +geographies, but not what they do to our contemporaries. I remember one +night of thunderous rain made unendurably mournful by the houseless cry +of a cougar whose lair, and perhaps his family, had been buried under +a slide of broken boulders on the slope of Kearsarge. We had heard the +heavy detonation of the slide about the hour of the alpenglow, a pale +rosy interval in a darkling air, and judged he must have come from +hunting to the ruined cliff and paced the night out before it, crying a +very human woe. I remember, too, in that same season of storms, a lake +made milky white for days, and crowded out of its bed by clay washed +into it by a fury of rain, with the trout floating in it belly up, +stunned by the shock of the sudden flood. But there were trout enough +for what was left of the lake next year and the beginning of a meadow +about its upper rim. What taxed me most in the wreck of one of my +favorite canons by cloud-burst was to see a bobcat mother mouthing her +drowned kittens in the ruined lair built in the wash, far above the +limit of accustomed waters, but not far enough for the unexpected. After +a time you get the point of view of gods about these things to save you +from being too pitiful. + +The great snows that come at the beginning of winter, before there is +yet any snow except the perpetual high banks, are best worth while to +watch. These come often before the late bloomers are gone and while the +migratory birds are still in the piney woods. Down in the valley you see +little but the flocking of blackbirds in the streets, or the low +flight of mallards over the tulares, and the gathering of clouds +behind Williamson. First there is a waiting stillness in the wood; the +pine-trees creak although there is no wind, the sky glowers, the firs +rock by the water borders. The noise of the creek rises insistently +and falls off a full note like a child abashed by sudden silence in the +room. + +This changing of the stream-tone following tardily the changes of the +sun on melting snows is most meaningful of wood notes. After it runs +a little trumpeter wind to cry the wild creatures to their holes. +Sometimes the warning hangs in the air for days with increasing +stillness. Only Clark's crow and the strident jays make light of it; +only they can afford to. The cattle get down to the foothills and +ground-inhabiting creatures make fast their doors. It grows chill, blind +clouds fumble in the canons; there will be a roll of thunder, perhaps, +or a flurry of rain, but mostly the snow is born in the air with +quietness and the sense of strong white pinions softly stirred. It +increases, is wet and clogging, and makes a white night of midday. + +There is seldom any wind with first snows, more often rain, but later, +when there is already a smooth foot or two over all the slopes, the +drifts begin. The late snows are fine and dry, mere ice granules at the +wind's will. Keen mornings after a storm they are blown out in wreaths +and banners from the high ridges sifting into the canons. + +Once in a year or so we have a "big snow." The cloud tents are widened +out to shut in the valley and an outlying range or two and are drawn +tight against the sun. Such a storm begins warm, with a dry white mist +that fills and fills between the ridges, and the air is thick with +formless groaning. Now for days you get no hint of the neighboring +ranges until the snows begin to lighten and some shouldering peak +lifts through a rent. Mornings after the heavy snows are steely blue, +two-edged with cold, divinely fresh and still, and these are times to go +up to the pine borders. There you may find floundering in the unstable +drifts "tainted wethers" of the wild sheep, faint from age and hunger; +easy prey. Even the deer make slow going in the thick fresh snow, and +once we found a wolverine going blind and feebly in the white glare. + +No tree takes the snow stress with such ease as the silver fir. The +star-whorled, fan-spread branches droop under the soft wreaths--droop +and press flatly to the trunk; presently the point of overloading is +reached, there is a soft sough and muffled drooping, the boughs recover, +and the weighting goes on until the drifts have reached the midmost +whorls and covered up the branches. + +When the snows are particularly wet and heavy they spread over the young +firs in green-ribbed tents wherein harbor winter loving birds. + +All storms of desert hills, except wind storms, are impotent. East and +east of the Sierras they rise in nearly parallel ranges, desertward, and +no rain breaks over them, except from some far-strayed cloud or roving +wind from the California Gulf, and these only in winter. In summer the +sky travails with thunderings and the flare of sheet lightnings to win +a few blistering big drops, and once in a lifetime the chance of a +torrent. But you have not known what force resides in the mindless +things until you have known a desert wind. One expects it at the turn of +the two seasons, wet and dry, with electrified tense nerves. Along the +edge of the mesa where it drops off to the valley, dust devils begin to +rise white and steady, fanning out at the top like the genii out of the +Fisherman's bottle. One supposes the Indians might have learned the +use of smoke signals from these dust pillars as they learn most things +direct from the tutelage of the earth. The air begins to move fluently, +blowing hot and cold between the ranges. Far south rises a murk of sand +against the sky; it grows, the wind shakes itself, and has a smell of +earth. The cloud of small dust takes on the color of gold and shuts out +the neighborhood, the push of the wind is unsparing. Only man of all +folk is foolish enough to stir abroad in it. But being in a house is +really much worse; no relief from the dust, and a great fear of the +creaking timbers. There is no looking ahead in such a wind, and the bite +of the small sharp sand on exposed skin is keener than any insect sting. +One might sleep, for the lapping of the wind wears one to the point +of exhaustion very soon, but there is dread, in open sand stretches +sometimes justified, of being over blown by the drift. It is hot, dry, +fretful work, but by going along the ground with the wind behind, one +may come upon strange things in its tumultuous privacy. I like these +truces of wind and heat that the desert makes, otherwise I do not know +how I should come by so many acquaintances with furtive folk. I like +to see hawks sitting daunted in shallow holes, not daring to spread a +feather, and doves in a row by the prickle-bushes, and shut-eyed cattle, +turned tail to the wind in a patient doze. I like the smother of sand +among the dunes, and finding small coiled snakes in open places, but I +never like to come in a wind upon the silly sheep. The wind robs them of +what wit they had, and they seem never to have learned the self-induced +hypnotic stupor with which most wild things endure weather stress. I +have never heard that the desert winds brought harm to any other than +the wandering shepherds and their flocks. Once below Pastaria Little +Pete showed me bones sticking out of the sand where a flock of two +hundred had been smothered in a bygone wind. In many places the +four-foot posts of a cattle fence had been buried by the wind-blown +dunes. + +It is enough occupation, when no storm is brewing, to watch the cloud +currents and the chambers of the sky. From Kearsarge, say, you look over +Inyo and find pink soft cloud masses asleep on the level desert air; +south of you hurries a white troop late to some gathering of their kind +at the back of Oppapago; nosing the foot of Waban, a woolly mist creeps +south. In the clean, smooth paths of the middle sky and highest up in +air, drift, unshepherded, small flocks ranging contrarily. You will +find the proper names of these things in the reports of the Weather +Bureau--cirrus, cumulus, and the like and charts that will teach by +study when to sow and take up crops. It is astonishing the trouble +men will be at to find out when to plant potatoes, and gloze over the +eternal meaning of the skies. You have to beat out for yourself many +mornings on the windy headlands the sense of the fact that you get the +same rainbow in the cloud drift over Waban and the spray of your garden +hose. And not necessarily then do you live up to it. + + + + +THE LITTLE TOWN OF THE GRAPE VINES + +There are still some places in the west where the quails cry "cuidado"; +where all the speech is soft, all the manners gentle; where all the +dishes have chile in them, and they make more of the Sixteenth of +September than they do of the Fourth of July. I mean in particular El +Pueblo de Las Uvas. Where it lies, how to come at it, you will not get +from me; rather would I show you the heron's nest in the tulares. It has +a peak behind it, glinting above the tamarack pines, above a breaker of +ruddy hills that have a long slope valley-wards and the shoreward steep +of waves toward the Sierras. + +Below the Town of the Grape Vines, which shortens to Las Uvas for +common use, the land dips away to the river pastures and the tulares. +It shrouds under a twilight thicket of vines, under a dome of +cottonwood-trees, drowsy and murmurous as a hive. Hereabouts are some +strips of tillage and the headgates that dam up the creek for the +village weirs; upstream you catch the growl of the arrastra. Wild vines +that begin among the willows lap over to the orchard rows, take the +trellis and roof-tree. + +There is another town above Las Uvas that merits some attention, a town +of arches and airy crofts, full of linnets, blackbirds, fruit birds, +small sharp hawks, and mockingbirds that sing by night. They pour out +piercing, unendurably sweet cavatinas above the fragrance of bloom and +musky smell of fruit. Singing is in fact the business of the night +at Las Uvas as sleeping is for midday. When the moon comes over the +mountain wall new-washed from the sea, and the shadows lie like lace +on the stamped floors of the patios, from recess to recess of the vine +tangle runs the thrum of guitars and the voice of singing. + +At Las Uvas they keep up all the good customs brought out of Old Mexico +or bred in a lotus-eating land; drink, and are merry and look out for +something to eat afterward; have children, nine or ten to a family, have +cock-fights, keep the siesta, smoke cigarettes and wait for the sun +to go down. And always they dance; at dusk on the smooth adobe floors, +afternoons under the trellises where the earth is damp and has a fruity +smell. A betrothal, a wedding, or a christening, or the mere proximity +of a guitar is sufficient occasion; and if the occasion lacks, send for +the guitar and dance anyway. + +All this requires explanation. Antonio Sevadra, drifting this way from +Old Mexico with the flood that poured into the Tappan district after the +first notable strike, discovered La Golondrina. It was a generous lode +and Tony a good fellow; to work it he brought in all the Sevadras, even +to the twice-removed; all the Castros who were his wife's family, +all the Saises, Romeros, and Eschobars,--the relations of his +relations-in-law. There you have the beginning of a pretty considerable +town. To these accrued much of the Spanish California float swept out +of the southwest by eastern enterprise. They slacked away again when the +price of silver went down, and the ore dwindled in La Golondrina. All +the hot eddy of mining life swept away from that corner of the hills, +but there were always those too idle, too poor to move, or too easily +content with El Pueblo de Las Uvas. + +Nobody comes nowadays to the town of the grape vines except, as we say, +"with the breath of crying," but of these enough. All the low sills run +over with small heads. Ah, ah! There is a kind of pride in that if you +did but know it, to have your baby every year or so as the time sets, +and keep a full breast. So great a blessing as marriage is easily come +by. It is told of Ruy Garcia that when he went for his marriage license +he lacked a dollar of the clerk's fee, but borrowed it of the sheriff, +who expected reelection and exhibited thereby a commendable thrift. +Of what account is it to lack meal or meat when you may have it of any +neighbor? Besides, there is sometimes a point of honor in these things. +Jesus Romero, father of ten, had a job sacking ore in the Marionette +which he gave up of his own accord. "Eh, why?" said Jesus, "for my +fam'ly." + +"It is so, senora," he said solemnly, "I go to the Marionette, I work, +I eat meat--pie--frijoles--good, ver' good. I come home sad'day nigh' +I see my fam'ly. I play lil' game poker with the boys, have lil' drink +wine, my money all gone. My fam'ly have no money, nothing eat. All time +I work at mine I eat, good, ver' good grub. I think sorry for my fam'ly. +No, no, senora, I no work no more that Marionette, I stay with my +fam'ly." The wonder of it is, I think, that the family had the same +point of view. + +Every house in the town of the vines has its garden plot, corn and brown +beans and a row of peppers reddening in the sun; and in damp borders +of the irrigating ditches clumps of yerbasanta, horehound, catnip, and +spikenard, wholesome herbs and curative, but if no peppers then nothing +at all. You will have for a holiday dinner, in Las Uvas, soup with meat +balls and chile in it, chicken with chile, rice with chile, fried beans +with more chile, enchilada, which is corn cake with the sauce of chile +and tomatoes, onion, grated cheese, and olives, and for a relish +chile tepines passed about in a dish, all of which is comfortable and +corrective to the stomach. You will have wine which every man makes for +himself, of good body and inimitable bouquet, and sweets that are not +nearly so nice as they look. + +There are two occasions when you may count on that kind of a meal; +always on the Sixteenth of September, and on the two-yearly visits of +Father Shannon. It is absurd, of course, that El Pueblo de Las Uvas +should have an Irish priest, but Black Rock, Minton, Jimville, and all +that country round do not find it so. Father Shannon visits them all, +waits by the Red Butte to confess the shepherds who go through with +their flocks, carries blessing to small and isolated mines, and so in +the course of a year or so works around to Las Uvas to bury and marry +and christen. Then all the little graves in the Campo Santo are brave +with tapers, the brown pine headboards blossom like Aaron's rod with +paper roses and bright cheap prints of Our Lady of Sorrows. Then the +Senora Sevadra, who thinks herself elect of heaven for that office, +gathers up the original sinners, the little Elijias, Lolas, Manuelitas, +Joses, and Felipes, by dint of adjurations and sweets smuggled into +small perspiring palms, to fit them for the Sacrament. + +I used to peek in at them, never so softly, in Dona Ina's living-room; +Raphael-eyed little imps, going sidewise on their knees to rest them +from the bare floor, candles lit on the mantel to give a religious air, +and a great sheaf of wild bloom before the Holy Family. Come Sunday they +set out the altar in the schoolhouse, with the fine-drawn altar cloths, +the beaten silver candlesticks, and the wax images, chief glory of Las +Uvas, brought up mule-back from Old Mexico forty years ago. All in white +the communicants go up two and two in a hushed, sweet awe to take the +body of their Lord, and Tomaso, who is priest's boy, tries not to look +unduly puffed up by his office. After that you have dinner and a bottle +of wine that ripened on the sunny slope of Escondito. All the week +Father Shannon has shriven his people, who bring clean conscience to +the betterment of appetite, and the Father sets them an example. Father +Shannon is rather big about the middle to accommodate the large laugh +that lives in him, but a most shrewd searcher of hearts. It is reported +that one derives comfort from his confessional, and I for my part +believe it. + +The celebration of the Sixteenth, though it comes every year, takes as +long to prepare for as Holy Communion. The senoritas have each a new +dress apiece, the senoras a new rebosa. The young gentlemen have +new silver trimmings to their sombreros, unspeakable ties, silk +handkerchiefs, and new leathers to their spurs. At this time when the +peppers glow in the gardens and the young quail cry "cuidado," "have a +care!" you can hear the plump, plump of the metate from the alcoves of +the vines where comfortable old dames, whose experience gives them the +touch of art, are pounding out corn for tamales. + +School-teachers from abroad have tried before now at Las Uvas to have +school begin on the first of September, but got nothing else to stir +in the heads of the little Castros, Garcias, and Romeros but feasts and +cock-fights until after the Sixteenth. Perhaps you need to be told that +this is the anniversary of the Republic, when liberty awoke and cried +in the provinces of Old Mexico. You are aroused at midnight to hear them +shouting in the streets, "Vive la Libertad!" answered from the houses +and the recesses of the vines, "Vive la Mexico!" At sunrise shots are +fired commemorating the tragedy of unhappy Maximilian, and then music, +the noblest of national hymns, as the great flag of Old Mexico floats up +the flag-pole in the bare little plaza of shabby Las Uvas. The sun +over Pine Mountain greets the eagle of Montezuma before it touches the +vineyards and the town, and the day begins with a great shout. By and +by there will be a reading of the Declaration of Independence and an +address punctured by vives; all the town in its best dress, and some +exhibits of horsemanship that make lathered bits and bloody spurs; also +a cock-fight. + +By night there will be dancing, and such music! old Santos to play the +flute, a little lean man with a saintly countenance, young Garcia whose +guitar has a soul, and Carrasco with the violin. They sit on a high +platform above the dancers in the candle flare, backed by the red, +white, and green of Old Mexico, and play fervently such music as you +will not hear otherwhere. + +At midnight the flag comes down. Count yourself at a loss if you are +not moved by that performance. Pine Mountain watches whitely overhead, +shepherd fires glow strongly on the glooming hills. The plaza, the bare +glistening pole, the dark folk, the bright dresses, are lit ruddily by +a bonfire. It leaps up to the eagle flag, dies down, the music begins +softly and aside. They play airs of old longing and exile; slowly out +of the dark the flag drops down, bellying and falling with the midnight +draught. Sometimes a hymn is sung, always there are tears. The flag +is down; Tony Sevadra has received it in his arms. The music strikes a +barbaric swelling tune, another flag begins a slow ascent,--it takes +a breath or two to realize that they are both, flag and tune, the Star +Spangled Banner,--a volley is fired, we are back, if you please, in +California of America. Every youth who has the blood of patriots in him +lays ahold on Tony Sevadra's flag, happiest if he can get a corner of +it. The music goes before, the folk fall in two and two, singing. They +sing everything, America, the Marseillaise, for the sake of the French +shepherds hereabout, the hymn of Cuba, and the Chilian national air to +comfort two families of that land. The flag goes to Dona Ina's, with the +candlesticks and the altar cloths, then Las Uvas eats tamales and dances +the sun up the slope of Pine Mountain. + +You are not to suppose that they do not keep the Fourth, Washington's +Birthday, and Thanksgiving at the town of the grape vines. These make +excellent occasions for quitting work and dancing, but the Sixteenth is +the holiday of the heart. On Memorial Day the graves have garlands and +new pictures of the saints tacked to the headboards. There is great +virtue in an Ave said in the Camp of the Saints. I like that name which +the Spanish speaking people give to the garden of the dead, Campo Santo, +as if it might be some bed of healing from which blind souls and sinners +rise up whole and praising God. Sometimes the speech of simple folk +hints at truth the understanding does not reach. I am persuaded only a +complex soul can get any good of a plain religion. Your earthborn is a +poet and a symbolist. We breed in an environment of asphalt pavements +a body of people whose creeds are chiefly restrictions against other +people's way of life, and have kitchens and latrines under the same roof +that houses their God. Such as these go to church to be edified, but at +Las Uvas they go for pure worship and to entreat their God. The logical +conclusion of the faith that every good gift cometh from God is the open +hand and the finer courtesy. The meal done without buys a candle for the +neighbor's dead child. You do foolishly to suppose that the candle does +no good. + +At Las Uvas every house is a piece of earth--thick walled, whitewashed +adobe that keeps the even temperature of a cave; every man is an +accomplished horseman and consequently bowlegged; every family keeps +dogs, flea-bitten mongrels that loll on the earthen floors. They speak +a purer Castilian than obtains in like villages of Mexico, and the way +they count relationship everybody is more or less akin. There is not +much villainy among them. What incentive to thieving or killing +can there be when there is little wealth and that to be had for the +borrowing! If they love too hotly, as we say "take their meat before +grace," so do their betters. Eh, what! shall a man be a saint before he +is dead? And besides, Holy Church takes it out of you one way or another +before all is done. Come away, you who are obsessed with your own +importance in the scheme of things, and have got nothing you did not +sweat for, come away by the brown valleys and full-bosomed hills to the +even-breathing days, to the kindliness, earthiness, ease of El Pueblo de +Las Uvas. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Land of Little Rain, by Mary Austin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND OF LITTLE RAIN *** + +***** This file should be named 365.txt or 365.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/365/ + +Produced by Judith Boss + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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