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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + + +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 be 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 tailorwise 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 valleyward +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 longhandled 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 Project Gutenberg's Etext, The Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin + + diff --git a/old/lndlr10.zip b/old/lndlr10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..af4e193 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lndlr10.zip |