THE BIG SYCAMORE. 119 



over her as she raised her sensitive face to see 

 who was there. 



The son of the ranchman who owned the dairy 

 — the one who invited me down to see the play 

 between his dog Romulus and the burrowing 

 owl — said that when herding cows by the syca- 

 more he once caught sight of a coyote wolf. He 

 clapped his hands to send his dog, Romulus, 

 after the wolf ; and the noise frightened the 

 wild creature so that he started to run up the 

 hill across the road from the sycamore. Romulus 

 followed hard at his heels till they got well up 

 the hillside, when the coyote felt that he was 

 on his own ground and turned on the dog, who 

 fled back to his master with his tail between his 

 legs. The lad, clapping his hands, set the dog 

 on the coyote again, and this animated but blood- 

 less performance was repeated and kept up till 

 both were tired out, the animals chasing each 

 other back and forth from the sycamore to the 

 hillside with as much energy and perhaps as 

 much courage as was displayed by that historic 

 king of France who had five thousand men and — 



"... marched them up a hill and then 

 He marched them down again." 



On one side of the sycamore was a great wall 

 of weeds higher than my head when on horse- 

 back ; a dense mass of yellow mustard, and 

 fragrant wild celery which was covered with 



