SHOSHONE LAND 



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 Sho- 

 shone Land. 



South the land rises in very blue hills, 

 blue because thickly wooded with ceano- 

 thus 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 buz- 

 zards, 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 

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