THE BASKET MAKER 



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 

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