262 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



the outlines are blurred. When a man is fagged 

 out of mind and body, sick at heart, as the old 

 Latin primer had it, he takes no note of form or 

 colour. Misery is grey and amorphous. On the 

 other hand, the pleasant places grow greener as 

 the years roll by. I can vividly recall a certain 

 spot near a trout stream. Our larder was full of 

 game : bear, venison, antelope meat, and small game. 

 A deep, limpid pool invited us to bathe twice a day. 

 The horses were up to their knees in bunch-grass. 

 We slept beneath the pines, wooed to sleep by 

 their plaintive sighs. We shot and fished and 

 sketched; we ate and drank and slept; we were 

 perfectly happy. 



Not very far from this Paradise I had a narrow 

 escape. My cousin and I were sleeping side by 

 side. It chanced that during the previous day's 

 ride we had seen a great many and killed a few 

 rattlesnakes : a most exceptional experience. Sud- 

 denly my cousin woke up, and saw, by the light of 

 the moon, a big rattler crawling across my chest. 

 He lay for a moment fascinated, watching the sinu- 

 ous curves of the reptile. Then he quietly reached 

 for his six-shooter. But he could not see the 

 beast's head, so he moved nearer, and, lo! 'twas 

 not a snake at all — only the black and yellow 

 stripe of my blanket that gently rose and fell as 

 I breathed. Had he fired, this book might never 

 have been written, for he confessed to me that his 

 hand shook. 



Rattlesnakes have always inspired a certain terror 

 in me, ever since I was struck by one. Fortunately 

 I was wearing a porpoise-hide Field boot at the 



