9 8 



RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL 



THE MAGIC OF THE DROP. 



toil and hardship of a life passed in the wilderness, or on its outskirts, drive 

 the beauty and bloom from a woman's face long before her youth has left 

 her. By the time she is a mother she is sinewy and angular, with thin, 

 compressed lips and furrowed, sallow brow. But she has a hundred 

 qualities that atone for the grace she lacks. She is a good mother and a 

 hard-working housewife, always putting things to rights, washing and 

 cooking for her stalwart spouse and offspring. She is faithful to her 

 husband, and, like the true American that she is, exacts faithfulness in 

 return. Peril cannot daunt her, nor hardship and poverty appall her. 

 Whether on the mountains in a log hut chinked with moss, in a sod or 

 adobe hovel on the desolate prairie, or in a mere temporary camp, where 

 the white-topped wagons have been drawn up in a protection-giving circle 

 near some spring, she is equally at home. Clad in a dingy gown and a 

 hideous sun-bonnet she goes bravely about her work, resolute, silent, 

 uncomplaining. The children grow up pretty much as fate dictates. Even 

 when very small they seem well able to protect themselves. The wife of 



