STEEP TRAILS 



a single mark of cultivation. The smooth lake- 

 like ground sweeps on indefinitely, growing 

 more and more dim in the glowing sunshine, 

 while a mountain-range from eight to ten 

 thousand feet high bounds the view on either 

 hand. No singing water, no green sod, no 

 moist nook to rest hi mountain and valley 

 alike naked and shadowless in the sun-glare; 

 and though, perhaps, traveling a well-worn 

 road to a gold or silver mine, and supplied with 

 repeated instructions, you can scarce hope 

 to find any human habitation from day to day, 

 so vast and impressive is the hot, dusty, alka- 

 line wildness. 



But after riding some thirty or forty miles, 

 and while the sun may be sinking behind the 

 mountains, you come suddenly upon signs of 

 cultivation. Clumps of willows indicate water, 

 and water indicates a farm. Approaching more 

 nearly, you discover what may be a patch of 

 barley spread out unevenly along the bottom 

 of a flood-bed, broken perhaps, and rendered 

 less distinct by boulder-piles and the fringing 

 willows of a stream. Speedily you can confi- 

 dently say that the grain-patch is surely such; 

 its ragged bounds become clear; a sand-roofed 

 cabin comes to view littered with sun-cracked 

 implements and with an outer girdle of potato, 

 cabbage, and alfalfa patches. 



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