BEYOND THE HILLS 253 



the wheels to lock. The truck swerved toward a large 

 tree and Ted, being powerless to stop our onrush, hit 

 it with a terrific crash. He was not hurt, as the wheel 

 held him in place, but Austin struck an upright post, 

 receiving a nasty cut. I was pushed agciinst the cab 

 roof with such force that for several days afterwards, 

 whenever I chewed, my face hurt. There were three 

 boys in the back, each one of whom received some 

 minor injury. All hands piled out to survey the dam- 

 age, Austin finding his sun glasses twenty feet in front 

 of the tree, although they had been on his nose when 

 the crash took place. About the same distance away, 

 we found a box of rifle shells which had continued their 

 journey after the truck stopped. The truck itself 

 was in bad shape; the heavy bumper was wrapped 

 around the tree, the radiator was smashed and the 

 frame broken. In fact, it not only needed repairs, 

 but some new parts. 



The least injured boy, a raw savage, was sent on the 

 run to camp, which was four nules distant, with orders 

 to tell Jones about the accident. He made it in jig 

 time, and Jones told afterwards how this Ikoma rushed 

 up all out of breath to say that the other masters had 

 run into a piece of wood! When Jonesy arrived and 

 reviewed the result of our race after the baby pigs, it 

 was easy to gather from his expression that the romance 

 of his job had lost part of its appeal. 



One night while waiting to take some negatives out 

 of the hypo bath, I watched the moon rise from beyond 

 the hills. It was almost a full moon and flooded the 

 landscape with a mysterious meUow fight. In a near-by 

 lair two fions had been kicking up an scwiiA rumpus. 

 I had never heard Felis leo roar louder or keep at 



