THE POCKET HUNTER 



up. His itinerary began with the east 

 slope of the Sierras of the Snows, where 

 that range swings across to meet the coast 

 hills, and all up that slope to the Truckee 

 River country, where the long cold forbade 

 his progress north. Then he worked back 

 down one or another of the nearly parallel 

 ranges that lie out desertward, and so down 

 to the sink of the Mojave River, burrowing 

 to oblivion in the sand, — a big mysterious 

 land, a lonely, inhospitable land, beautiful, 

 terrible. But he came to no harm in it ; the 

 land tolerated him as it might a gopher or 

 a badger. Of all its inhabitants it has the 

 least concern for man. 



There are many strange sorts of humans 

 bred in a mining country, each sort despis- 

 ing the queernesses of the other, but of them 

 all I found the Pocket Hunter most accept- 

 able for his clean, companionable talk. 

 68 



