CHAPTER XIV 



HEALTHSEEKERS, AND MATTERS 

 PERTINENT 



In writing of our climate, that perverse factor 

 which will give you the lie if it can, it was climate 

 that attracted to our Valley, during the course of 

 decades, innumerable healthseekers, not invariably 

 victims of tuberculosis but for the most part thus 

 afflicted. I employ the past tense, for the reason that 

 the number of such visitors has greatly declined. 

 The causes for such decline are several and will 

 find place later. 



To go backward. The healthseekers who during 

 the winter season filled our ranch resort, dotted our 

 waste places with tents or sought refuge in our 

 valley homes, brought with them — they and their 

 healthy companions — much joy as well, alas! as 

 pain: friendships which endured until death did us 

 part or which endure unto this day. The memories 

 connected with these visitors are by no means all 

 sad; indeed close comradeship with some created 

 out of apparent nothingness many a festive hour. 

 And the best of them rounded out so to speak, the 

 mental atmosphere, enlarged the horizon by reason 

 of the ideas brought from the wider life of which 

 they had more recently partaken, and the perusal 

 of new books and reviews gathered around the 



