CHAPTER XVII 

 THE HIGH RANGES 



"If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep 



Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, 



Go to the hills!—" 



When I abandon my seat at the wheel of my 

 roadster in favor of R, I feel that I am out for the 

 Great Adventure, perhaps because he is so young. 

 Therefore when one winter Sunday, immediately 

 after midday dinner he called up to know if I would 

 like to take "a little drive" I was a wee bit disap- 

 pointed. No "little drive" for me! 



We started, both in our "go-to-meetings," an- 

 ticipating no adventure. Up, up we bowled, round- 

 ing the curves of the excellent if somewhat danger- 

 ous road modern ingenuity has constructed up the 

 mesa, then spinning along the trail past our favorite 

 haunt where grow the amoles. But today we do 

 not pause to burn out possible rattlesnakes hiber- 

 nating in dead and fallen soapweed so that I may 

 say that at the long last I have beheld a rattler in 

 the flesh — and maybe they are all out walking in the 

 balmy sunshine. 



On, on, the Valley on our left, the Dona Ana 

 mountains ahead and on our right the blue Organs 

 streaked with glittering snow. We arrive at the 

 first gate of the 250,000 acre cattle range, and give 



