FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



he had frequently seen them up at the Divide, 

 two or three miles beyond the Sand Spring. 



" All right," said L " I '11 go on to the Divide. 

 No magpies, no pay.'* 



He laughed. " Oh, no," he said. " I don't guar- 

 antee anything ; but I 've seen them there." 



His luck had been better than his passenger's 

 was to prove. I got out of the wagon at the Di- 

 vide, stretched my legs and shook myself, and 

 then rolled under the close barbed-wire fence, 

 and went down into the " swale," which had been 

 pointed out as the most likely resort of the yel- 

 low-bills. 



Birds were flitting about in encouraging num- 

 bers : robins, bluebirds, flickers, slender-billed 

 nuthatches, Sierra j uncos, and California jays, 

 with others, no doubt, not now remembered. And 

 while I looked at them, and listened with all my 

 ears for a magpie's voice, a pair of golden eagles 

 sailed over my head, and before long a red-tailed 

 hawk followed suit. It was indeed a birdy spot ; 

 but for this morning there were no magpies, and, 

 finding it so, I started slowly back over the road 

 up which we had driven. 



The first four miles would be much the most 



interesting, and, the temperature being by this 



time perfect, I meant to make the most of them. 



A merry heart, an untraveled road, wide horizons, 



114 



