FROM BEND TO BURNS 57 



If something else would happen to the car — 

 something serious — all four axles at once ! But 

 it was not to be. We were destined to sleep in 

 Burns — a restless sleep, however. I would much 

 rather take my chances next time with the occa- 

 sional scorpion in the sage. We were due in 

 Burns that night. We were to speak to the Rod 

 and Gun Club. We were to tell them that the 

 carload of young fish would be on the road by 

 midnight, that we had seen the truck at Bend ; 

 that they could expect the fish surely by evening 

 of the next day. 



On we sped into the sage, on into the length- 

 ening afternoon ; the scattered juniper trees, 

 strangely like orchard trees at a distance, becom- 

 ing more numerous, the level stretches more va- 

 ried and broken, with here and there a cone-like 

 peak appearing — Glass Buttes to the south. Buck 

 Mountain to the north, with Wagon Tire and Iron 

 Mountains farther off. Early in the forenoon we 

 had passed several homesteaders' claims, spots 

 of desolation in the desert, and now, as the after- 

 noon wore on, the lonely settler's shack and wire 

 fence began to appear again. 



I have seen many sorts of desperation, but none 



