66 Life in the Open 



are seen, the vineyards staggering under their burdens 

 of grape, the orange groves, filled with half-grown fruit, 

 have taken on a deeper tint, and the blaze of poppies of 

 the highlands has been swept away. The chorizanthe, 

 with its tender lavender hues, and numbers of summer 

 flowers appear in wash and meadow. The sides of the 

 little cafions pale in the blooming of wild buckwheat, 

 and the bloom of the white sage welcomes the bees and 

 countless insects along the range. On the sides of the 

 arroyos the deep orange trumpet of the mimulus makes 

 a flash of colour, and here and there a green sumach 

 is overgrown by the deep red panicles of the wild 

 honeysuckle. 



In the cafions clumps of wild roses have taken on a 

 new and tender green, and the single petalled flowers 

 that in spring filled the air with sweetness have gone. 

 Climbing up to and over the cottonwoods, willows, and 

 sycamores the wild grape has formed a dense maze that 

 reaches from tree to tree, the highway of the wood-rat, 

 whose ponderous nest of leaves and brush encompasses 

 the trunks of live oaks on the ground. 



The summer wind has died down, the days are warm, 

 the nights cool. Smoke rises high in air, vagrant dust 

 spouts hang undecided in the valleys, and menacing, 

 white domelike clouds rise thousands of feet above the 

 wall of the Sierras, telling of the desert. The face 

 of the land changes as the days drag along ; the hills 

 become grayer, the fiery yellow of the dodder melts into 

 brown, and the spiked seed-pods of chilocothe hang on 



