82 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



' Not quite so bad as that, let's hope ; but 

 there'll be no end of unnecessary loss, of 

 course, and times are bad enough already. 

 However, you won't get a stroke of work 

 done until election's over, so it's no use to 

 worry.' 



I was sitting in my buggy in the main 

 street of the town that same street at night 

 the scene of one huge 'drunk.' Even in 

 this brilliant hour of morning boozy groups, 

 principally Mexican, rolled from one saloon 

 door to another. Every natural prospect 

 pleased, save man and his present works, and 

 they were indeed vile. I drove off rapidly, 

 wrath and disgust in my heart. But what 

 was the use ? Where comes in the utility of 

 hurling one's self against a stone wall ? My 

 object in starting out that morning had been 

 the hope of inducing some merchant, the con- 

 tinuance of whose own prosperity depended 

 in some measure on the prosperity of the 

 farming population, to furnish half the labour 

 for the repairing of the miserable little dam 

 only twenty men, all told, for one day I 

 furnishing the other half. Needless to say, 

 my drive was just so much time thrown 



