RANCH LIFE. 241 



narration will fall on the average reader. I know, too, there 

 are many travelers' tales so full of adventure that they pall the 

 senses, being too much of a good thing ; either because the liter- 

 ary stomach becomes clogged with them, or because the literary 

 throat is too small to swallow^ them, which somew^hat reconciles 

 me. I know my hum-drum life in California made a dull 

 sequel to my journey over the plains. I had thought to get 

 some congenial employment in San Francisco, or, failing that, 

 to try the excitement of the gold mines. I missed the first, 

 when necessity turned me from the line of travel to Sacra- 

 mento, which was a good thing I know. So fate, luck or cir- 

 cumstances ordered it that I should pass my days in the land 

 of orold on a lone ranch, where the sun rose and set on a scene 

 as quiet as the sea ; where I saw every day the same fields 

 rolling away from me in green waves, till they broke in foot- 

 hills at the base of a distant mountain on one side, or rose in 

 gentle slopes to the horizon on the other; where the same farm 

 labors lapped on one another in monotonous succession until, 

 pecuniarily able, I broke from them. 



Antonio had gone; Dick had gone, and now " Scottie," my 

 only comrade and the last of my companions of the plains, 

 was to leave also. He and the Patron had a quarrel which 

 severed the bands which had held them together so long. We 

 had been in the same mess for four and a half months cross- 

 ing the plains, and had seen rough times there and on the 

 road to California. We had been on the tramp two weeks, 

 wherein he had shared his last dollar with me. But such is 

 the callousness acquired by leading such a life as ours that we 

 parted without even a hand-shake. I said " Good-bye, Scottie !" 

 and he " Good-bye, Steve !" That was all, unless his falling 

 back to my old name of '' Steve " was a concession which in- 

 dicated a softening of the heart at thoughts of our late vaga- 

 bond life. With blankets slung over his shoulder he turned 

 his back on the ranch and started towards Sonoma. He w^as 



