246 BESIDE THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 



vagaries that no bird-gazer, however enthusias- 

 tic, and indifferent to wet feet and draggled gar- 

 ments, dared attempt to pass. There I was forced 

 to pause, while the bird flung out his notes as if 

 in defiance, wilder, louder, and more vehement 

 than ever. 



In that thicket, I said to myself, as I took my 

 wayliome, behind that tangle, if I can manage to 

 reach it, I shall find the home of the chat. The 

 situation was discouraging, but I was not to be 

 discouraged; to reach that stronghold I was 

 resolved, if I had to dam up the irrigator, build 

 a bridge, or fill up the quagmire. 



No such heroic treatment of the difficulty was 

 demanded ; my problem was very simply solved. 

 As I entered the gate the next morning, my 

 eyes fell upon an obscure footpath leading away 

 from the house and the watery way beyond it, 

 down through overhanging wild roses, and under 

 the great tangle in which the chat had hidden. 

 It looked mysterious, not to say forbidding, and, 

 from the low drooping of the foliage above, it 

 was plainly a horse path, not a human way. 

 But it was undoubtedly the key to the secrets 

 of the tangle, and I turned into it without hesi- 

 tation. Stooping under the branches hanging 

 low with their fragrant burden, and stopping 

 every moment to loosen the hold of some hin- 

 dering thorn, I followed in the footsteps of my 



