166 THE LOG OF A TIMBER CRUISER 
Here was the coveted Diamond Bar range. Cat- 
tle, fat’ and sleek, cropped leisurely at the lush 
grama grass. Cows, with wide-eyed, awkward 
calves, long horned, inquisitive steers, lowering, 
self-sufficient, massive bulls. We ran through them 
every day, and whereas on the east side we had 
found the cattle small and lean, wild as deer and 
scarcer, here they seemed to mind our presence not 
at all. Mostly they merely raised their heads and 
glanced indifferently at us as we passed, or if in our 
line lumbered slowly off as we came up, to turn at 
a little distance and gaze with mild curiosity at the 
rare phenomenon of a man on foot. 
On these mesa runs, in scenes so strange to us, 
so different from the barren east side or the heavily 
timbered top of the range, a curious feeling of un- 
reality came over one at times. It was as if field 
and flower, the blue, brilliant sky, and the wild life 
about, were one and all mere creations of our sub- 
jectivity, with no distinct identity of their own,— 
mere strokes and shades in a masterpiece made 
solely for our peculiar pleasure. 
Out in the morning, then lunch, then home again, 
miles over the level, flower-studded mesa. That was 
our daily schedule. Only, perhaps, on our return 
run we would encounter, instead of cattle, a herd of 
white tail deer. Sometimes they heard our care- 
less approach and we caught merely a glimpse of 
flashing bodies ascending some distant slope with 
incredible leaps. Or we might come upon them un- 
