FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



he had frequently seen them up at the Divide, 

 two or three miles beyond the Sand Spring. 



"All right," said I. "I'll go on to the Divide. 

 No magpies, no pay." 



He laughed. " Oh, no," he said. " I don't guar- 

 antee anything ; but I 've seen them there." 



His luck had been better than his passenger's 

 was to prove. I got out of the wagon at the Di- 

 vide, stretched my legs and shook myself, and 

 then rolled under the close barbed-wire fence, 

 and went down into the " swale," which had been 

 pointed out as the most likely resort of the yel- 

 low-bills. 



Birds were flitting about in encouraging num- 

 bers : robins, bluebirds, flickers, slender-billed 

 nuthatches. Sierra juncos, and California jays, 

 with others, no doubt, not now remembered. And 

 while I looked at them, and listened with all my 

 ears for a magpie's voice, a pair of golden eagles 

 sailed over my head, and before long a red-tailed 

 hawk followed suit. It was indeed a birdy spot ; 

 but for this morning there were no magpies, and, 

 finding it so, I started slowly back over the road 

 up which we had driven. 



The first four miles would be much the most 



interesting, and, the temperature being by this 



time perfect, I meant to make the most of them. 



A merry heart, an untraveled road, wide horizons, 



114 



