AN UNSUCCESSFUL HUNT 



and dose at hand pretty things more than any 

 one pair of eyes could take account of, — all this, 

 with " health and a day," and magpies or no mag- 

 pies, pigeons or no pigeons, a man might esteem 

 himself pretty well off. 



Here, now, falling away from my feet, was a 

 broad steep hillside profusely set with wild cur- 

 rant bushes (incense shrubs), six feet or more in 

 height, freshly green, and loaded with racemes 

 of fragrant pink blossoms. Among the most at- 

 tractive shrubs I had ever seen, whether in field 

 or garden, they seemed to me. And with them 

 were many " Christmas-berry " bushes, — Cali- 

 fornia holly, — splendid in yellow-green leaf and 

 scarlet fruit, and just now haunted by flocks of 

 robins. All along the roadside, too, stood the curi- 

 ous "tree poppy," — my second sight of it, — 

 rather stiff and homely as a bush (of about my 

 own height), but bearing at the top a sparse crop 

 of sun-bright yellow poppies. 



What a little way it turned out to be down to 

 the Sand Spring watering-trough! I was there 

 before I knew it. It would be too bad if the re- 

 maining six or seven miles should be of similar 

 brevity. 



In the neighborhood of the trough I still en- 

 tertained a faint hope of coming upon the big 

 blue pigeon. A canon full of live-oaks and vari- 



