284 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WAYS 
CHAP. 
to construct the Peters’s hut. Our difficulties 
had vanished, and by an easy path we descended 
to the valley, waded through the river, and 
shortly were welcomed by our kind young friends, 
Mr. and Mrs. Peters, in the rough log-house that 
we had seen from so great a distance. 
The ranche life must have been delightful to 
young people who were only recently married, 
and were newly launched upon the voyage of 
their future life. It was complete independence. 
The log-house was confined to the ground-floor. 
There was a good-sized room, or hall, which 
formed the entrance; on the right and left 
were two rooms that formed either bedrooms and 
dressing-rooms, or single rooms, as occasion 
might require. A kitchen and a small pantry 
were at the back of the entrance hall; and I am 
not sure where a Dane and his wife (the servants) 
existed, together with their very fat and exceedingly 
red child of two years old. 
Late in the afternoon our people and camp 
arrived, but we felt a palatial luxury in our 
hospitable quarters, after the cold and cramped 
accommodation of the pigmy tent. Curiously 
enough, our people had not only passed over 
the barren portion of the mountain, where we 
had see the vicious rattlesnake, but they had 
also met it in the same spot and killed it. 
The locality was well chosen for a settlement 
by Mr. Peters, and I trust he has succeeded as 
a rancher. The grass was good, and there was 
