. "Ain't you got that
well to dig? And then can't you go for your kaig and bring it here,
and carry it back full of fresh water? Dinged if there ain't enough
doings in your world to furnish out a daily newspaper!" He began to
dig, adding in an altered tone: "And Brick, HE says--'Nothing ain't
come to the worst, as long as you're living,' says Brick!"

He was proud of the well when it was completed; the water was cold and
soft as it oozed up through clean sand, and the walls of mud-mortised
rocks promised permanency. One did not have to penetrate far into the
bottom-lands of that cove to find water which for unnumbered years had
rushed down the mountainside in time of rain-storms to lie, a vast
underground reservoir, for the coming of man. Willock could reach the
surface of the well by lying on his stomach and scooping with his long
arm. He duly carried out his program, and when the keg was filled with
fresh water, it was time for dinner.

After a cold luncheon of sliced boiled ham and baker's bread, he
returned to the cove, where he idled away the afternoon under the shade
of tall cedar trees whose branches came down to the ground, forming
impenetrable pyramids of green.

Stretched out on the short buffalo-grass he watched the white flecks
follow one another across the sky; he observed the shadows lengthening
from the base of the western arm of the horseshoe till they threatened
to swallow up him and his bright speck of world; he looked languidly
after the flights of birds, and grinned as he saw the hawks dart into
round holes in the granite wall not much larger than their
bodies--those mysterious holes perforating the precipice, seemingly
bored there by a giant auger.

"Go to bed, pards," he called to the hawks. "I reckon it's time for
me, too!" He got up--the sun had disappeared behind the mountain. He
stretched himself, lifting his arms high above his head and slowly
drawing his fists to his shoulder, his elbows luxuriously crooked.
"One thing I got," he observed, "is room, plenty! Well--" he started
toward the divide for his upward climb, "I've lived a reasonable long
life; I am forty-five; but I do think that since I laid down under that
tree, I have thought of everything I ever done or said since I was a
kid. Guess I'll save the future for another afternoon--and after that,
the Lord knows what I'm going to do with my brain, it's that busy."

The next day he began assorting the contents of his gran