ow about it?" the Captain asked me.

"Surely," I agreed, and added with some surprise out of my other
experience, "Isn't it a little late?"

But the Captain misunderstood me.

"I don't mean blind shooting," said he, "just ram around."

He seized a megaphone and bellowed through it at the stables.

"Better get on your war paint," he suggested to me.

I changed hastily into my shooting clothes, and returned to the
verandah. After some few moments the Captain joined me. After some few
moments more a tremendous rattling came from the stable. A fine bay team
swung into the driveway, rounded the circle, and halted. It drew the
source of the tremendous rattling.

Thus I became acquainted with the Liver Invigorator. The Invigorator was
a buckboard high, wide, and long. It had one wide seat. Aft of that seat
was a cage with bars, in which old Ben rode. Astern was a deep box
wherein one carried rubber boots, shells, decoys, lunch, game, and the
like. The Invigorator was very old, very noisy, and very able. With it
we drove cheerfully anywhere we pleased--over plowed land, irrigation
checks, through brush thick enough to lift our wheels right off the
ground, and down into and out of water ditches so steep that we
alternately stood the affair on its head and its tail, and so deep that
we had to hold all our belongings in our arms, while old Ben stuck his
nose out the top bars of his cage for a breath of air. It could not be
tipped over; at least we never upset it. To offset these virtues it
rattled like a runaway milk wagon; and it certainly hit the high spots
and hit them _hard_. Nevertheless, in a long and strenuous sporting
career the Invigorator became endeared through association to many
friends. When the Captain proposed a new vehicle with easier springs and
less noise, a wail of protest arose from many and distant places. The
Invigorator still fulfills its function.

Now there are three major topics on the Ranch: namely, ducks, quail, and
ponies. In addition to these are five of minor interest: the mail,
cattle, jackrabbits, coons, and wildcats.

I was already familiar with the valley quail, for I had hunted him since
I was a small boy with the first sixteen-gauge gun ever brought to the
coast. I knew him for a very speedy bird, much faster than our bob
white, dwelling in the rounded sagebrush hills, travelling in flocks of
from twenty to several thousand, exceedingly given to rapid leg work. We
had to climb hard a