and my own wit: La Crevasse, Moultrie,
Bighorn, Angostura. Also, I go by other meadows where other shepherds
feed one month with another; but these _these_ are all _mine_. I go
about and come again when the feed is grown.

M'siu, it is hard to believe, but it is so--Filon finds my meadows one
by one. One year I come by La Crevasse--there is nothing there; I go on
to Moultrie--here is the grass eaten to the roots, and the little pines
have no tops; at Bighorn is the fresh litter of a flock. I think maybe
my sheep go hungry that summer. So I come to Angostura. There is Filon.
He laugh. Then it come into my mind that one day I goin' kill that Filon
Geraud. By the help of God. Yes. For he is big that Filon, he is strong;
and me, M'siu, I am as God made me.

So always, where I go on the range there is Filon; if I think to change
my trail, he change also his. If I have good luck, Filon has better. If
to him is the misfortune--ah--you shall hear.

One year Gabriel Lausanne tell me that Filon is lose all his lambs in
the Santa Ana. You know that Santa Ana, M'siu? It is one mighty wind. It
comes up small, very far away, one little dust like the clouds, creep,
creep close by the land. It lies down along the sand; you think it is
done? Eh, it is one liar, that Santa Ana. It rise up again, it is pale
gold, it seek the sky. That sky is all wide, clean, no speck. Ah, it
knows, that sky; it will have nothing lying about when the Santa Ana
comes. It is hot then, you have the smell of the earth in your nostrils.
_That_, M'siu, is the Santa Ana. It is pale dust and the great push of
the wind. The sand bites, there is no seeing the flock's length. They
huddle, and the lambs are smothered; they scatter, and the dogs can
nothing make. If it blow one day, you thank God; if it blow two days,
then is sheepman goin' to lose his sheep. When Gabriel tell me that
about Filon, I think he deserve all that. What you think, M'siu? That
same night the water of Tinpah rise in his banks afar off by the hills
where there is rain. It comes roaring down the wash where I make my
camp, for you understand at that time of year there should be no water
in the wash of Tinpah, but it come in the night and carry away one-half
of my sheep. Eh, how you make that, M'siu; is it the devil or no?

Well, it go like this eight, ten year; then it come last summer, and I
meet Filon at the ford of Crevecoeur. That is the water that comes down
eastward from Mineral Mountain