ir black clothes; the older women in prints
and dotted calicoes. Many of these latter had already taken off their
bonnets--the day was very hot--and pinning them in newspapers, stowed
them under the seats. They tucked their handkerchiefs into the collars
of their dresses, or knotted them about their fat necks, to keep out
the dust. From the axle trees of the vehicles swung carefully covered
buckets of galvanised iron, in which the lunch was packed. The
younger children, the boys with great frilled collars, the girls with
ill-fitting shoes cramping their feet, leaned from the sides of buggy
and carry-all, eating bananas and "macaroons," staring about with
ox-like stolidity. Tied to the axles, the dogs followed the horses'
hoofs with lolling tongues coated with dust.

The California summer lay blanket-wise and smothering over all the
land. The hills, bone-dry, were browned and parched. The grasses and
wild-oats, sear and yellow, snapped like glass filaments under foot. The
roads, the bordering fences, even the lower leaves and branches of the
trees, were thick and grey with dust. All colour had been burned from
the landscape, except in the irrigated patches, that in the waste of
brown and dull yellow glowed like oases.

The wheat, now close to its maturity, had turned from pale yellow to
golden yellow, and from that to brown. Like a gigantic carpet, it spread
itself over all the land. There was nothing else to be seen but the
limitless sea of wheat as far as the eye could reach, dry, rustling,
crisp and harsh in the rare breaths of hot wind out of the southeast.
As Harran and Presley went along the county road, the number of vehicles
and riders increased. They overtook and passed Hooven and his family
in the former's farm wagon, a saddled horse tied to the back board. The
little Dutchman, wearing the old frock coat of Magnus Derrick, and a
new broad-brimmed straw hat, sat on the front seat with Mrs. Hooven. The
little girl Hilda, and the older daughter Minna, were behind them on a
board laid across the sides of the wagon. Presley and Harran stopped to
shake hands. "Say," cried Hooven, exhibiting an old, but extremely well
kept, rifle, "say, bei Gott, me, I tek some schatz at dose rebbit, you
bedt. Ven he hef shtop to run und sit oop soh, bei der hind laigs on, I
oop mit der guhn und--bing! I cetch um."

"The marshals won't allow you to shoot, Bismarck," observed Presley,
looking at Minna.

Hooven doubled up with merri