HEEP

In the great Central Valley of California there are only two
seasons--spring and summer. The spring begins with the first rainstorm,
which usually falls in November. In a few months the wonderful flowery
vegetation is in full bloom, and by the end of May it is dead and dry
and crisp, as if every plant had been roasted in an oven.

Then the lolling, panting flocks and herds are driven to the high, cool,
green pastures of the Sierra. I was longing for the mountains about this
time, but money was scarce and I couldn't see how a bread supply was to
be kept up. While I was anxiously brooding on the bread problem, so
troublesome to wanderers, and trying to believe that I might learn to
live like the wild animals, gleaning nourishment here and there from
seeds, berries, etc., sauntering and climbing in joyful independence of
money or baggage, Mr. Delaney, a sheep-owner, for whom I had worked a
few weeks, called on me, and offered to engage me to go with his
shepherd and flock to the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne
rivers--the very region I had most in mind. I was in the mood to accept
work of any kind that would take me into the mountains whose treasures I
had tasted last summer in the Yosemite region. The flock, he explained,
would be moved gradually higher through the successive forest belts as
the snow melted, stopping for a few weeks at the best places we came to.
These I thought would be good centers of observation from which I might
be able to make many telling excursions within a radius of eight or ten
miles of the camps to learn something of the plants, animals, and rocks;
for he assured me that I should be left perfectly free to follow my
studies. I judged, however, that I was in no way the right man for the
place, and freely explained my shortcomings, confessing that I was
wholly unacquainted with the topography of the upper mountains, the
streams that would have to be crossed, and the wild sheep-eating
animals, etc.; in short that, what with bears, coyotes, rivers, canyons,
and thorny, bewildering chaparral, I feared that half or more of his
flock would be lost. Fortunately these shortcomings seemed
insignificant to Mr. Delaney. The main thing, he said, was to have a man
about the camp whom he could trust to see that the shepherd did his
duty, and he assured me that the difficulties that seemed so formidable
at a distance would vanish as we went on; encouraging me further by
saying that the shepherd w