cattle
business in the Cuyamas. At present he and his men were riding the
great mountains, driving the cattle to the lowlands in anticipation of
a rodeo the following week. A rodeo under that sun!

We slept in the ranch vehicles, so the air could get under us. While
the stars still shone, we crawled out, tired and unrefreshed. The
Tenderfoot and I went down the valley after the horses. While we
looked, the dull pallid gray of dawn filtered into the darkness, and so
we saw our animals, out of proportion, monstrous in the half light of
that earliest morning. Before the range riders were even astir we had
taken up our journey, filching thus a few hours from the inimical sun.

Until ten o'clock we traveled in the valley of the Cuyamas. The river
was merely a broad sand and stone bed, although undoubtedly there was
water below the surface. California rivers are said to flow bottom up.
To the northward were mountains typical of the arid countries,--boldly
defined, clear in the edges of their folds, with sharp shadows and
hard, uncompromising surfaces. They looked brittle and hollow, as
though made of papier mache and set down in the landscape. A long four
hours' noon we spent beneath a live-oak near a tiny spring. I tried to
hunt, but had to give it up. After that I lay on my back and shot
doves as they came to drink at the spring. It was better than walking
about, and quite as effective as regards supper. A band of cattle
filed stolidly in, drank, and filed as stolidly away. Some half-wild
horses came to the edge of the hill, stamped, snorted, essayed a
tentative advance. Them we drove away, lest they decoy our own
animals. The flies would not let us sleep. Dozens of valley and
mountain quail called with maddening cheerfulness and energy. By a
mighty exercise of will we got under way again. In an hour we rode out
into what seemed to be a grassy foot-hill country, supplied with a most
refreshing breeze.

The little round hills of a few hundred feet rolled gently away to the
artificial horizon made by their closing in. The trail meandered white
and distinct through the clear fur-like brown of their grasses. Cattle
grazed. Here and there grew live-oaks, planted singly as in a park.
Beyond we could imagine the great plain, grading insensibly into these
little hills.

And then all at once we surmounted a slight elevation, and found that
we had been traveling on a plateau, and that these apparent little
hill