d sent to him from Mendocino County. It became part of the
wildness of the ranch, and, after being helped for a season, was left
to its own devices they used to gather the seeds of the California
poppy and scatter them over their own acres, so that the orange-colored
blossoms spangled the fields of mountain hay and prospered in flaming
drifts in the fence corners and along the edges of the clearings.

Dede, who had a fondness for cattails, established a fringe of them
along the meadow stream, where they were left to fight it out with the
water-cress. And when the latter was threatened with extinction,
Daylight developed one of the shaded springs into his water-cress
garden and declared war upon any invading cattail. On her wedding day
Dede had discovered a long dog-tooth violet by the zigzag trail above
the redwood spring, and here she continued to plant more and more. The
open hillside above the tiny meadow became a colony of Mariposa lilies.
This was due mainly to her efforts, while Daylight, who rode with a
short-handled ax on his saddle-bow, cleared the little manzanita wood
on the rocky hill of all its dead and dying and overcrowded weaklings.

They did not labor at these tasks. Nor were they tasks. Merely in
passing, they paused, from time to time, and lent a hand to nature.
These flowers and shrubs grew of themselves, and their presence was no
violation of the natural environment. The man and the woman made no
effort to introduce a flower or shrub that did not of its own right
belong. Nor did they protect them from their enemies. The horses and
the colts and the cows and the calves ran at pasture among them or over
them, and flower or shrub had to take its chance. But the beasts were
not noticeably destructive, for they were few in number and the ranch
was large.

On the other hand, Daylight could have taken in fully a dozen horses to
pasture, which would have earned him a dollar and a half per head per
month. But this he refused to do, because of the devastation such
close pasturing would produce.

Ferguson came over to celebrate the housewarming that followed the
achievement of the great stone fireplace. Daylight had ridden across
the valley more than once to confer with him about the undertaking, and
he was the only other present at the sacred function of lighting the
first fire. By removing a partition, Daylight had thrown two rooms
into one, and this was the big living-room where Dede's treas