acter, and one well
adapted to act as his own man. His views of me were confirmed when I
brought him half a bucket of pears from the big orchard. With a parting
slap and a sigh of regret which spoke well both for him and the bull,
Jack went away to "fix" himself for travel. I was left in charge.

How hard I worked on that Sonoma County ranch I can hardly say. I had
horses in the stable and horses outside. The cattle outside were mine.
Three hundred sheep I was responsible for. Some young motherless foals I
nursed. I milked six cows. I chopped wood. I cleaned buggies. I drove
wagons and carriages and cleaned and greased them. Sometimes I stood in
the middle of the great barn-lot or barnyard and tore my hair in
desperation. I had so much to attend to that only the strictest method
enabled me to get through it. And, as Jack had told me would happen, my
method was knocked endways by the requirements of the lady who was my
"boss." What a woman wants done is always the most important thing on
earth. She used to ask me to do up her acre of a garden in between times
when the sheep wanted water or twenty horses required hay. She was
amiable, kindly, but she never understood. At such times who could blame
me if I went to the bull's stable when I saw her coming. Though the bull
was the sweetest character on the ranch, she went in mortal terror of
him. She would try to find me in the horse stable, but she would not
come near El Toro for her very life. It was better to sit quietly with
him and recover my equanimity while she called. I knew her well enough
to know that in a quarter of an hour something else of the vastest
importance would engage her attention and I should be free to attend
more coolly to my own work.

Yet sometimes she stuck to my track so closely that there was nothing
for me to do but to turn El Toro loose. Then I could say, "Very well,
madam, but in the meantime I must go after the bull." She knew what the
bull being loose meant; he carried devastation wherever he went. He was
the greatest fighter in the whole county. I had to get my whip and my
fastest horse to try and catch him. I can hardly be blamed if I did not
catch him till the evening. For in that way I got a wild kind of holiday
on horseback and was saved from insanity. Certainly, when El Toro got
away on the loose and was looking for other bulls to have a row with I
could think of nothing else. Sometimes he got free by the rope rotting
close up to his r