e Sierra
foothills, and served as the stock range for Los Muertos. The hills were
huge rolling hummocks of bare ground, covered only by wild oats. At
long intervals, were isolated live oaks. In the canyons and arroyos, the
chaparral and manzanita grew in dark olive-green thickets. The ground
was honey-combed with gopher-holes, and the gophers themselves were
everywhere. Occasionally a jack rabbit bounded across the open, from one
growth of chaparral to another, taking long leaps, his ears erect. High
overhead, a hawk or two swung at anchor, and once, with a startling rush
of wings, a covey of quail flushed from the brush at the side of the
trail.

On the hillsides, in thinly scattered groups were the cattle, grazing
deliberately, working slowly toward the water-holes for their evening
drink, the horses keeping to themselves, the colts nuzzling at their
mothers' bellies, whisking their tails, stamping their unshod feet. But
once in a remoter field, solitary, magnificent, enormous, the short hair
curling tight upon his forehead, his small red eyes twinkling, his vast
neck heavy with muscles, Presley came upon the monarch, the king,
the great Durham bull, maintaining his lonely state, unapproachable,
austere.

Presley found the one-time shepherd by a water-hole, in a far distant
corner of the range. He had made his simple camp for the night. His
blue-grey army blanket lay spread under a live oak, his horse grazed
near at hand. He himself sat on his heels before a little fire of
dead manzanita roots, cooking his coffee and bacon. Never had Presley
conceived so keen an impression of loneliness as his crouching figure
presented. The bald, bare landscape widened about him to infinity.
Vanamee was a spot in it all, a tiny dot, a single atom of human
organisation, floating endlessly on the ocean of an illimitable nature.

The two friends ate together, and Vanamee, having snared a brace of
quails, dressed and then roasted them on a sharpened stick. After
eating, they drank great refreshing draughts from the water-hole. Then,
at length, Presley having lit his cigarette, and Vanamee his pipe, the
former said:

"Vanamee, I have been writing again."

Vanamee turned his lean ascetic face toward him, his black eyes fixed
attentively.

"I know," he said, "your journal."

"No, this is a poem. You remember, I told you about it once. 'The
Toilers,' I called it."

"Oh, verse! Well, I am glad you have gone back to it. It is your n