eemed, but that ever and again we came
upon small bands of cattle moving one way. These showed that we had a
mission and knew, after all, what we were about. These cattle were
knowingly bent toward the valley and home. They went with much of a
businesslike air, stopping only at intervals to snatch at the sparse
short grass that grows about the roots of the sagebrush. They had come a
long journey from their grazing places, starting when the range went bad
and water holes dried, and now seemed glad indeed to give up the wild
free life of a short summer and become tended creatures again, where
strangely thoughtful humans would lavish cut grass upon them for certain
obscure but doubtless benevolent purposes of their own.

It was our mission this day to have a look-see, mebbe as far as Horsefly
Mountain, and get a general idee of how many head was already coming down
to eat up the so-and-so shortest hay crop that had ever been stacked on
the Arrowhead since the dry winter of '98, when beef fell to two cents a
pound, with darned few takers at that.

It was really a day of scenic delight, if one hadn't to reflect sorely
upon the exigencies of the beef-cattle profession, and at least one of
us was free of this thrall.

What we reached at last were small mountains rather than big hills;
vast exclamatory remnants of shattered granite and limestone, thickly
timbered, reckless of line, sharp of peak. One minute canon we viewed
from above was quite preposterous in its ambitions, having colour and
depth and riot of line in due proportions and quite worthy of the grand
scale. It wasn't a Grand Canon, but at least it was a baby grand, and I
loitered on its brink until reminded sharply that I'd better pour leather
into that there skate if I wanted to make home that night.

I devoutly did wish to make home that night, for the spot we were on was
barren of those little conveniences I am accustomed to. Moreover, the air
was keen and a hunger, all day in the building, called for strong meats.
So I not too reluctantly passed on from this scenic miniature of parlour
dimensions--and from the study of a curious boulder thereby which had
intrigued me not a little.

Now we were home and relaxed by the Arrowhead fireside, after a moving
repast of baked young sage hens. The already superior dynamics of the
meal, moreover, had been appreciably heightened by a bottle of Uncle
Henry's homemade grape wine, which he warmly recommends for colds or
p