The mountains . molasses and devouredthree platefuls. It would have killed an ostrich, butapparently did this decrepit veteran of seventy-twomuch good. After supper he talked to us most interestingly inthe dry cowboy manner, looking at us keenly fromunder the floppy brim of his hat. He confided to usthat he had had to quit smoking, and it ground him— he d smoked since he was five years old. Tobacco does nt agree with you any more ? Ihazarded. Oh, t aint that, he replied; only I d rutherchew. The dark fell, and all the little camp-fires under thetrees twinkled bravely forth. Some of the men san
The mountains . molasses and devouredthree platefuls. It would have killed an ostrich, butapparently did this decrepit veteran of seventy-twomuch good. After supper he talked to us most interestingly inthe dry cowboy manner, looking at us keenly fromunder the floppy brim of his hat. He confided to usthat he had had to quit smoking, and it ground him— he d smoked since he was five years old. Tobacco does nt agree with you any more ? Ihazarded. Oh, t aint that, he replied; only I d rutherchew. The dark fell, and all the little camp-fires under thetrees twinkled bravely forth. Some of the men had an accordion. Figures, indistinct and form-less, wandered here and there in the shadows, sud-denly emerging from mystery into the clarity offirelight, there to disclose themselves as visitors. Outon the plain the cattle lowed, the horses red firelight flashed from the metal of suspendedequipment, crimsoned the bronze of mens faces,touched with pink the high lights on their gracefully 250. Figures suddenly emerging from mystery into the clarity of firelight ON COWBOYS recumbent forms. After a while we rolled up in ourblankets and went to sleep, while a band of coyoteswailed like lost spirits from a spot where a steer haddied. 251 THE GOLDEN TROUT XX THE GOLDEN TROUT AFTER Farewell Gap, as has been hinted, thecountry changes utterly. Possibly that is whyit is named Farewell Gap. The land is wild, weird,full of twisted trees, strangely colored rocks, fantasticformations, bleak mountains of slabs, volcanic cones,lava, dry powdery soil or loose shale, close-grow-ing grasses, and strong winds. You feel yourself inan upper world beyond the normal, where only thefreakish cold things of nature, elsewhere crowdedout, find a home. Camp is under a lonely tree, nonethe less solitary from the fact that it has earth beneath is characteristic of the treelesslands, so that these seem to have been stuck alien intoit. There is no shelter save behind great f
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