. A - birding on a bronco . e other, I shouted encourage-ment to Canello, and, straining and struggling, hefinally wrenched himself out and stepped on terra■firma — I never appreciated the force of that ex-pression before ! The poor horse was tremblingand exhausted when I led him up to high ground OUR VALLEY. 10 to reniount, and neitlier of us had any desire toexplore boggy lands after that. On our morning round, Canello and I attendedstrictly to business,—he to grazing, I to observing;but on our afternoon rides I, at least, felt that wemight pay a little more heed to the beauties of thevalley
. A - birding on a bronco . e other, I shouted encourage-ment to Canello, and, straining and struggling, hefinally wrenched himself out and stepped on terra■firma — I never appreciated the force of that ex-pression before ! The poor horse was tremblingand exhausted when I led him up to high ground OUR VALLEY. 10 to reniount, and neitlier of us had any desire toexplore boggy lands after that. On our morning round, Canello and I attendedstrictly to business,—he to grazing, I to observing;but on our afternoon rides I, at least, felt that wemight pay a little more heed to the beauties of thevalley and the joys of horsebacking. Sometimeswe would be overtaken by the night fog. Onemoment the mustard would be all aglow with sun-shine ; at the next, a sullen bank of gray fogwould have risen over the mountain, obscuring thesun which had warmed us and lighted the mus-tard ; and in a few moments it would be so coldand damp that I would urge Canello into a lopeto warm our blood as we hurried home. II. THE LITTLE Ox my sec-ond visit to Cal-ifornia, I spentthe winter inthe Santa Claravalley, ridingamong the foot-hills of the San-ta Cruz Moun-tains, whereflocks of Oregonrobins were rest-ing from thelabors of thesummer and passing the time until they couldfly home again : l)ut when the first spring wildflowers bloomed on the hills I shipped my littleroan mustang by steamer from San Francisco toSan Diego, and hurried south to meet him andspend the nesting season in the little valley ofthe Coast Mountains which, five years before, hadproved such an ideal place to study birds. The Little Lover.(Western House AVren.) THE LITTLE LOVER. 21 I went down early in ^Slareli, to be sure to be intime for the nesting- season ; but spring- was so latethat by the last of April hardly a nest had beenbuilt, and it seemed as if the birds were nevercoining- back. The weather was gloomy and theprospect for the springs work looked discouraging,when one morning- I rode over to the line of oa
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Keywords: ., bookauthorbaileyfl, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookyear1896
