But of all the islands and of all parts of them, the Peak, shining over clouds and visible from far seas, is the king and chief. I left its fiery summit with a certain reluctance. It attracted me strangely. It represented, feebly enough, I daresay, the greatest of all elemental forces. Yet its faint fires and its smoke and sulphur fumes had all the power of a mighty symbol. By such means, by such a formula, had the very world itself been made. Though snow lay upon its slopes and ice bound ancient blocks of lava together, it might at any hour awake again and renew the terrors which once must have floated over the seas in a gust of flame.



SHEEP AND SHEEP-HERDING

With the introduction of fences, which are now coming in with tremendous rapidity, sheep-herding as an art is inevitably doomed. When I knew north-west Texas a few years ago there was not a fence between the Rio Grande and the north of the Panhandle, but now barbed or plain wire is the rule, and in the pastures it is, of course, not so necessary to look after the sheep by day and night. In Australia I have not seen those under my charge for a week or more at a time. While there was water in the paddock I never even troubled to hunt them up in the hundred square miles of grey-green plain with its rare clumps of dwarf box. If dingoes were reported to be about I kept my eyes open, of course, but they were very rare in the Lachlan back blocks, and I was never able to earn the five shillings reward for the tail of this yellow marauder. But in Texas there are more wild animals—the coyote, the bear, the "panther" or puma—and it is impossible to leave the sheep entirely to their own devices, even in pastures which prevent them wandering. Nevertheless, looking after them on fenced land is very different from being with them daily and hourly, sleeping with them at night, following and directing them by day, being all the time wary lest some should be divided from the main flock by accident, or lest the whole body should spy another sheep-owner's band and rush tumultuously into it.

But the new and unaccustomed shepherd on the prairie is apt to give himself much unnecessary trouble. It takes some time to learn that a flock of sheep is like a loosely-knit organism which will not separate or divide if it can help it. It might be compared with a low kind of jelly-fish, or even to a sea-anemone, for under favourable conditions of sun and sky it spreads out to feed, leaving between each of its members what is practically a constant distance. For when the weather changes they come closer together, and any alarm puts them into a compact mass. I have heard a gun fired unexpectedly, and then seen some 2000 sheep, spreading loosely over an irregular circle, about half a mile in diameter, rush for a common centre with an infallible instinct. And then they gradually spread out again like that same sea-anemone putting forth its filaments after being touched.

The new shepherd, however, is in constant dread lest they should separate and divide so greatly that he will lose control of them. I have walked many useless miles endeavouring to keep a flock within unnatural limits before I discovered that they never went more than a certain distance from the centre. And this distance varied strictly with the numbers. At night time they begin to draw together, and if they are not put in a corral or fold will at last lie down in a fairly compact mass, remaining quiet, if undisturbed, until the approach of dawn. But if they have had a bad day for feeding they sometimes get up when the moon rises and begin to graze. Then the shepherd may wake up, and, finding he is alone, have to hunt for them. As they usually feed with their heads up wind it is not as a rule hard to discover them. If the moon is covered by a cloudy sky they will often camp down again.

The hardest days for the shepherd are cold ones, when it blows strongly. For then the sheep travel at a great pace, and will not go quietly until the sun comes out of the grey sky of the chilly norther, which perhaps moderates towards noon. But in such weather they do not care to camp at noonday, and instead of spreading they will travel onward and onward. They doubtless feel uncomfortable and restless. After such a day they are uneasy at night, especially when there is a moon.

It is my opinion, after experience of both conditions, that unherded sheep do much better than those which are closely looked after. In Australia our percentage of lambs was sometimes 104, and any squatter would think something wrong if his sheep on the plain yielded less than 90 per cent. increase. But in Texas, where the mothers are watched and helped, the increase is seldom indeed 75 in the 100, much oftener it is 60. I used to wonder whether the losses by wild animals would have equalled the loss of 25 per cent. increase which is, I believe, entirely due to the care taken of them. For herding is essentially a worrying process, even when practised by a man who understands sheep well. The mothers are never left alone, and must be driven to a corral at night. Consequently they often get separated from their lambs before they come to know them, and one of the most pitiful things seen by a shepherd is the poor distracted ewe refusing to recognise her own offspring even when it is shown to her. We used in such cases to put them together in a little pen during the night, hoping that she would "own" it by the morning. But very often she would not, and then the lamb usually died. If, indeed, it was one of a more sturdy constitution than most, it would refuse to die and became a kind of Ishmael in the flock. The milk which was necessary it took, or tried to take, from the ewe, who, for just a moment, might not know a stranger was trying to share the right of her own lamb. Such an orphan rarely grows up, and most of them die quickly, as they are knocked about and cruelly used by those who take no interest in the disinherited outcast of that selfish ovine society. And yet its real mother is in the flock, reconciled to her loss after a few days of suffering.

In spite of my present very decided disinclination to have anything to do with sheep, they are, like every other animal, very interesting when closely studied. I spent some years in their society in New South Wales and know a little about them. Shortly before I left Ennis Creek ranch in North-west Texas a very curious incident occurred, which I could never quite satisfactorily explain, for I believe the most serious fright I have ever had in all my life was caused by these same inoffensive, innocent quadrupeds. It was not inflicted on me by a ram, which is occasionally bellicose, but by ewes with their lambs, and I distinctly remember being as surprised as if the sky had fallen or something utterly opposed to all causation had confronted me. I want to meet a man, even of approved courage, who would not be shocked into fair fright by having half-a-dozen ewes suddenly turn and charge him with the fury of a bullock's mad onset. Would he not gasp, be stricken dumb, and look wide-eyed at the customary nature about him, just as if they had broken into awful speech? I imagine he would, for I know that it shook my nerves for an hour afterwards, even though I had by that time recovered sufficient courage to experiment on them in order to see if the same result would again follow. I had about 500 ewes and lambs under my care. The day was warm, though the wind was blowing strongly, and when noon approached the flock travelled but slowly towards the place where I wished them to make their mid-day camp. To urge them on I took a large bandana handkerchief and flicked the nearest to me with it as I walked behind. As I did so the wind blew it strongly, and it suddenly occurred to me to make a sort of a flag of it in order to see if it would frighten them. I took hold of two corners and held it over my head, so that it might blow out to its full extent. Now, whether it was due to the glaring colour, or the strange attitude, or to the snapping of the outer edge of the handkerchief in the wind—and I think it was the last—I cannot say, but the hindmost ewes suddenly stopped, turned round, eyed me wildly, and then half-a-dozen made a desperate charge, struck me on the legs, threw me over, and fled precipitately as I fell. It was a reversal of experience too unexpected! I lay awhile and looked at things, expecting to see the sun blue at the least, and then I gathered myself together slowly. In all seriousness I was never so taken aback in all my life, and I was almost prepared for a ewe's biting me. I remembered the Australian story of the rich squatter catching a man killing one of his sheep. "What are you doing that for?" he inquired as a preliminary to requesting his company home until the police could be sent for. The questioned one looked up and answered coolly, though not, I imagine, without a twinkle in his eye, "Kill it! Why am I killing it? Look here, my friend, I'll kill any man's sheep as bites me." For my part, I don't think biting would have alarmed me more. After that I made experiments on the ewes, and always found that the flying bandana simply frightened them into utter desperation when nothing else would. It was a long time before they got used to it. I should like to know if any other sheep-herders ever had the same experience at home or abroad.

In another book I spoke of lambs when they were very young taking my horse for their mother. This was in California; but in Texas I have often seen them run after a bullock or steer. One day on the prairie a lamb had been born during camping-time, and when it was about two hours old a small band of cattle came down to drink at the spring. Among these was a very big steer, with horns nearly a yard long, who came close to the mother, just then engaged in cleaning her offspring. She ran off, bleating for her lamb to follow. The little chap, however, came to the conclusion that the steer was calling it, and went tottering up to the huge animal, that towered above him like the side of a canyon, apparently much to the latter's embarrassment. The steer eyed it carefully, and lifted his legs out of the way as the lamb ran against them, even backing a little, as if as surprised as I had been when the ewes assaulted me. Then all of a sudden he shook his head as if laughing, put one horn under the lamb, threw it about six feet over his back, and calmly walked on. I took it for granted that the unwary lamb was dead, but on going up I found it only stunned, and, being as yet all gristle, it soon recovered sufficiently to acknowledge its real mother, who had witnessed its sudden elevation, stamping with fear and anxiety.

Sheep-herding is supposed, by those who have never followed it, to be an easy, idle, lazy way of procuring a livelihood; but no man who knows as much of their ways as I do will think that. It is true that there are times when there is little or nothing to be done—when a man can sit under a tree quietly and think of all the world save his own particular charge; but for the most part, if he have a conscience, he will feel a burden of responsibility upon him which of itself, independently of the work he may have to do, will earn him his little monthly wage of twenty dollars and the rough ranch food of "hog and hominy." For there is no ceasing of labour for the Texas herder of the plains; Sunday and week-day alike the dawning sun should see him with his flock, and even at night he is still with them as they are "bedded out" in the open. Even if he can "corral" them in a rough sort of yard, some slinking coyote may come by and scare them into breaking bounds; and when they are not corralled the bright moon may entice them to feed quietly against the wind, until at last the herder wakes to find his charge has vanished and must be anxiously sought for. In Australia, as I have said, the sheep are left to their own devices for the greater part of the year, unless there should be unusual scarcity of water; but even there, to have charge of so many thousand animals, and so many miles of fencing, makes it no enviable task, while the labour, when it does come, is hard and unremitting. In New South Wales I have often been eighteen and twenty hours in the saddle, and have reached home at last so wearied out that I could scarcely dismount. One day I used up three horses and covered over ninety miles, more than fifty of it at a hard canter or gallop—and if that be not work I should like to know what is. This, too, goes on day after day during shearing, just when the days are growing hot and hotter still, the spare herbage browning, and the water becoming scanty and scantier. And for a recompense? There is none in working with sheep. They are quiet, peaceable, stupid, illogical, incapable of exciting affection, very capable of rousing wrath; far different from the terrible excitement of a bellowing herd of long-horned cattle as they break away in a stampede, among whom is danger and sudden death and the glory of motion and conquest; or with horses thundering over the plain in hundreds, like a riderless squadron shaking the ground with waving manes, long flowing tails, and flashing eyeballs, whom one can love and delight in, and shout to with a strange, vivid joy that sends the blood tingling to the heart and brain. Were I to go back to such a life I would choose the danger, and be discontented to maunder on behind the slow and harmless wool-bearers, cursing a little every now and again at their foolishness, and then plodding on once more, bunched up in an inert mass on a slow-going horse, who wearily stretches his neck almost to the ground as he dreams, perhaps, of the long, exhilarating gallops after his own kind that we once had together, being conscious, I daresay, of the contemptuous pity I feel for the slow foredoomed muttons that crawl before us on the long and weary plain.

It is highly probable that the introduction of fences will have its effect in other ways than in increasing the number of lambs born and reared. Sheep-herding will almost disappear when the wild beasts of Texas are extinct, as they soon will be, for a fenced country is very unfit for such animals. But then the natural glory of the wide open prairie will be gone, and civilisation will gradually destroy all that was so delightful, even when my sheep, by worrying me, taught me what I have here set down.



RAILROAD WARS

Everybody nowadays has some notion of the way the railroad business of America is carried on. They know that there are too many roads for the traffic, and that, to prevent a general ruin, the managers combine, pay the profits into the hands of a receiver, and receive again from him a certain agreed proportion of the whole sum. But this method of "pooling" the profits is sometimes unsatisfactory. One line will think it gets too little if the fluctuations of trade send more freight over its rails than it formerly had, and will demand a greater proportion of the gross profits. This demand may be granted, but if not, the agreement may break down, and the discontented railroad go to work on the old principle of every man for himself. This very likely inaugurates a war of tariffs; fares and freights go down slowly or quickly according as the quarrel is open or secret, until one or other of the parties gives in to avoid complete ruin.

While I was living in San Francisco, early in 1886, there was an open war between all the lines west of Chicago and Kansas City, including the Union Pacific, the Northern Pacific, the Denver and Rio Grande, the Southern Pacific, and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. Fares to New York and the Atlantic seaboard came tumbling down by $10 at a fall. The usual rate from New York to San Francisco is $72. It fell to 60, to 50, 40, 30, to 25, to 22. All the railroad offices had great placards outside inviting everyone to go East at once, for they would never get such a chance again. Some of the notices were very odd. One began with "Blood, blood, blood!" and another had a hand holding a bowie knife, with the legend "Here we cut deep!" And, as I have said, they did cut deep, for at the end one might go to New York for about $18. Now this $18 went in a lump to the railroad east of Chicago. Consequently the passengers were carried over 2000 miles for nothing. Frequently during two days men were booked to Chicago or Kansas City from San Francisco or Los Angeles for $1. Two thousand miles for 4s. 2d!

Such a state of things could not last, but while it did it gave rise to much speculation. Many men bought up tickets, good for some time, believing the bottom prices had been reached when the fall had by no means ended. It was odd to stand outside an office and listen to the crowd. Some would hold on and say, "I'll chance it till to-morrow." Then I have seen an agent come outside and say, "Gentlemen, now's your time to go east and visit your families. Don't delay. Of course fares may fall further, but I think not. Don't be too greedy. You are not likely to get the chance again of going home for twenty-five dollars." They did fall further, but recovered again on the rumour of negotiations beginning between the competing lines. When that was contradicted they fell again. Suddenly, without any warning, they jumped up to normal rates, and left many of the outside public—the bears, so to speak—lamenting that they had not taken the opportunity so eloquently pointed out by the oratorical agents on the sidewalk by the offices. For the placards and pictures came down at once, and to an inquirer who asked, "What can you do New York at?" the answer was, "Why, sir, the usual rate—$72."

To an Englishman who has not travelled in the States and become familiar with the methods employed there by business men, it seems odd that anyone should chaffer with the clerk at a ticket-office. What would an English booking-clerk say if he were asked about the fare to some place, and, on replying L1, received the rejoinder, "I'll give you 15s?" He would think the man a joker of a very feeble description. Yet this may often be done in Western America. Even when there is no "war" the agents have a certain margin to veer and haul on in their commission, and will often knock off a little sooner than allow a rival line to get the passenger. Besides, it frequently happens that there may be a secret cutting of rates without an open war. My own experience, when I came down from Sonoma County in the autumn of 1886, meaning to return to England, will give a very good notion of this, and of the way to get a cheap ticket when there is the trouble among the companies which may end in a war, or be patched up by arbitration.

It had been said in the papers for some time that rate-cutting was going on in San Francisco, and this made me hurry down not to lose the opportunity. The morning after my arrival I walked into an office in Kearney Street and said briefly, "What are you doing to New York?" The clerk said in a business way, "Seventy-two dollars." I laughed a little and looked at him straight without speaking. "Hum," said he; "well, you can go for sixty-five." "Thanks," I said, "it isn't enough." I walked out, and though he called me back I would not return. Then I went to Mr P., a well-known agent for railroads and steamships. To use a vulgarism, he did not open his mouth so wide as the other, but at once offered me a through ticket to Liverpool for $72. I thanked him and said I would call again. Deducting the $12 for a steerage passage, his railroad fare was $60. So far I had knocked off 12. And now it began to rain very hard. It did not cease all day. And my day's work was only begun, for it was only ten o'clock then. I went from one office to another, quoting one's rates here and another's there, and slowly I dropped the fare to fifty. I had to explain to some of these men that I was not a fool, and that I knew what I was doing; that if they took me for a "tenderfoot," or a "sucker," they were mistaken. My explanations always had an effect, and down the fare tumbled. At last, about three o'clock, I had got things to a very fine point, and was working two rival offices which stood side by side near the Palace Hotel. One man—Mr A., whom I knew by name, who indeed knew a friend of mine—offered me $45. I shook my head, and going next door, Mr V. made it a dollar less. It took me half-an-hour to reduce that again to forty-three; but at last Mr A., who was as much interested in this little game as if I were a big stake at poker, went suddenly down to $41. I offered to toss him whether it should be $40 or $42. He accepted, and I won the toss. As he made out the ticket, he remarked, almost sadly, "We don't make anything out of this." But he cheered up, and added, "Well, the others don't either." So I got my ticket; and it was over one of the best lines. By that day's work, though I got wet through, covered with mud, and very tired, I saved $32.

When on board the east-bound train next day I got talking with some dozen men who were going east with me, and, naturally enough, we asked each other what fares we had paid, I found they varied greatly, but the average was about $60. One little Jew, a tobacconist, was very proud that his only cost $48. He almost wept when I told him that I beat him by eight whole dollars. Moreover, I reached New York twenty hours before him, for when we parted at Chicago we made arrangements to meet in New York, and then I found that he had been obliged to round into Canada, and lie over all one night, while I had come direct on the Chicago and Alton with only two hours' wait at Lima; so on the whole I did not think I did very badly.



AMERICAN SHIPMASTERS

It may seem strange to people who are entirely unacquainted with the methods of shipmasters and officers generally in the American mercantile marine that a sailor should have such a deadly objection to sail in one of their vessels; but those who know the hideous brutalities which continually occur on such ships will quite understand the feelings of a man who finds himself on a vessel which would probably have been manned willingly if it had not a bad character among seamen. I have known an American vessel lie six weeks and more off Sandridge, Melbourne, waiting for a crew, which she could not get, although men were very plentiful and the boarding-houses full. There are some vessels running from New York, etc., round the Horn to San Francisco, which have a villainous reputation. The captain of one of these was sentenced to eighteen months in the Penitentiary when I was in the great Pacific Port for incredible atrocities practised on his crew. For one thing, he shot repeatedly at men who were up aloft, and hit one of them who was on the main-yard, though not so seriously as to make him quit his hold of the jack-stay. One of the ship's boys was treated with barbarity during the whole passage; thrashed, beaten, starved, and ill-used in the vilest manner; and at last the captain knocked him down and jumped on his face so as to blind him for life. This man went a little too far, and the courts, which are always biassed, and very much biassed considering their origin, on the side of rich authority, were compelled to do their duty by the uproar that this last incident caused. Yet even after that the people connected with the shipping interests got up petitions, and intrigued and wire-pulled for months to get the Governor of California to pardon him. Failing in this, they approached the President; but I am heartily glad their efforts were vain.

One of my own shipmates in the Coloma, of Portland, Oregon, was once with a commander of this class, and so bad was his reputation that no one among the crew knew until they were under way who the captain was. My mate said, "I was at the wheel when I saw him come up the companion, and, as I had sailed with him before, my blood ran cold when I recognised him. He came straight up to the wheel, stared at me, and asked me, 'Haven't you sailed with me before?' 'Yes, sir,' I answered. Then he grinned, 'Ha, then you know me. When you go forward you tell the crowd what kind of a man I am, and tell them that if they behave themselves I'll be a father to 'em.' I knew what his being a father to us meant. However, I didn't see any good in scaring the fellows, so when my trick was over I told them the skipper was a real beauty. Just then there was a roar from the poop, 'Relieve the wheel'; and the man who had relieved me came staggering forrard with his face smothered in blood. He had let her run off a quarter of a point or so, and the skipper, without saying a word, struck him right between the eyes with the end of his brass telescope, cutting his nose and forehead in great gashes. That was his way of being a father to us, and he kept it up all the passage. The first chance I got I skinned out!"

It is true that the American mercantile marine is not so bad as it was. These things do not occur in all vessels, but even yet they occur so frequently that an English sailor would, as a general rule, rather sail with the devil himself than an American skipper. What the state of affairs was some twenty or thirty years ago one can hardly imagine, but it certainly was much worse then. Shanghai-ing is not so much practised. There is a story current among seamen, though I know not how true it is, that it was checked owing to the lieutenant of an English man-of-war being drugged and carried on board an American merchant-man. However, there is now, or was but lately, a boarding-house keeper in San Francisco whose Christian or first name had been abolished in favour of "Shanghai." I had the very doubtful honour of knowing him, and could easily believe any stories told of his chicanery and treachery to sailormen.



TRAMPS

The poor tramp is a much-abused person, and I have no doubt that he often deserves what is said of him, but, in spite of that, his life is often so hard that he might extort at the least a little sympathy—and something to eat. All Americans are too ready to confound two distinct classes of tramps—those who take the road to look for work, and those (the larger number, I confess) who look for work and pray to heaven that they may never find it. In this preponderance of the lazy traveller over the industrious lies the distinction between the state of affairs in America and Australia, for in the latter country the "sundowner," or "murrumbidgee whaler," or "hobo" proper, is in the minority.

When I was on the tramp myself in Oregon I was much annoyed by being taken for one of the truly idle kind. I remember at Roseberg, or a little to the north of it, I once stopped and had a talk with a farmer whom I had asked for work. Although he had none to give me he was very civil, and we talked of tramps and tramping. He looked at me keenly. "I can see you are not of the regular professionals," said he. "Thank you for your perspicacity," I answered, and though perspicacity fairly floored him, he saw it was not an insult, and went on talking. "Now look here, my boy, they say we're hard on tramps, and perhaps some of us are, but I reckon we sometimes get enough to make us rough. Last summer I was in my orchard, picking cherries, I think, and a likely-looking, strong young fellow comes along the road. Seeing me, he climbs the fence, and says to me, 'Say, boss, could you give me something to eat? I haven't had anything to-day.' I looked at him. 'Why, yes,' said I. 'If you'll go up to the house I'll be up there in a few minutes when I've filled this pail; and while you're waiting just split a little wood. The axe is on the wood pile.' Now, look you, what d'ye think he said. 'I don't split wood. I ain't going to do any work till I get to Washington Territory.' 'Oh!' said I, 'that's it, is it? Then look here, young fellow, don't you eat anything till you get there either; for I won't give you anything, and just let me see you climb that fence in a hurry.' So he went off cursing. Ain't that kind of thing enough to make us rough on tramps?—let alone that they steal the chickens; and if you look as you go down the road you'll see feathers by every place they camp." That was true enough, and south of the Umpqua I used to find goose feathers every few hundred yards. On that same tramp down through Oregon I once met four men travelling north. There had been a murder committed by a tramp in the south of Roseberg, and we stopped under an old scrubby oak to talk it over. Three of them were working men, but the fourth was a true professional, about fifty years of age, whose clothes were ragged to the last extremity of tatters. His hands were brown at the backs, but I noticed, when I gave him some tobacco, which he very promptly asked for, that the palms were perfectly soft. He told us how long he had travelled, and how many years it was since he had done any work; and, finally rising, he picked up a wretched-looking blanket, and said, "Well, good-day, gentlemen. I'm off to call on the Mayor of Portland and a few rich friends of mine up there." He winked good-humouredly and shambled off.

I met a lame young fellow near Jacksonville, who told me he had come all the way from New York State, and was thinking of going back. He was in very good spirits, and did not appear in the least dismayed at the prospect of tramping 2000 miles, for he was one of those who do not use the railroad and "beat their way." When I was at work in Sonoma County, California, a little fellow came and worked for ten days, who once travelled 200 miles inside the cowcatcher of an engine. Most English people know the wedge-shaped pilot in front of the American engine well enough by repute to recognise it. When the engine was in the yard over the hollow track he crawled in, taking a board to sit on inside. When the locomotive once ran out on the ordinary track it was impossible to remove him, although the fireman soon discovered his presence there, and poured some warm water over him. On coming to a little town about fifty miles from his destination the constable came down to the train. "He came," said Hub (that was our tramp's name) "to see that no tramps get off there, or, if they did, to advise them to clear out. He walked to the engine and said 'Good day' to the driver. 'Got any tramps on board to-day, Jack?' he said. 'We've got one,' he answered; 'but we can't get him off.' 'Why? how's that?' said the constable. 'Go and look at the pilot.' So he came round and looked at me, and he burst into a laugh. 'All right, Jack,' says he, 'you can keep him. He won't trouble us, I can see.' And with that he poked me with his stick, and called everyone to take a look. I said nothing, but you bet I felt mean to be cooped up there, not able to move, with all the folks laughing at me."

But, in spite of Hub's sad experience, he went off on the tramp again as soon as he had enough to buy a pair of new boots with.

Tramps—that is, the bad ones among them—are very often insolent when they find no one but women in the house. Once a man I knew was working in Indiana, but having a bad headache he remained in one morning. By-and-by a truculent-looking tramp came along. "Kin you give us suthin' to eat, ma'am?" he growled. "Certainly," said the woman, who was always kind to travellers. She set about making him a meal and put out some bread and meat. The tramp, who certainly did not look hungry, eyed it with disfavour. "Bah!" said he at last, with intense contempt; "I don't want that stuff. D'ye think I'm starving? A'nt you got suthing nice—say, some strawberry shortcake and cream?" The woman stared with astonishment, as well she might. But the man with the headache heard Mr Tramp's remarks. There was a shot-gun hanging in the room where he was; so, slipping off the bed, he reached for the weapon, walked out quietly, and, thrusting the muzzle of the gun under the tramp's ear, he roared in a fierce voice "Get!" And, to use the vernacular, the tramp "got" instantly.

The last story I will tell of tramps is perhaps the most audacious of all. I met the chief actor in British Columbia. It appears that he and another man went one Sunday to a very respectable farmhouse in Illinois to beg for food. They knocked and there was no answer. They knocked again, and still without avail. Then they opened the unlocked door and went in. The dining-table was laid ready for a feast, as it seemed, for it was adorned with an admirable cold collation, including a turkey, several fowls, and a number of pies. The eyes of my acquaintance and his partner sparkled. Here was a chance, for the family was at church. They went out, got a sack, and hastily tumbled into it the turkey, the fowls, some bread, and the most substantial pies. Just as it was getting full one looked out of the window and saw a man coming up the path. They were struck with terror of discovery, but on watching they soon saw that this was a tramp like themselves. He came up and knocked at the door. "Can you give me something to eat, sir?" he asked humbly. "I guess so," said my acquaintance, coolly; "that is, if you ain't one of the tramps that won't work. Will you cut some wood for your dinner?" "Of course I will," said the tramp, gladly, and he went to the wood pile. While he was at work the two spoilers of the Egyptians departed through the back door, and went about a hundred yards to the corner of a wood, where they laughed till they cried. The result of their manoeuvre was sure to be too good to be lost, so one of them climbed up a tree and watched. In about a quarter of an hour he saw a string of men and women coming towards the house, and still the working tramp made the chips fly. On entering the yard one of the men went up to interview him, and by the tramp's gestures it was evident that he was explaining that he had been set to work. Meanwhile, the women went in, but came out again in a moment, shrieking with indignation. The next sight was the farmer armed with a stick belabouring the astonished worker, who fled across the fence incontinently. He was followed to the very verge of the wood, and then the exhausted "mossback" left him to return to the house. "It was just the funniest thing I ever saw," declared my unabashed friend; "and to see that poor fellow get whipped for our sins nearly killed me. But I tell you we rewarded him for his labour after all. We found him sitting on a stump rubbing himself all over, and invited him to dinner with us. So, you see, he got the grub we promised him, and he didn't work for nothing, for that would just kill a tramp."



TEXAS ANIMALS

The fauna of Texas is very varied, and a naturalist may find plenty there for his note-book, and much to reflect on, if he be a contemplative man. A hunter may satisfy himself, too, if he goes into the extreme west and north-west, but he must be quick about it, for I received a letter years ago from a friend of mine in the south part of the Panhandle of Texas, in which he told me that all the land was getting fenced in, even in those parts that I knew in 1884 as wide and open prairie, and when fences come the beasts go, deer and antelope retreat, and "panther" or cougar are hunted and shot by those who own sheep, cattle and horses. I am no naturalist, and no great hunter. At the risk of causing a smile of contempt I must confess that I can hold a shot-gun, a "double-pronged scatter-gun," or a rifle in my hands without shooting at anything I see. I have let antelope and deer pass me without even letting the gun off, and have spared squirrels and birds innumerable that most of my friends would have promptly slain; but I take great interest in animal life, and am fond of watching the denizens of prairie or forest.

When on my friend Jones's ranche in 1884 I sometimes went wild turkey hunting or potting; we used to choose a moonlight night and lie under the trees, where they roosted, and shoot them on the branches. It was mere butchery, and the sole excitement consisted in the doubt as to whether any of the big birds would come or not, and the chief interest to me was the conversation of my wild Texan friends, who were stranger than turkeys to me.

There were not many birds of prey around us, except the big slow-sailing turkey-buzzards, which are protected by law as useful scavengers. Nevertheless, I shot at one once, and having missed it I never tried again.

My great friends were the hares or jackrabbits, which are fast, but very easy to shoot, for if I saw one coming my way, loping or cantering along, I stood stock-still, and he would come past me without taking the least notice of my presence, probably imagining I was only a curious-shaped stump. Sometimes I found them in the dry arroyos or water-courses, and threw stones at them. They rarely ran away at once at full speed, but for the most part went a little distance and sat up to look at me, waiting for two or three stones, until they made up their minds that I was decidedly dangerous.

Another little animal was the cotton-tail rabbit, so called from the white patch of fur under the tail, which is as bright as cotton bursting from the pod, I killed one once more by impulse than anything else. It ran from under my feet when I had a knife in my hand. I threw it at the rabbit, and to my surprise knocked it over, for I am a very bad shot with that sort of missile.

The prairie dogs or marmots were in tens of thousands round us, and I used to amuse myself by shooting at one in particular with the rifle. His hole was a hundred yards from our camp, and he would come out and sit on his hill every now and again, and then go nibbling round at the grass. I shot at him a dozen times, and once cut the ground under his belly, but never killed him. They are extremely hard to get even if shot, for they manage to run into their burrows somehow, even if mortally wounded. The Texans believe they go back even when quite dead; but then they are rather credulous, for some of them believe that the rattlesnake lives on friendly terms with the inmates of the burrows. The rattlesnakes were very numerous, for one day I killed seven. The first one I saw threw me into a curious instinctive state of fury, and I smashed it into pieces, while I trembled like a horse who has nearly stepped on a venomous snake. Those Texans who do not believe in the friendship of snake and prairie dog say that it is possible to make the rattler come out of a hole he has taken refuge in by rolling small pieces of dirt and earth down it. For they assert that the prairie dogs earth up the mouth of the burrow when they know a snake is in it, and the reptile knows what is about to happen.

Of other snakes there were the moccasins, water snakes, and esteemed very deadly. It is said that when an Indian is bitten by one of these he lies down to die without making any effort to save his life, whereas if a rattlesnake has harmed him he usually cures himself. Besides these there were the omnipresent garter snakes, and the grey or silver coach-whip, both harmless. The bull snake is said to grow to an enormous size, and is a kind of North American python or boa. About five miles from our camp was an old hut, which was occupied by a sheep-herder whom I knew. One night he heard a noise, and looking out of his bunk saw by the dim light of the fire an enormous snake crawling out of a hole in the corner of the room. He jumped out of bed and ran outside, and found a stick. He killed it, and it measured nearly eleven feet. It is called bull snake because it is popularly supposed to bellow, but I never heard it make any noise of such description.

On these prairies there are occasionally to be found cougars, commonly called panthers or "painters," although erroneously. In British Columbia they are called mountain lions, and the same name is applied to them in California, unless they are called California lions. I am informed by a naturalist friend that they are the same species as the South American puma. I knew a man in Colorado City who was a great hunter of these animals, and he had half a dozen hunting dogs torn and scratched all over their bodies, with ears missing, and one with half a tongue, who had suffered from the teeth and claws of these cougars. He kept one in a cage which was much too small for it, and I was often tempted to poison it to put an end to its misery. This man had a regular menagerie at the back of his house, consisting of various birds, this cougar, and two bears.

These bears are not infrequently to be met with on the prairies, and while I was staying in a town one was brought in in a wagon. Bruin had been captured by four cowboys, who had lassoed and tied it. He weighed about 600 lbs., and was a black bear, for the cinnamon and grizzly do not, I believe, range in open level country.

Besides these harmful animals there were plenty of antelopes to be found, if one went to look for them, and the cowardly slinking coyote was often to be seen as one rode across the prairie; and often in walking I found tortoises with bright red eyes. These were small, about six inches long. In the creeks were plenty of mud turtles, which are fond of scrambling on to logs to sun themselves. If disturbed they drop into the water instantly, giving rise to a saying to express quickness, "like a mud turtle off a log."

I have said nothing of bison. Perhaps there are none now, but in 1884 there were supposed to be still a few on the Llano Estacado or Stakes Plain. I knew one man who used to go hunting them every year and usually killed a few. But the last time I saw him he was on a "jamboree," or spree, and killed his unfortunate horse by tying it up without feeding it or giving it water while he was drinking or drunk, and so he did not make his usual trip. But I imagine there can be few or none left now, and probably the only representatives of the race are in the National Park.



IN A SAILORS' HOME

After coming back to England from Australia in the barque Essex I found "home" a curious place, which afforded very few prospects of a satisfactory job. For if there is one thing more than another borne in upon anyone who returns from the Colonies it is the apparent impossibility of earning one's living in London. Every avenue is as much choked as the entrance to the pit at a popular theatre on a first night. And though it is said that we may always get a tooth-brush into a portmanteau however full it is, there comes a time when not even a tooth-brush bristle can be put there. I looked at London, wandered round it, spent all my money, and determined to go to sea again, this time in a steamer rather than in a "wind-jammer." With this notion in my mind I went down to Hull, whither a shipmate of mine had preceded me. He had been a quarter-master in the Essex and was the melancholy possessor of a cancelled master's certificate. He owed this to drink, of course, as most men do who pile their ships up on the first reef that comes handy. But when he was sober he was a good old fellow. He took me round to the Sailors' Home in Salthouse Lane, and introduced me to the man who ran it. I stayed there six weeks.

The Sailors' Home as an institution is not over-popular with seamen, especially with the more improvident of them. And the improvident are certainly ninety per cent. of the total sea-going race of man. As a rule Homes cease to be such when a man's money is done. He is thrown out into the street or into some equivalent of the notorious Straw House. There is always much talk at sea about the relative advantages of Boarding-Houses and Homes, and half the arguments about the subject end in more or less of a "rough house" and a few odd black eyes. However rude and brutal the boarding-house master may be, however much of a daylight robber he is (and they mostly are "daylight robbers") it is to his advantage to make his house popular. There is no surer way of doing this than ensuring his boarder a ship at the end of his short spree on shore. In many Homes the men look after this themselves. Jack is a child and wants to be looked after. As far as the Home in Salthouse Lane went, I think it combined some of the better qualities of both the common resorts of men ashore. The boss of it knew something about seamen; he was certainly not a robber, and he kept me and several others when we did not possess a red cent among us to jingle on a tombstone. He also kept order, for he had had some experience as a prize-fighter, and could put the best of us on the floor at a moment's notice. Once or twice he did so, and peace reigned in Warsaw.

There were certainly very few of us in the Home. Hull was not quite as full of sailors as hell is of devils, as a boarding-house master once assured me that San Francisco was when I tried to get taken into his house after being rejected even less politely by that eminent scoundrel Shanghai Brown. Besides myself there were a sturdy blue-nose or Nova-Scotian; a long-limbed, slab-sided herring-back or native of New Brunswick, a big thick-headed ass of an Englishman and a smart thief of a Cockney, known to us all as Ginger. We lived together without quarrelling more than three times a day. This we thought was peace. It was certainly more peaceful than my last boarding-house at Williamstown, where we had a little bloodshed every night. But there the very tables and benches were clamped to the floor; the windows were too high above us for anyone to be thrown out, and on a board nailed beyond our reach was the legend, "Order must and will be preserved." But that boarding-house was very exciting; my last excitement In it was tripping up a man, treading on his wrist and taking away a razor with which he meant to cut throats. In Hull we never went further than a good common "scrap," though they happened fairly often.

Times were not very brisk in Hull just then. At anyrate, we did not find them so. We had a "runner" at the Home, who was supposed to help us find a ship, but certainly did not. He was a very curious person to look at. He weighed eighteen stone and was a perfect giant of strength, with legs like columns and a neck about twenty inches round. I never found out what his nationality was. He looked like a Russian, but denied that he was one. It was said that he once fought six men in the lane and downed them all in sheer desperation. As a matter of fact, he was rather cowardly, I think, and easily put on, though if he had really got mad something would have had to give. We did not rely on him but looked for ships ourselves in a very casual way. Most of us pretended to look for them and loafed about the neighbouring slums. When sailormen are thrown on their own resources they are pretty helpless creatures. The man who is a lion on a topsail yard in a gale is too often like a wet cat in a backyard when he is ashore. I was lazy enough myself, but as it happened it was I who got something to do for Ginger, for the New Brunswicker and myself.

I had not been living in the highly-desirable neighbourhood of Salthouse Lane for a week before I found myself without a stiver. The rest were in the same condition. Every three days or so I borrowed a penny from the boss and got a shave in order to keep up my spirits. Three days' beard is almost as depressing as three days' starvation, and the little shop at the corner, which renewed my self-respect for a penny, seemed to me a most admirable institution. As for drinks, we had none—we were sober sailors indeed. The sun might get over the fore-yard and go down over the cro'-jack but we never touched liquor. Nevertheless we had fights to relieve the monotony of the situation. The Nova Scotian and I took to being hostile. We disbelieved each other's lies. So one day while we were in the smoking-room he said something which was not at all polite. I could not knock him down with a chair because the careful and provident boss had had them chained to the floor. So I hit him, and hit him rather hard, for what he had said out of pure devilry. He was sitting on the table and I knocked him off. His particular mate was the very thick-headed Englishman. He did his best for the Nova Scotian by holding me very tight while the blue-nose hammered me. This was awkward, to say nothing about the unfairness of it. I got away but presently found myself across a bench with my back in danger of being broken. More by good luck than management I broke loose and got the blue-nose across the bench, I am thankful to say I nearly broke his back. Then we waltzed round the room in the wildest way, till the wife of the boss and the servant girl flew in and broke up the party with the most amazing energy. I was the youngest and the most civilised, and the women naturally said it was the Nova Scotian's fault. They said so in the most voluble manner, and the Nova Scotian did not like it. He said they took my part because I was not so ugly as he was, and said it wasn't fair, especially as I had spoilt what little beauty he had. He further asserted that he would knock the stuffing out of me, and we were on hostile terms for twenty-four hours. Two days later he got a job as bo'sun in a barque and his mate shipped with him, and peace was assured for a time.

The food they gave us was rough but fairly good and plentiful. Wherever the meat came from it could be masticated with some effort. In Barclay's boarding-house, in Williamstown, we had to take a spell in the middle of a mouthful. I have seen steak there that would have pauled a chaff-cutter. In the dining-room at Salthouse Lane there lived the wildest, most eccentric clock I ever saw in all my travels. It had a most remarkable way of striking quite peculiar to itself. We used to dine at one o'clock. At noon the clock usually struck one. In very extravagant days it struck two. But no one could guess what it would strike when it was really one o'clock. I once counted seventy-two strokes, and on a public holiday it went up to a hundred and twenty. It was our only amusement.

We were allowed to come in at almost any time. When the Nova Scotian and his mate had departed the Cockney and the herring-back and I used to run together and go waltzing round the back part of Hull pretty well all night. Once we sat on the steps of a bank for nearly four hours, between twelve and four. With us were two young ladies, who were possibly not very respectable but about whom I knew nothing as I had never seen them before and never saw them again, and another young sailor who was good at yarns. I didn't know his name. Absurd as it may seem we were all quite happy. The policeman on the beat saw that we were, and evidently hated to disturb us. He came past us three times, and each time asked us very nicely to go home. Next time he repeated his request, and as he said he would look on our doing so in the light of a personal favour to himself, we agreed to evacuate the bank at last.

Our greatest privation at the Salthouse Lane establishment was want of tobacco. We rarely had any of it. I remember one day, when want of nicotine made me very sad, we went, on my suggestion, into the bag-room and pulled out our bags and chests. My chest was what seamen call a round-bottomed chest, i.e., a sailor's canvas bag. The beauty of it is that anything wanted is always at the bottom. In turning the bag out I found half a plug of tobacco. If we had been gold-mining and I had struck a "pocket," or come across big nuggets we could not have been happier. We sat in the smoking-room, and having divided the plug we had a grand debauch. Of course we sometimes begged a pipe or two from luckier men about the docks, but to find a real half plug was something to gloat over.

When I had been in the Home nearly two months, and owed what seemed an amazing amount of money, I really began to think that if I could not ship in a steamer I must go in a wind-jammer again after all. So I really began to hunt round in earnest, and after trying all sorts and conditions of craft I landed on a job in the Corona of Dundee. She was a biggish composite vessel of about seventeen hundred tons register, with that horrible thing, wire running rigging. In her I made the acquaintance of one of her old crew, who had stayed by her in Hull river, who told me various yarns of her behaviour at sea, and how one man had been killed in her on her homeward passage from San Francisco. As we got to be pals he suggested I should bring some more men if I knew of any in want of a job. I brought along Ginger and the herring-back, and we went to work cleaning out the limbers. It was not a nice job, for the limbers of a ship which has been carrying wheat are, to say the least of it, rather malodorous. We scraped the rotting black muck out with boards and scrapers, and sent it up on deck. It was a two and a half days' job. Then the mate set me over my two friends to "break out" casks of beef and pork from the fore-peak. As I hadn't been much to sea it rather amused me to find myself bossing two men who had been at it all their lives. But I have to own that they were two of the stupidest men I ever met, though they were not bad fellows. Then the time came for us to go to London by the "run." They offered us 30s. for the run to London river. This, with the five shillings a day I had earned by six days' work on board, made L3. I had practically spent nothing while I was working in her, although we left the Home too early in the morning to have breakfast there. We used to go to a coffee-stall near the dock entrance and get what is described by Cockneys as "two doorsteps and a cup of thick" for about 2d. We went home for dinner and supper. Thus I had nearly all my L3 for the boss of the Home. He got the money when we were out in the "stream" with the tug ahead of us.

We were only one night at sea. We washed her down and cleaned her a bit generally and made her look a little decent, and I had the look-out that night. As we towed the whole distance we came up London river next afternoon. It was a gloomy and miserable day, which made London horrible to behold. It was like entering hell itself to come up into the parts where the big warehouses stand and where the docks are. We came at last to Limehouse, where she was to be dry-docked. I was at the wheel then, and it took us two hours before we got her in and had her settled down upon the blocks with the shores to hold her. Then I took my round-bottomed chest and left her. The mate, who had taken a fancy to me, asked me to ship in her for her next voyage, but I said I meant to "swallow the anchor" and have no more of that kind of work. My experience in Hull—the semi-starvation, the fighting, the loneliness and general blackguardism of the whole show—had somewhat sickened me of the life. And yet seamen are good fellows, and might be much better if it were not for the greed of owners, who feed them badly, house them vilely, and think of nothing in the world but dividends. Seamen know what they know, and they resent with bitterness the way they are treated. They have a bitter saying, "That's good enough for hogs, dogs and sailors." The day must come when England will cry to her children of the sea, and weep because they are not.



THE GLORY OF THE MORNING

According to his temperament a man's memory of travel and the strange wild places of the earth deals chiefly with one set of reminiscences or with another. For me the remembered mornings of the wide and lonely world, whether in the bush, or on the prairie, or the veldt, or at sea, are my chiefest delight. For in them, as in the morning even now, is something especial and peculiar which recalls and recreates youth: which breaks up the dead customs of to-day, and sends one back again to the swift, sweet hours of experiment and change. Assuredly the nights had their charm, whether they were spent by some great camp-fire on the winding Lachlan, in the darkness of a pine forest in British Columbia, or on the fo'c'sle-head of a ship upon the sea; and yet the night was the night, the prelude to sleep, and not to activity, the chief joy of man.

I can recall how a morning broke for me once which was the morning of a kind of freedom almost appalling to the child of cities. This was the morning of youth, or rather of earliest manhood, when I was timid and yet unafraid, curious, and, after a manner, innocent, when I had slept by my first camp-fire, on the Bull Plains of Australia's Riverina. And yet I can remember nothing of those hours clearly. Rather is there in my mind as typical of the Australian dawn such hours as those I spent away beyond the Murray, the Murrumbidgee and the Lachlan, on a station on the banks of the Willandra Billabong. It was early summer and shearing time for a hundred thousand sheep, whose fleeces were destined for Lyons and the North of England. I had dropped off a wearied horse close upon midnight, and yet by half-past three I was up once more. I stumbled sleepily in the starry darkness to the mare that was kept up, one Beeswing by name, a mare so swift and keen for a little while that to ride her was a delight. She whinnied and muzzled me all over as I put the saddle on her and drew the girths tight. Then I swung across her, and for some minutes she went gingerly, for she was unsound and wanted warming for the hot task before her. Yet it was her only work in the long day and she delighted in it even as I did. We picked our way across the shadows of big salt-bush and the rounded humps of cotton-bush, then brown and leafless, to the paddock, a mile square, where the other horses were at pasture, and as I rode sleep dropped away from me and my eyes opened and my lips grew moist as I sucked in the air of dawn. In the east the pale ghost of the day's forerunner stood waiting. The wind in that hot season came from the north; it had no intoxicating quality save that of comparative coolness after the furnace of yesterday. Yet how sweet it was, when I remembered the burning noon, the hot labours of the stock-yard and its dust as the ten thousand of that day's driving entered reluctantly. And in the darkness the plain stretched before me without a break for a thousand miles save for the Barrier Ranges. With no map on the whole station I knew not even of them, and as far as eye could reach not a rolling sand-dune marred the calm oceanic level of that brown sea of land.

And now upon this morning, that yet was night, I was adrift upon a horse with a definite task in the great circle of immensity. The rest of the world was nothing, and I rode delicately over the rotten grey ground till the starshine dwindled and the day came up like a slow diver through dark waters. The pallid air was odorous as I rode with rolled-up sleeves and open breast, and I sang a little, for the night was out of me and my throat was sweet. And Beeswing warmed, and under me grew nimble, with the swing and easy spring of the dancer, and she reached out to feel the bit lightly with an unspoiled mouth and to feel my hands, and she raised her lean head and sniffed the air for her own kind that we were after. Were we not horse-hunting? She bent her neck and went as delicately as ever Agag went, and then bounded lightly over a hole in the rotten ground of the great horse-paddock. She and I were partners in the morning as the dawn came up. And now, indeed, the morning tide broke over the eastern bar, and was like a pale grey flood moving over level earth. Then she whinnied low as though she spoke to me in a whisper, and I saw one dark, moving shadow, and another, as she broke into a gallop. Oh, but out of seven alarmed shadows, fearful of work, I needed three, and neither Beeswing nor her rider could endure in their pride to drive in seven when a special chosen three were enough. The dawn's game began, and though it was yet dawn's dusk we went at a gallop. For Beeswing and I together were the swiftest two, or the swiftest one, on that great station by the Willandra. But though the night was not gone there was enough light to see which horses I needed and which horses I had to discard, and to note how they broke apart cunningly. For two went this way, and one that; and four split into units as I swung round the outside edge of them in a wide circle. The rottenness of the ground gave chances, and made it hazardous. But Beeswing knew her work and the paddock, and now she was warm and as keen as fire, and any touch of lameness went away from her. She stretched out her fine lean head, and her eyes were quick; her open nostrils almost smelt and swept the ground as her head swung to and fro. Beneath me she was live steel, tense and wonderful as she sprang to this side and that of danger, and yet galloped. Again and again she swerved, and then, as a ten-foot hole showed before her, she leapt it in her stride. And again, another and another, for here the ground was crumbling, patchy, sunken, with little rims of hard earth in between cup-like openings. And as we went, and the day came, I swung my long stock-whip and shouted when it cracked. I was on them, into them, and they broke back, being over-pressed. But Beeswing was a bred stock-horse, she knew the game and loved it. Back she swung right upon her haunches, and was away upon the hunt after a great raking mare called Mischief. We galloped almost side by side, and then Mischief quailed and turned coward. As Beeswing swung again I brought the whip down on my quarry's quarters.

And now the joy of the game of dawn was great, for selection came in and the skill of the game. To-day I wanted Mischief and Black Jack and the grey mare. So as I galloped, still with swinging and reverberating whip, I edged up and put my knees into Beeswing. As she answered and sprang forward, with a rush I was within whip length of Mischief and Tom, with Mischief on the outside. One flick of the lash and the mare outpaced Tom, leaving him last of the seven. Had I edged up outside of him Beeswing might have doubted whether I wanted him or not, but I sent her up on his near side, and when I flicked him he plunged back and out and she let him go. There were six to deal with, though he came after us whinnying; yet not being urged he presently stayed, and then I shot forward again and cut off two that I did not want, and now among the four there was but one I wished to leave behind. They were well aware that one or more of them was not to work to-day, for I still hung upon them with some eager discrimination. They knew the final shout of victory as well as I who sent it up. But Lachlan, the horse I wished to leave, was the fastest of the four and kept ahead. So I ran them hard for a quarter of a mile and then edged out a little, and slowed down till they slowed and left a space betwixt the three and Lachlan. I suddenly spoke to Beeswing and shook her up till she came swiftly abreast of my three galloping like horses in a Roman chariot. Then left-handed I cut Lachlan in the flank, and with a swift turn Beeswing swept between him and the others. They stayed and turned while disparted Lachlan ran wildly. And now my three, being turned, ran back for the others; and Beeswing followed them like fire and came up with them, and once more turned them and sent them for home. To keep them going while the others whinnied meant urging; it meant filling their minds, occupying their attention. So once more, with a great shout, I was upon them and swung the whip, letting it fall with a crack first on this side and then on that, and now in the growing daylight the dust rose up as we galloped. And presently I saw the little "tin" house where the out-station boss lived, and the tent I shared with my chum the "rouseabout." And as we went fast and faster (for it was morning and I was young) the sun thrust up a shoulder behind me and it was day in Australia, day in the Lachlan back-blocks. And I could see Long Clump, a patch of dwarf-box, over my shoulder as I turned loosely in the saddle to note whether the other horses still followed. I laughed at the day (for it was dawn), and yet I knew as I ran my three into the yard that ere the day was done I should have ridden sixty miles, and have mustered 20,000 sheep in Long Clump Paddock. And when I stayed outside the stock-yard and put up the slip panels and patted Beeswing on the neck the one great pleasure of the day was over. The rest was not to be accomplished in the dusk of dawn and under the morning star, but had to be wrought out in flying dust, amid the plague of flies and the fierce heat of an Austral noon, whose heat increased with the slow sun's decline. But that swift sweet hour of the morning had been my very own. The remainder of the day belonged to the world, to duty, to the man who paid me a pound a week and "tucker" for my hands and arms and as much brains as work with sheep demanded. Yet through these hours sometimes the glory of the morning remained.

* * * * *

There are mornings on land and mornings on the sea, and when the world is a grey wash and a mask of spindrift it is good to be alive upon the sea, high on a topsail-yard, to see the grey return of the glory of the day. The work is often sheer murder, but it is the work of men, and though the skin cracks and the nails bleed, as the bulging, slatting, frantic canvas surges like a cast-iron wave, the thin red-shirted line along the jack-stay does heroic work without meaning it, without one touch of consciousness, without praise, and mostly without even that reward of a "tot" of grog so sweet to the simple-minded sailorman. Ah, yes, to be sure we were heroes, and I too (though now soft and self-conscious) played an Homeric part upon the yard, was bold, and afraid, and "funked" it with any god-smitten, panic-driven half-god by Scamander's banks, or the windy walls of Troy. Now I know what it was, and can see the grey wash of ocean, and the grey wash of white-faced morning with the great seas driving against the rising day, even as the rollers of the Atlantic surge against the base of a high berg. Little good men at home, fat men, rotund, easy souls, or those who are neither good, nor fat, nor easy, may stare and imagine yet not come near the reality when the wind booms and the sea rises, and the great concave of night sky flattens and presses down upon the driven ship, and men strive to escape doom and yet care not, and work till they are blind, and then drop down into the scant shelter of the deck, where the icy wind seems warm after the strife and bellowing up aloft. Heroes? To be sure we were heroes. What is being shot at a mile off, or a hundred yards off, to being shot at by the very heavens while one hangs over the gaping trenches of the sea? There is not an old shellback alive who has clung between angry heaven and the grey-green pastures of the deep but deserves a Victoria Cross for unconscious, dutiful, grumbling, growling valour. He might justly call every scanty dollar he earns a medal. For he has often fought in the Pacific, or by the Horn, or off the windy Cape. To recall the thick tempest at midnight, when the wind harps thunder on the stretched rigging, is to be a man again. If I blow their trumpet, the trumpet of the old sea-dogs, these scallawags, these Vikings, what matter if I seem to blow my own, having been their companion one campaign or two upon the deep? That "Me" is dead, I know, and can only be resurgent in memory, and will never laugh or feel afraid again when the slatting canvas jars one's very teeth. Yet to remember (as I can remember) how one wild night on the Southern Pacific grew into morning gives me back youth and morning again when I cared nothing for death, since death was as far off, as impossible, ay, as absurd, as Fame itself.

It had blown hard all day, and an hour after midnight our scanty band, some ten of us (mostly Cockneys like myself), stood upon the foot-ropes of the lower fore-topsail. There should have been twenty, but to be undermanned has been English fashion since Agincourt. Growl we ever so loudly where could more be found? The work was to be done by ten, one more even was not to be asked for. If the task seemed possible, why, it was possible, and when we scrambled to that narrow line of battle in the dark it seemed as easy as most things at sea, where the difficult is done hourly. Risks are nothing there; to risk nothing would be to risk destruction and to incur the bitter reproach of having shipped "not to go aloft." Each man to his fellow on the yard was a shadow and a pale blot of a face; each voice was a windy whisper, a bellow blown down into silence. As the ship ran, and lifted, and pitched and trembled, her narrow wedge shape was a blot beneath us: on each side of her white foam marked the hissing, hungry sea. But, with the sail surging before us in its gear like a mad balloon, who noted aught but the sail? I leant out upon my taut bulge of living canvas, beat it with the flat of my hand, and being the youngest waited for the word to "leech" it or "skin" it up. Being tall I was not at the extremity of the yard arm; my fellow fore-topman and a little squat man from the lower Thames stood outside me. My mate and the man inside were my world. The others I saw and heard not. The word came along the yard from the bunt to "leech" it up, and we leant over and caught the leech and pulled it on the yard. Now the fight began, but the beginning of it was easy sparring, and though the wind blew heavy, and each minute we had to remember death when she checked her roll with a jerk, the weather leech came up easy and we chuckled, each being glad. And in half an hour, or an hour, we were half masters of the wind, or as much of it as gave the sail life, after many small defeats. And then (whose fault of fingers for not being steel hooks, who shall say?) the wind, having got reinforcements, tore the victory from us and away went the sail once more free and thundering in the dark. The word was passed again, the indomitable word by the indomitable bo'sun at the bunt, this time to "skin" it up, and each man clawed out again at the flat booming canvas, clawed at it with his crooked fingers as wrestlers claw for hold behind each others' backs. A wrinkle gave hold, we nipped it, and then the ironic devil in the gale shrieked with laughter and snatched even so small an advantage from us. We knew the "old man" and the mate were cursing us down below. Did they curse us, or the weather, or the owners, or our English Agincourt trick once more? What did it matter to us, beaten and unbeaten, as we rested for a moment and then again stretched out bleeding fingers for some little advantage, knowing well that when such a gale blew victory was only possible when by constant trials the chance came of each being given good or fair handhold at once. Then came a shriek of wind and a blown-out lull and a wrinkle lapsed into a fold. We shouted "Now!" left hold of the jack-stay, and with feet outstretched grabbed slack canvas and hung on as another squall came singing like shrapnel across the peaks of the leaping sea. "Hold on now, hold on!" so sang all of us, and we cursed each other furiously. "Oh, oh, you miserable devil, hang on or it's lost again!" We cursed ourselves, felt our muscles crack, our nails shred, our skin peel and stretch and sting, and yet (thanks to our noble selves) we only lost an inch. Once more—"Now, now up, you dogs!" and that's the long-lost, long-waited, sudden, surprising clock of dawn yonder. We have been two hours here, and once more the sail leaps up and comes down. Here, two hours, two compressed swift hours, two compacted eternities measured in gasps and half the work is done unless we weaken and let up and let go.

But that's the dawn!

Morning and the glory of it, the grey wash of Eternity; sea-grey and world-grey and sky-grey, all in one great wash with a little whiteness standing for daylight. Beyond the illimitable wash where the sea breaks against the sky is the sun; source of all, strength of all. And there is no sleep to wash out of our eyes before we catch up strength from it, and encouragement. Lately we might have raised the Ajax cry, "In the light, in the light, destroy us," but now we see the little sea-plant of grey-green grow in the east, and we are strong. There is light, or a blight, a greyness out ahead and the deck whitens all awash, and the "old man" shivers in his oilskin coat as he hangs on to a pin in the rail to watch us. The poop is wet and gleaming, wet with the spray of following seas, and as our ship rolls the swash of shipped seas hisses, and her cleanness is as the cleanness of something newly varnished. Once and again as she rolls (the wind now quartering) the scuppers spout geyser-like and gurgle. As she ran like a beaten thing she wallowed a little, dived, scooped up seas and shook them off. And yet the topsail was not conquered.

And now and once again the squalls howled, and we held on, gaining nothing, yet losing nothing. We were blind but obstinate; to have gained something when everything might be lost beneath us gave us grip and courage. Ah, and then, then the great chance came, and as the last great fold of white canvas rose up like a breaking wave we shouted, flung ourselves upon it, and as our bellies (lean by now) held the rest, smothered it and beat its last life out. The thing had been alive; the gods too had blown, and we had been all but dissipated, but now we were conquerors, and the gaskets bound our dead prey to the yard. And the morning was up, a wild and evil-minded waste it flowered in; the music of the storm shrieked like the Valkyries scurrying through grey space. But what cared we, since now she would carry or drag what sail remained, creaseless, resonant, wide-arched and wonderful. The light leapt from crest to crest, and a little pale yellow blossom of blown dawn peeped out of the grey. Like a touch of fire it reanimated our washed and reeling world; we laughed as we dropped down after our three hours' battle with the demons of the air. It was morning; there was coffee and tobacco; our souls were satisfied and satiated with rewarding toil; if Fate was kind there would be neither making nor shortening of sail till the next day. We touched the deck and ran for'ard laughing. We saluted the cook, blinking at the door of his galley. "Good-morning, doctor!" and it was "good-morning!" for we were mostly young.

* * * * *

On the lofty sloping plains of Texas and Kansas the air is often keen at night, even in the summer time. And what it is in winter let train hands on the Texas Pacific declare. But in the warmer season, when northers have ceased to blow, it has an intoxicating, thrilling quality only comparable to the breath of the higher South African veldt. It is good to be alive then, and the glory of the morning is an excellent and moving glory since it wakes one to swift activity and the very joy of being. For long months I had worked upon a ranch in the Southern Panhandle, and now felt healthy energies stirring within me. In Western America the very blood of life is unrest; to remain is difficult; the difficulties of motion are its joys, though hardship and privation be the migrant's life for ever. For me the ever-present prairie grew a little dull; for sheep were sheep always, and there were mountains afar off and strange, bright rivers and the dark, odorous forests of the north. Though my boss was of the order that remains and accumulates wealth he understood when I declared that I must go or die. On the third day hereafter he and an old confederate "Colonel" (discharged as "Full Private" doubtless) and I and a Mexican sheep-herder moved southward towards the railroad. We travelled on horseback and in a two-mule buggy, and with the movement discontent dropped away from me and all was well with the world, even though I knew not what weeks or even days should bring me. That night we camped thirty miles from the ranch and thirty from the little town we called a city, which had grown up in the sand-dunes by the banks of the Texan Colorado. We lighted our scanty fire at sundown. It was a typical camp of the later days upon the high prairie, and a not untypical set of men. Our talk was of horses and steers and sheep and of Virginia, whence our grizzled colonel came, and the Mexican sat and smoked and said nothing, save with his beady, brilliant eyes, as he made his yellow papers into flat cigaritas. And at nine o'clock silence and sleep fell upon us while the mules and horses champed their dry fare beside the buggy. For me the sleep of the just was my due, for I had worked hard that day. Yet I woke suddenly before the dawn, and woke all at once, refreshed and alive. It was still dark and yet I knew it was not properly night, for the time sense in me, measured healthily by refreshment, told me of the passage of time, and I arose from my blankets. As I walked out among the shadows softly my companions made no motion, and the horses whinnied coaxingly, as though I were still the guardian of their provender. The wind was cool, even cold, as it blew from the north, and on every side the vast prairie stretched like a mysterious dark green sea, with here and there a shadow heaving itself out of the infinite level. I walked lightly with a happy sense of detachment and well-being, almost with the feeling of a quiet resurrection.

Elsewhere and in cities one awakes reluctantly; the trumpet of the Angel of the Day is heard with deaf ears; but here in the keen coolness, the vast greenness, the infinite interspace of prairie betwixt city and city, I was awake and keen and cool as dewy grass, and as peaceful as the stars even before the Day blew her horn upon the verge of a far horizon. This was summer, but it was not dawn yet; the year was young even in August because this was night; and I was part of the hour and the year. It was well with the world and well with me as I left the camp and marched snuffing the air like an antelope and with as keen a joy. And as I walked I was aware again that it was not night, for there was a Day-spring in the East, a pale glow like a whitish mirage, and star by star the night departed, till I stayed and looked back to the west and saw the silent waggon under which my sleeping comrade still lay unconscious of the hour. And slowly, very slowly the Glory of the Morning broke out of bondage and covered the glory of the night until the pallor of the new-born day was fine pale gold, and the gold was under-edged with rose, and the rose grew insistently and shot upward like a great corona upon the eclipsing earth. And as I stood, balancing lightly upon my light feet, bathed with dew, I moved my lips and greeted Day without conscious words, being even as my own ancestor, who perhaps had no words of greeting. And so upon that solitude the day was born like a new miracle with only one visible worshipper, and the sun rose up like a star and was then a convexed line of fire, and presently it ate a little into the prairie; and the world was light and rose and green and very near me, so that I sighed a little and then walked back briskly to the camp and raised a loud shout, not to the sun, but to my fellow-men. For the Glory had departed and there was the work of the day to be done.

THE END

Colston & Coy. Limited, Printers, Edinburgh.