north. Then he worked back down one or another of the nearly

parallel ranges that lie out desertward, and so down to the sink of
the Mojave River, burrowing to oblivion in the sand,--a big

mysterious land, a lonely, inhospitable land, beautiful, terrible.
But he came to no harm in it; the land tolerated him as it might a

gopher or a badger. Of all its inhabitants it has the least
concern for man.

There are many strange sorts of humans bred in a mining
country, each sort despising the queernesses of the other, but of

them all I found the Pocket Hunter most acceptable for his clean,
companionable talk. There was more color to his reminiscences than

the faded sandy old miners "kyoteing," that is, tunneling like a
coyote (kyote in the vernacular) in the core of a lonesome hill.

Such a one has found, perhaps, a body of tolerable ore in a poor
lead,--remember that I can never be depended on to get the terms

right,--and followed it into the heart of country rock to no
profit, hoping, burrowing, and hoping. These men go harmlessly mad

in time, believing themselves just behind the wall of
fortune--most likable and simple men, for whom it is well to do any

kindly thing that occurs to you except lend them money. I have
known "grub stakers" too, those persuasive sinners to whom you make

allowances of flour and pork and coffee in consideration of the
ledges they are about to find; but none of these proved so much

worth while as the Pocket Hunter. He wanted nothing of you and
maintained a cheerfulpreference for his own way of life. It was

an excellent way if you had the constitution for it. The Pocket
Hunter had gotten to that point where he knew no bad weather, and

all places were equally happy so long as they were out of doors.
I do not know just how long it takes to become saturated with the

elements so that one takes no account of them. Myself can never
get past the glow and exhilaration of a storm, the wrestle of long

dust-heavy winds, the play of live thunder on the rocks, nor past
the keen fret of fatigue when the storm outlasts physical

endurance. But prospectors and Indians get a kind of a weather
shell that remains on the body until death.

The Pocket Hunter had seen destruction by the violence of
nature and the violence of men, and felt himself in the grip of an

All-wisdom that killed men or spared them as seemed for their good;
but of death by sickness he knew nothing except that he believed he

should never suffer it. He had been in Grape-vine Canon the year
of storms that changed the whole front of the mountain. All

day he had come down under the wing of the storm, hoping to win
past it, but finding it traveling with him until night. It kept on

after that, he supposed, a steady downpour, but could not with
certainty say, being securely deep in sleep. But the weather

instinct does not sleep. In the night the heavens behind the hill
dissolved in rain, and the roar of the storm was borne in and mixed

with his dreaming, so that it moved him, still asleep, to get up
and out of the path of it. What finally woke him was the crash of

pine logs as they went down before the unbridled flood, and the
swirl of foam that lashed him where he clung in the tangle of scrub

while the wall of water went by. It went on against the cabin of
Bill Gerry and laid Bill stripped and broken on a sand bar at the

mouth of the Grape-vine, seven miles away. There, when the sun was
up and the wrath of the rain spent, the Pocket Hunter found and

buried him; but he never laid his own escape at any door but the
unintelligible favor of the Powers.

The journeyings of the Pocket Hunter led him often into that
mysterious country beyond Hot Creek where a hidden force works

mischief, mole-like, under the crust of the earth. Whatever agency
is at work in that neighborhood, and it is popularly supposed to be

the devil, it changes means and direction without time or season.
It creeps up whole hillsides with insidious heat, unguessed

until one notes the pine woods dying at the top, and having
scorched out a good block of timber returns to steam and spout in

caked, forgotten crevices of years before. It will break up
sometimes blue-hot and bubbling, in the midst of a clear creek, or

make a sucking, scalding quicksand at the ford. These outbreaks
had the kind of morbid interest for the Pocket Hunter that a house

of unsavory reputation has in a respectableneighborhood, but I
always found the accounts he brought me more interesting than his

explanations, which were compounded of fag ends of miner's talk and
superstition. He was a perfect gossip of the woods, this Pocket

Hunter, and when I could get him away from "leads" and "strikes"
and "contacts," full of fascinating small talk about the ebb and

flood of creeks, the pinon crop on Black Mountain, and the wolves
of Mesquite Valley. I suppose he never knew how much he depended

for the necessary sense of home and companionship on the beasts and
trees, meeting and finding them in their wonted places,--the bear

that used to come down Pine Creek in the spring, pawing out trout
from the shelters of sod banks, the juniper at Lone Tree Spring,

and the quail at Paddy Jack's.
There is a place on Waban, south of White Mountain, where

flat, wind-tilted cedars make low tents and coves of shade and
shelter, where the wild sheep winter in the snow. Woodcutters and

prospectors had brought me word of that, but the Pocket
Hunter was accessory to the fact. About the opening of winter,

when one looks for sudden big storms, he had attempted a crossing
by the nearest path, beginning the ascent at noon. It grew cold,

the snow came on thick and blinding, and wiped out the trail in a
white smudge; the storm drift blew in and cut off landmarks, the

early dark obscured the rising drifts. According to the Pocket
Hunter's account, he knew where he was, but couldn't exactly say.

Three days before he had been in the west arm of Death Valley on a
short water allowance, ankle-deep in shifty sand; now he was on the

rise of Waban, knee-deep in sodden snow, and in both cases he did
the only allowable thing--he walked on. That is the only thing to

do in a snowstorm in any case. It might have been the creature
instinct, which in his way of life had room to grow, that led him

to the cedar shelter; at any rate he found it about four hours
after dark, and heard the heavy breathing of the flock. He said

that if he thought at all at this juncture he must have thought
that he had stumbled on a storm-belated shepherd with his silly

sheep; but in fact he took no note of anything but the warmth of
packed fleeces, and snuggled in between them dead with sleep. If

the flock stirred in the night he stirred drowsily to keep close
and let the storm go by. That was all until morning woke him

shining on a white world. Then the very soul of him shook
to see the wild sheep of God stand up about him, nodding their

great horns beneath the cedar roof, looking out on the wonder of
the snow. They had moved a little away from him with the coming of

the light, but paid him no more heed. The light broadened and
the white pavilions of the snow swam in the heavenly blueness of

the sea from which they rose. The cloud drift scattered and broke
billowing in the canons. The leader stamped lightly on the litter

to put the flock in motion, suddenly they took the drifts in those
long light leaps that are nearest to flight, down and away on the

slopes of Waban. Think of that to happen to a Pocket Hunter! But
though he had fallen on many a wished-for hap, he was curiously

inapt at getting the truth about beasts in general. He believed in
the venom of toads, and charms for snake bites, and--for this I

could never forgive him--had all the miner's prejudices against my
friend the coyote. Thief, sneak, and son of a thief were the

friendliest words he had for this little gray dog of the
wilderness.

Of course with so much seeking he came occasionally upon
pockets of more or less value, otherwise he could not have kept up