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How slight is the evidence on which men base their gloomy conclusions! The pessimist always argues from a single instance to a general law. If he strikes a poor peach on top he throws the whole basket away or sells them as soon as he can. He insists on sitting square on the cactus bunch when there is only one on the whole bench-land. He then becomes an authority on cactus.
They can do just as much harm and a darn sight more. You make me sick." "Let 'em go," Weary advised calmly. "They'll be a lot sicker when the ladies discover what they've helped do to that bench-land. Come on, boys let's pull out, away from all these lunatics.
Many times that day he stood at the corner of his shack with the glasses sweeping the bench-land. Toward noon the cattle drifted into a coulee where there was water. In a couple of hours they drifted leisurely back upon high ground and scattered to their feeding, still watched and tended by the two horsemen who looked the most harmless of individuals.
The days went by; the pack-trains jingled down out of the hills; the processions of heavy wagons lumbered up from the San Joaquin valley enwrapped in clouds of red dust; an endless stream of men flowed into the town on its bench-land above the cañon where the river brawled. Men from all the world, they came and went, and the milling crowds absorbed those who lingered, nor heeded who they were.
As he topped at last the final rise which put him on a level with the great undulating bench-land gashed here and there with coulees and narrow gulches that gave no evidence of their existence until one rode quite close, he lifted his head and gazed about him half regretfully, half proudly.
Glory challenged once again and struck out eagerly, galloping lightly in spite of the miles he had covered. Far back on the bench-land came faint answer to his call, and Weary laughed from sheer relief. By the stars the night was yet young, and he grew hopeful almost complacent. Glory planted both forefeet deep in the prairie sod and skidded on the brink of a deep cut-bank.
About two miles from town, upon the high bench-land which lay above the waters in the river, stood a hut. It was built of unhewn logs, and had a mud roof. Stretches of sagebrush desert reached in every direction from it. A few acres of cleared land lay near by, its yellow stubble drinking in the rain. A horse stood under a shed. A pile of sagebrush with ax and chopping block lay in the yard.
Evening came on and still it rained. A woman often appeared at the door of the hut, and a pale, anxious face peered out into the twilight. She looked out over the bench-land and then up to the mountains. Through the clouds which hung around their summits, she could see the peaks being covered with snow. She looked at the sky, then again along the plain.
They had already talked over a tentative plan of bringing water to their desert claims, and had ridden over the bench-land for two days, with the plat at hand for reference, that they might be sure of choosing their claims wisely. They had prepared for every contingency save the one that had arisen which is a common experience with us all.
In April almost two years to a day after the monte-dealer had left his job at Murphy's Diggings six Mexicans came riding into the town of Mokelumne Hill, which lies on a bench-land above the river.
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