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Other farmers passed our roadside door, in wagons, on buckboards, by horseback, and on foot; in neighborly tone, but with ill-disguised curiosity in their eyes, wishing me good evening.
So far she had been able to do nothing of importance on the ranch; if this scheme fell through also it would be the proverbial last straw. In spite of her intentions, she had delayed so long that the riding was very nearly ended before she arrived. Buckboards and automobiles lined the edges of the field in ragged lines, but these did not supply enough seats and many were standing.
Why, a wealthy rancher of San Andreas had actually driven to Los Angeles and back in one of those little machines! Bartley smiled. "They've come to stay, no doubt. But I can't reconcile automobiles with saddle-horses and buckboards. I shan't have an automobile snorting and snuffing through my story." "Your story!" "I really didn't mean to speak about it. But the cat is out of the bag.
"Oh yes," he said; "we are all here that is, all who know where they ought to be at the right moment." To the new-comers the scene was animated. The exotic shops sparkled with cheap specialties; landaus, pony-phaetons, and elaborate buckboards dashed through the streets; aquatic and law-tennis costumes abounded.
Either the mine had yielded exceedingly rich streaks and had been, in mining parlance, "gophered," or else the management had been as foolish as ever handled a property. In the assay-house, where the furnaces were dust-covered, the scale case black with grime, and the floor littered with refuse crucibles, cupels, mufflers, and worn buckboards, they discovered a bundle of old tablets.
The notice was short but I was surprised to find more than a hundred men assembled after dinner, many in evening clothes. Some had travelled all day on horseback or in buckboards to get there, others had come hundreds of miles by motor car. I never addressed a more responsive audience. What impressed me was the kindling spirit of affection they manifested for the Mother Country.
So they came to the schoolhouse and reached the long line of buggies, buckboards, and, most of all, saddled horses. They crowded the horse-shed where the school children stabled their mounts in the winter weather. They were tethered to the posts of the fence; they were grouped about the trees. It was a prodigious gathering, and a great affair for the mountain-desert.
And now Will felt himself quite in his element; it was a never-failing pleasure to him to guide a large party of guests over plain and mountain. From long experience he knew how to make ample provision for their comfort. There were a number of wagons filled with supplies, three buckboards, three ambulances, and a drove of ponies.
The women bargained and gossiped in Thompson's store; the men, most of them, were gathered around a stiff game of freeze-out in the Square Deal Saloon; and only the score or more of saddle horses hitched in front of the store, and the dozen or so of buckboards and road wagons parked in the rear of it, showed that Paradise was in its weekly state of mild and patient expectancy.
The Indians were riding beside us with our horses and buckboards, laughing and jeering at us with umbrellas over their heads and buffalo overcoats on. We would laugh and make them believe we were enjoying it, and my heart ready to break with grief all the time. When we camped, it was in a circle. A space in the centre being kept for dancing.
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