The Cruise of a Schooner

by Albert W. Harris

I called over to Bob and said, “I saw it start anyway, and what you saw must have been what I saw start.”

“Gosh all hemlock!”--or something like that--I think Doc remarked; “I never saw anything with four legs run as fast before,”--and I am sure he never did, nor any one else.

I could not help laughing, although Doc seemed quite chagrined to think he had not killed the lion. I admitted he had missed the first shot, but after that no bullet could have caught up to the beast, no matter how well aimed.

After this episode nothing especially interesting happened, and we soon reached Emery, not quite three days from Salina. We must have made about thirty miles yesterday afternoon and this morning, so we feel quite satisfied that we did not go a hundred miles to get around that canyon, although I guess we were more lucky than wise.

The little Mormon settlement called Emery is scattered all over the mesa, and has plenty of water to irrigate from five to eight hundred acres, which is enough to support the town. We stopped at the hotel for dinner, just to see what it was like, and, while we had plenty to eat, we seemed to create quite a stir. We were the only guests, and unexpected at that, so the two girls who had been left in charge while the old folks were on a trip to some railroad town, were quite a bit flustered. We stayed here until four-thirty in the afternoon, walking about and looking the natives over, and incidentally waiting for the postmaster to show up. In these little, out-of-the-way places the postoffice is liable to be run by somebody who appears for duty only when the mail comes in or goes out, unless he is sent for.

I put in part of the time trying to make a horse trade in the street in front of the store. I didn’t want to trade horses, but I made the other fellow think he had come very near trading me a bay mare, about Dixie’s size, for Kate, and so I got a line on what I could buy her for; but Doc thought her a trifle too small, so when the postman arrived we disagreed on price, and parted.

After calling for our mail we started on. We had driven only about five miles when we came to some grass, which we never pass without taking toll of, and as it was about camping time anyway we turned the horses loose to graze while we made camp.

Tuesday, June 21, was quite a day. In the first place, we met a big gray wolf about one hour from camp and I shot him through the flanks with Doc’s 30-30, but missed him with two more shots before he dropped into a ravine. He was bleeding so badly that he did not go far, but as we were in a hurry and he was working up toward the mountains we concluded to let him die in peace, and so did not follow him far, although his trail was painfully plain.

Next we came to a field of white poppies. From a gray wolf’s bloody trail to white poppies does not seem odd in this desert country, although now that I am writing it the change seems rather startling. The California poppy we admired greatly, but this immense field of white ones seemed, if anything, more beautiful.

In two or three miles more we came to the top of a hill overlooking the town of Ferron. Here we had a splendid view of the mountains to the west, with a Moorish castle looking down on us, gray buttes below us, and in the distance the town of Ferron with its bright green alfalfa field, Carolina poplars, and cottonwood trees. This was such a grand color scheme that I took a picture of it, forgetting that color does not show in a photograph and that immense distances are beyond duplication by the ordinary lens, at least, and so got a very unsatisfactory picture.