Presley found the one-time shepherd by a water-hole, in a far distant corner of the range. He had made his simple camp for the night. His blue-grey army blanket lay spread under a live oak, his horse grazed near at hand. He himself sat on his heels before a little fire of dead manzanita roots, cooking his coffee and bacon. Never had Presley conceived so keen an impression of loneliness as his crouching figure presented. The bald, bare landscape widened about him to infinity. Vanamee was a spot in it all, a tiny dot, a single atom of human organisation, floating endlessly on the ocean of an illimitable nature.
The two friends ate together, and Vanamee, having snared a brace of quails, dressed and then roasted them on a sharpened stick. After eating, they drank great refreshing draughts from the water-hole. Then, at length, Presley having lit his cigarette, and Vanamee his pipe, the former said:
“Vanamee, I have been writing again.”
Vanamee turned his lean ascetic face toward him, his black eyes fixed attentively.
“I know,” he said, “your journal.”
“No, this is a poem. You remember, I told you about it once. 'The Toilers,' I called it.”
“Oh, verse! Well, I am glad you have gone back to it. It is your natural vehicle.”
“You remember the poem?” asked Presley. “It was unfinished.”
“Yes, I remember it. There was better promise in it than anything you ever wrote. Now, I suppose, you have finished it.”
Without reply, Presley brought it from out the breast pocket of his shooting coat. The moment seemed propitious. The stillness of the vast, bare hills was profound. The sun was setting in a cloudless brazier of red light; a golden dust pervaded all the landscape. Presley read his poem aloud. When he had finished, his friend looked at him.