They had been dropping down a slope scattered with gray lava chunks and set with spiked soapweed, which let them to the river level. Ahead of them, twisted cottonwoods and red willows marked the brink of the stream.
“This is the first bench,” said Smith, “and it’s mainly good land. Before the books was opened for registration the gover’ment give the Indians choice of a homestead apiece, and they picked off all this land down here. Oh, well, on up the river they’s a little left, and 70 if I draw a low number I know where to put my hand on a piece.”
“It looks nice and green here,” said she, admiring the feathery vegetation, which grew as tall as the stage along the roadway.
“Yes, but you want to watch out for greasewood,” advised Smith, “when you come to pick land in this country. It’s a sign of alkali. Pick that gray, dusty-lookin’ stuff. That’s sage, and where it grows big, anything’ll grow when you git the water on it.”
“But how do you get the water on this hilly land?” she asked.
The question had been troubling her ever since she had taken her first look at the country, and nobody had come forward with a satisfactory explanation.
“You got to go up the river till you strike your level,” explained Smith, “and then you tap it and take the water to your land.”
“But if you’re on the ‘third bench’ that I hear them talking about so much–then what do you do up there, a thousand or two feet above the river?”
“You go back where you come from if you’re wise,” said Smith.
When they reached the section which, according to Smith, had not all been taken up by the Indians already, the party got out occasionally for closer inspection of the land. The men gravely trickled the soil through their fingers, while the women grabbed at the sweet-smelling herbs which grew in abundance everywhere, 71 and tore their sleeves reaching for the clusters of bullberries, then turning red.