“Is there any hunting there?”
“Huntin’! Now you’re talkin’. Thar’s bars an’ antelope till you can’t rest.”
“Then that’s the place I’m looking for, and I’ll ride.”
So saying Guy handed up his rifle and pack and mounted beside the man, who cracked his whip and drove off.
Mr. Wilson, for that was the man’s name, was an old miner, having immigrated in ’49. Like many others of his class, he believed that California was completely “petered out,” now that the placer diggings had failed, and he had taken to farming, not because he liked it or it was a profitable business, but because he had to do something for a living, and nothing else offered. He did not own an acre of land, but he raised any number of fine horses and cattle for market, and had one of the best paying stores in the San Joaquin valley. He had been to ’Frisco for supplies, and was now on his way home.
Guy learned this much from two hours’ conversation with his new acquaintance, and during that same time Mr. Wilson had heard all about Guy’s history and intentions. He must have had a high opinion of the boy, too, if he believed all he said, for Guy, like everybody else who tries to make himself appear something better than he really is, was a great boaster. The stories he told of the wonderful feats he had performed with his rifle, and his skill in catching and breaking wild horses, were enough to make one open his eyes.
Guy should have known better than this. He had received a lesson that ought to have broken him of his propensity to boast. He had induced Smith, the shipping agent, to rate him on the articles as an able seaman, and that one act, performed in five minutes’ time, had brought him seven long months of hazing. But Guy never thought of it now. The privations he had undergone, and the cruel treatment he had received while he was on board the Santa Maria, seemed to him like a troubled dream. Besides, Mr. Wilson would never have an opportunity to catch him in any of his falsehoods, for in a few days Guy expected to leave him, never to meet him again.
“So you’re a hunter,” said the ranchman at length. “You don’t look to me like you was made of the right kind of stuff fur that business. It takes them who has been born in it to foller it. I don’t know nobody about here who makes a livin’ at it. Even the Injuns don’t.”
“They don’t?” exclaimed Guy. “How do they make a living then?”
“Why, they work on the ranches—herd cattle an’ sheep, an’ raise garden truck. If I was goin’ to be a hunter I’d go at it right.”