Presently he came out of the forest into a little plantation of trees made as a wind-screen, possibly for cocoa. Beyond this, he saw a cleared space in which, less than half a mile away, were the long, low white buildings of a ranch lit up as for a festival. To his right, there seemed to be ordered plantations of fruit trees in blossom: he saw long streaks of paleness which he judged to be peach trees. To the left, rather further from him, were high corrales, where pale cattle moved and lowed; he heard them stamp and push: often they rattled their horns upon the bars.
He rode nearer to the buildings, then paused to hail, crying out that he was English, and that they were not to shoot. He had no answer to any of his hails. The place was still, save for the cattle: there was not even a dog. “The men must be all at supper,” he thought, “or milking, if they milk in these parts. But it is odd that they have no dog.”
The moon, now some three or four nights old, was low down over the house, near the tops of Sierras, which glittered. “I don’t know what sort of a course I’ve been riding,” he thought, “I seem to have been going due west: or is the moon different down here? It seems to slop about all over the place.”
Leaving the moon for the moment, he rode on towards the house, calling out that he was a friend. Some shrubs, newly planted, on both sides of his track, gave out a strong sweet scent: beetles and fireflies were swarming over them with a droning of wings which made the silence the more apparent.
“Is anybody there?” he cried. “Hullo there. Don’t shoot: I am a friend. House ahoy, I’m a friend.”
By this time he was at a long white gate which had been thrust and propped open far back to its supporting posts and rails. He entered the gate, riding cautiously, still calling that he was a friend, but having no answer, and hearing no sound, save the moving of the cattle in the corrales and the buzz of insects in the shrubs.
“Not even a dog,” he repeated, “and there must be fifty men in a ranch like this. What if they are all in ambush, waiting for me to come on?”
“It’s not likely,” he thought, after a moment, “but it is possible. They may be waiting at those windows to plug me like a nutmeg grater. But if they are, they’ll wait to see who is coming with me. It feels to me as if the house were deserted.”
Beyond the gate, the way had been paven, the horse’s hoofs struck on a road; the house cast back the echoes, clink, clink, at each step. As he advanced, the young moon bobbed lower down towards the house-roof: no sound came from the house.
“Hey,” Hi called, “I am a friend, an amigo; un ami. Je suis Anglais. Ingles.”