Near the head of the valley a dirt road went off, and a sign said: “Paradise, eight miles.” They wound up a little pass, with mountains that seemed to be tumbled heaps of rock, of every size and color. There were fruit ranches, the trees now bare of leaves, with trunks calcimined white, and young trees with wire netting about them, to keep away the rabbits. The first rains of the season had fallen, and new grass was showing—the California spring, which begins in the fall.
The pass broadened out; there were ranch-houses scattered here and there, and the village of Paradise—one street, with a few scattered stores, sheltered under eucalyptus trees that made long shadows in the late afternoon light. Dad drew up at the filling station, which was also a feed-store. “Can you tell me where is the Watkins ranch?”
“There’s two Watkinses,” said the man. “There’s old Abel Watkins—”
“That’s the one!” exclaimed Bunny.
“He’s got a goat-ranch, over by the slide. It ain’t so easy to find. Was you plannin’ to get there tonight?”
“We shan’t worry if we get lost,” said Dad; “we got a campin’ outfit.”
So the man gave them complicated directions. You took the lane back of the school-house, and you made several jogs, and then there were about sixteen forks, and you must get the right one, and you followed the slide that took the water down to Roseville, and it was the fourth arroyo after you had passed old man Tucker’s sheep-ranch, with the little house up under the pepper trees. And so they started and followed a winding road that had apparently been laid out by sheep, and the sun set behind the dark hills, and the clouds turned pink, and they dodged rocks that were too high for the clearance of the car and crawled down into little gullies, and up again with a constant shifting of gears. There was no need to ask about the quail, for the hills echoed with the melodious double call of the flocks gathering for the night.
Presently they came to the “slide,” which was a wooden runway carrying water—with many leaks, so that bright green grass was spread in every direction, and made food for a big flock of sheep, which paid no attention to the car, nor to all the tooting—the silly fools, they just would get under your wheels! And then came a man riding horseback; a big brown handsome fellow, with a fancy-colored handkerchief about his neck, and a wide-brimmed hat with a leather strap. He was bringing in a herd of cattle, and as he rode, his saddle and his stirrup-straps went “Squnch, squnch,” which was a sort of thrilling sound to a boy, especially there in the evening quiet. Dad stopped, and the man stopped, and Dad said “Good evening,” and the man answered, “Evenin’.” He had a pleasant, open face, and told them the way; they couldn’t miss the arroyo, because it was the only one that had water, and they would see the buildings as soon as they had got a little way up. And as they went on Bunny said, “Gee, Dad, but I wish we could live here; I’d like to ride a horse like that.” He knew this would fetch Dad, because the man looked jist the way Dad thought a man ought to look, big and sturdy, colored brown and red like an Injun. Yes, it wouldn’t take much to persuade Dad to buy the Watkins ranch for his son!
Well, they went wabbling on down the sheep-trail, counting the arroyos, whose walls loomed high in the twilight, crowned with fantastic piles of rocks. The lights of the car were on, and swung this way and that, picking out the road; until at last there was an arroyo with water—you knew it by the bright green grass—and they turned in, and followed a still more bumpy lane, and there ahead were some buildings, with one light shining in a window. It was the ranch where Paul Watkins had been born and raised; and something in Bunny stirred with a quite inexplicable thrill—as if he were approaching the birth-place of Abraham Lincoln, or some person of that great sort!
Suddenly Dad spoke. “Listen, son,” he said. “There might be oil here—there’s always one chance in a million, so don’t you say nothin’ about it. You can tell them you met Paul if you want to, but don’t say that he mentioned no oil, and don’t you mention none. Let me do all the talkin’ about business.”