The long avenue of cottonwoods up to the bungalow seemed to be filled with about equal parts of mosquitos and Jersey cows. Doubtless the mosquitos were much the more numerous. But because it hurts more to hit a running cow than a flying insect I probably was impressed with the Jerseys out of all proportion to their actual numbers. A dash through a "No-Man's-Land" of smouldering smudges and I burst into a Haven of Refuge at the bungalow door. A genial chap with a steady smile met me as I emerged from the smoke, complimented me upon the smartness of my open-field running among the Jerseys, and opined that I must have been a pretty shifty fullback in my day. A youth in greasy overalls who came wiggling out from under a Ford he introduced as "My hired man." But when the latter blushed and protested: "Now there you go again, dear!" he admitted that it was only his wife. They promptly insisted I should have supper, while I had considerable difficulty in making them believe I had a galley functioning in my boat. We finally compromised on ice-cream and strawberries. All the ranchers along the lower Yellowstone and upper Missouri have ice-houses. They were just the kind of folk one knew he would have to find in a haven called "Ranch of the Heart's Desire." Their name was Patterson, and they had lived most of their lives in Washington--in some kind of departmental service. Becoming tired--or perhaps ashamed--of working six hours a day, they bought a ranch under the Yellowstone project ditch and started working sixteen. So far they had been spending rather more money than they had made but, like all on the threshold of bucolic life, looked confidently to a future rainbow-bright with prospects. They confessed that it awakened a wee bit of nostalgia to meet one who had been in Washington, and so it chanced that it was of "Things Washingtonese" that we talked rather than of our experiences as farmers. There was something strangely appealing to the imagination in sitting there where the bison in his millions had so lately trod and putting everything and everybody at the Primal Fount in their proper places. Long into the night we rattled on just as though over a table at the Shoreham, the New Williard or Chevy Chase--just as we would have talked in Washington. Knocking Wilson whenever any other subject was exhausted, we bemoaned the predominance of third-class men in Congress, agreed that Harding wouldn't do much harm and might do good, swapped yarns about the funny things Congressmen's wives had said and done, and passed by acclamation a motion that the most unrepresentative institution in America was the House of Representatives. It was highly refreshing to meet people you could be really frank with in discussing the more or less esoteric phases of these and kindred subjects. I enjoyed that evening's yarn only less than I did my couch on a breeze-swept porch that was armoured with a woven copper mesh against the assaults of the common enemy.