The route we had chosen, a drive of about eighteen miles, was supposed to be the least steep in its ups and downs; an important consideration, with our heavy load. When we crept round the last turning and could see our hill, with its little patch of brown earth turned up, and the barn which looked like a small wooden box, we felt that our difficulties for the day were conquered. At that moment we were passing a ranch which was just being enclosed with a fence made of narrow laths wired together; these were lying in large bundles at intervals all along the road for a distance of about a quarter of a mile. To our dismay, when Dan reached the first of these bundles, he put back his ears and gave a sudden and most violent shy, almost lurching the surrey over, and then stood trembling, his legs planted apart in an obstinate manner, and absolutely refused to move an inch further. We tried coaxing, then whipping, till Dan showed us his heels in a series of most vicious kicks, higher and higher, till we feared he would break some part of the harness, or the surrey itself. Eventually he did allow himself to be slowly coaxed past, I making myself as broad as possible to try and screen that side of the road, and leading him, and my husband checking his evident desire to bolt after each separate bundle was left behind. By this time it was grey twilight, and when we reached our haven, we had to be satisfied with the simplest arrangements possible for the night. As we were occupying the rooms which by rights belonged to the horses, they had to be staked out on the open hillside, and during the night Joe managed to get loose and went careering off, up and down and round the barn, so that we were awakened by the clattering of his hoofs. It was a brilliant starlit night, perfectly still and mild, and all the family turned out in their night gear to help to catch him and fasten him up again. It was a curious sensation to be so absolutely alone, and free, with nothing but the great ranges of big bare mountains lying spread out into the far distance. The absolute stillness was very weird; the smallest sound from miles around reached us in the calm quiet. The plaintive call of the little brown owls had a sad uneasy ring in it, and the coyote’s mocking yelp seemed most uncomfortably near. The mountain ranges looked so calm and stately and unreachable in the cold clear moonlight, and we felt horribly lonely. There was one cañon some four miles away, across the Silvero Valley, called Mexican Cañon, and we wondered uneasily whether Indians and Mexicans lived there; for we seemed to be on the very borders of civilisation. When we got to know the neighbourhood better, we found nothing but peaceable ranches, and more ranches far back into the hills.