I have considered a long while, to see if I have any interesting eccentricities such as make people want to buy the books of the people who have them, but I think not. You are to figure to yourself a small, plain, brown woman with too much hair, always a little sick, and always busy about the fields and the mesas in a manner, so they say in the village, as if I should like to see anybody try to stop me. Years ago I was a good shot, but as I grew more acquainted with the ways of wild folks I found it lie heavy on my conscience and so latterly have given it up. I have a house by the rill of Pine creek, looking toward Kearsarge, and the sage brush grows up to the door. As for the villagers they have accepted me on the same basis as the weather, an institution which there is no use trying to account for. Two years ago I delivered the Fourth of July oration here, and if, when there is no minister of any sort here, as frequently happens, I go and ring the church bell, they will come in to hear me in the most natural manner. When I go out of this valley (Owens) to attend or to talk to large educational gatherings I ride 130 miles in the stage across the desert to Mojave, and the driver lets me hold the lines. Once when he said the water of Mojave made him sick, I put him inside and took the stage in from Red Rock to Coyote Holes. The other passengers who were a barber with a wooden leg, and a Londoner, head of a mining syndicate, took care of my baby. You see I was the only one who knew how to drive four horses. For a long time before I came to Independence, I lived in Lone Pine where the population is two-thirds Mexican and there gained the knowledge of their character which informs many of my stories. I should say that my husband who is Register of the U. S. Land office, is also a botanist and much of my outdoor life is by way of assisting his field work.