HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI, in Camping with Fox-Hounds in Southern California, Overland Monthly, February, 1892.

OCTOBER 21.

Immediately, with that short, pumping bay that tells the trail is hot, the game near, and sends the blood rushing to one’s very finger-ends, the swaying, eager line of hounds came swiftly down the rocky slope, across the gully ahead and up the other side, following, exactly, the path of the game.  One directly behind the other they went, heads well up, so strong was the scent, necks out-stretched, rumps in air, tails wagging in short, fierce strokes.  No thought had they for us, intent only on the game their noses told them must be close at hand.

HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI, in Hunting the Wild Cat in Southern California.  From Overland Monthly, March, 1892.

OCTOBER 22.

Life is a fight.  Millions fail.  Only the strong win.  Failure is worse than death.  Man’s internal strength is created by watching circumstances like a hawk, meeting her every spring stiff and straight, laughing at her pit-falls—­which in the beginning of life are excess, excess, and always excess, and all manner of dishonor.  Strength is created by adversity, by trying to win first the small battles of life, then the great, by casting out fear, by training the mind to rule in all things—­the heart, the passions, the impulses, which if indulged make the brain the slave instead of the master.  Success, for which alone a man lives, if he be honest with himself, comes to those who are strong, strong, strong.

GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in Rulers of Kings.

OCTOBER 23.

WITH THE ARIZONA COWBOYS.

The cow or steer that is selected to be roped or cut out rarely escapes.  While the horse is in hot pursuit the rider dexterously whirls his riata above his head until, at a favorable moment, it leaves his hand, uncoiling as it flies through the air, and if the throw is successful, the noose falls over the animal’s head.  Suddenly the horse comes to a full stop and braces himself for the shock.  When the animal caught reaches the end of the rope it is brought to an abrupt halt and tumbled in a heap on the ground. * * * The cowboy is out of the saddle and on his feet in a jiffy.  He grasps the prostrate animal by the tail and a hind leg, throws it on its side, and ties its four feet together, so that it is helpless and ready for branding or inspection.

J.A.  MUNK,
in Arizona Sketches.

OCTOBER 24.

So here I am—­settled at the ole Bar Y. And it’d take a twenty-mule team t’pull me offen it.  Of a evenin’, like this, the boss, he sits on the east porch, smokin’; the boys’re strung along the side of the bunk-house t’rest and pass and laugh; and, out yonder, is the cottonwoods, same as ever, and the ditch, and the mesquite leveler’n a floor; and—­up over it all—­the moon, white and smilin’.