The rig was of the sort usual to the better California ranches of the day, and so, perhaps, worth description.  It might best be defined as a rather wide, stiff buckboard set on springs, and supported by stout running gear.  The single seat was set well forward, while the body of the rig extended back to receive the light freight an errand to town was sure to accumulate.  An ample hood top of gray canvas could be raised for protection against either sun, wind, or rain.  Most powerful brakes could be manipulated by a thrust of the driver’s foot.  You may be sure they were outside brakes.  Inside brakes were then considered the weak expedients of a tourist driving mercenary.  Generally the tongue and moving gear were painted cream; and the body of the vehicle dark green.

This substantial, practical, and business-like vehicle was drawn by a pair of mighty good bright bay horses, straight backed, square rumped, deep shouldered, with fine heads, small ears, and alert yet gentle eyes of high-bred stock.  When the word was given, they fell into a steady, swinging trot.  One felt instinctively the power of it, and knew that they were capable of keeping up this same gait all day.  And that would mean many miles.  Their harness was of plain russet leather, neat and well oiled.

Concerning them I made some remark, trivial yet enough to start Manning.  He told me of them, and of their peculiarities and virtues.  He descanted at length on their breeding, and whence came they and their fathers and their fathers’ fathers even unto the sixth generation.  He left me at last with the impression that this was probably the best team in the valley, bar none.  It was a good team, strong, spirited, gentle, and enduring.

We swung out from the little town into a straight road.  If it has seemed that I have occupied you too exclusively with objects near at hand, the matter could not be helped.  There was nothing more to occupy you.  A fog held all the land.

It was a dense fog, and a very cold.  Twenty feet ahead of the horses showed only a wall of white.  To right and left dim, ghostly bushes or fence posts trooped by us at the ordered pace of our trot.  An occasional lone poplar tree developed in the mist as an object on a dry plate develops.  We splashed into puddles, crossed culverts, went through all the business of proceeding along a road—­and apparently got nowhere.  The mists opened grudgingly before us, and closed in behind.  As far as knowing what the country was like I might as well have been blindfolded.

From Manning I elicited piecemeal some few and vague ideas.  This meagreness was not due to a disinclination on Manning’s part, but only to the fact that he never quite grasped my interest in mere surroundings.  Yes, said he, it was a pretty flat country, and some brush.  Yes, there were mountains, some ways off, though.  Not many trees, but some—­what you might call a few.  And so on, until I gave it up.  Mountains, trees, brush, and flat land!  One could construct any and all landscapes with such building blocks as those.