rather lose a piece of my leg than my hair. So I cut her off."
"You had no surgical training? I'm astonished."
"Ma'am? What you all mean by surgical trainin'? Of course I had! I'd killed an' skinned out maybe a hundred baffler, and as many deer, to say nothing of all the other game.
"Wasn't one of us there hadn't cut arrows out of people or cleaned up bad wounds one kind or another. I'd done more cutting on animals and folks than nine out of ten surgeons. I'd cut meat and I'd cut bone maybe a thousand times since I was a youngster. Cuttin' on a man offers the same sort of problems.
"You civilized city folks live in a world a whole lot different than ours! Why, Ewing Young, him that was our leader a time or two, he was tellin' us one time how a man named Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood. We thought that was almighty funny, amusin' I mean, because every Injun on the Plains and in the woods knew all about it. Hunters for thousands of years understood, and those old priests who performed thousands of human sacrifices, do you think they didn't know? This Harvey feller, he just wrote it up for folks to read.
"I hear folks talkin' about Lewis and Clark and all they 'discovered.' Why, I talked with a Frenchman who was guide to David Thompson, the Hudson Bay man. That Frenchman had been all over that 'discovered' country ten years before!"
"Mr. Smith," Miss Nesselrode asked suddenly, "what is it like in California? Over the mountains, I mean?" He looked at her, then squatted on his haunches again, nursing the coffee. "It is the best of lands," he said quietly, "and will someday be among the greatest. Don't go there unless you can grow. That's the trouble with the Spanish folks, they've lived too easy all these years, nobody to fight, or reason to. Now some of them smart Yankees are there, things will be different.
"Me, I've been a mountain man and a trapper. Why do you think I left the East to trap for fur? Because that was where the money was! I could make more in a week, if I kept my hair, than I could make in a year back to home! That's why those other fellers come west, too. Now that folks want silk hats instead of beaver, those smart Yankees are lookin' about. They've seen Los Angeles.
"Now, you watch it change! They won't be content to ride horseback or set in the sun! Look at Wolfskill, now. I h unted and trapped with William Wolfskill. Now he's out there with grapes and oranges growin'. You see, he'll make him a fortune. Ben Wilson's there, too, and Workman, Rowland, and others.
"That country is goin' to grow! Folks who are smart are goin' to get rich, and a lot of others are goin' to set by and watch it happen.
"Get hold of some land. It will last and be there when all the rest has changed. Everything else fades with time, but the land stays there. Sure, there's floods, earthquakes, and storms, but by and large, the land stays.
"Get land for the long pull, and look about to see what folks need most and get it for them and make them pay for it.
"I'm an old man now. Never was a hand to hold t o money, anyway. I spent it all on drink and whatever, but you watch Ben Wilson, watch Wolfskill, Workman, and some of them others! Shrewd, knowin' men they be! They will make Los Angeles into a city, and all you've got to do is ride the river with them. You take it from me!"
"Thank you, Mr. Smith." She held out her hand to him.
I had never noticed how slim and beautiful her hands were.
He took it in one of his, brown and hard and strong, and he looked at it, then at her. "It was a pleasure, ma'am. A pleasure."
Suddenly he got up, walked to his horse, and without touching a stirrup, swung himself into the saddle. Then he looked back at her.
"I have a feelin' about you, ma'am. I shall come to Los Angeles sometime, just to see if I'm right."
And he rode away into the night. For a moment the firelight was on his broad back; for a moment or two after that we heard the grate of his horse's hooves on gravel, and
"You had no surgical training? I'm astonished."
"Ma'am? What you all mean by surgical trainin'? Of course I had! I'd killed an' skinned out maybe a hundred baffler, and as many deer, to say nothing of all the other game.
"Wasn't one of us there hadn't cut arrows out of people or cleaned up bad wounds one kind or another. I'd done more cutting on animals and folks than nine out of ten surgeons. I'd cut meat and I'd cut bone maybe a thousand times since I was a youngster. Cuttin' on a man offers the same sort of problems.
"You civilized city folks live in a world a whole lot different than ours! Why, Ewing Young, him that was our leader a time or two, he was tellin' us one time how a man named Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood. We thought that was almighty funny, amusin' I mean, because every Injun on the Plains and in the woods knew all about it. Hunters for thousands of years understood, and those old priests who performed thousands of human sacrifices, do you think they didn't know? This Harvey feller, he just wrote it up for folks to read.
"I hear folks talkin' about Lewis and Clark and all they 'discovered.' Why, I talked with a Frenchman who was guide to David Thompson, the Hudson Bay man. That Frenchman had been all over that 'discovered' country ten years before!"
"Mr. Smith," Miss Nesselrode asked suddenly, "what is it like in California? Over the mountains, I mean?" He looked at her, then squatted on his haunches again, nursing the coffee. "It is the best of lands," he said quietly, "and will someday be among the greatest. Don't go there unless you can grow. That's the trouble with the Spanish folks, they've lived too easy all these years, nobody to fight, or reason to. Now some of them smart Yankees are there, things will be different.
"Me, I've been a mountain man and a trapper. Why do you think I left the East to trap for fur? Because that was where the money was! I could make more in a week, if I kept my hair, than I could make in a year back to home! That's why those other fellers come west, too. Now that folks want silk hats instead of beaver, those smart Yankees are lookin' about. They've seen Los Angeles.
"Now, you watch it change! They won't be content to ride horseback or set in the sun! Look at Wolfskill, now. I h unted and trapped with William Wolfskill. Now he's out there with grapes and oranges growin'. You see, he'll make him a fortune. Ben Wilson's there, too, and Workman, Rowland, and others.
"That country is goin' to grow! Folks who are smart are goin' to get rich, and a lot of others are goin' to set by and watch it happen.
"Get hold of some land. It will last and be there when all the rest has changed. Everything else fades with time, but the land stays there. Sure, there's floods, earthquakes, and storms, but by and large, the land stays.
"Get land for the long pull, and look about to see what folks need most and get it for them and make them pay for it.
"I'm an old man now. Never was a hand to hold t o money, anyway. I spent it all on drink and whatever, but you watch Ben Wilson, watch Wolfskill, Workman, and some of them others! Shrewd, knowin' men they be! They will make Los Angeles into a city, and all you've got to do is ride the river with them. You take it from me!"
"Thank you, Mr. Smith." She held out her hand to him.
I had never noticed how slim and beautiful her hands were.
He took it in one of his, brown and hard and strong, and he looked at it, then at her. "It was a pleasure, ma'am. A pleasure."
Suddenly he got up, walked to his horse, and without touching a stirrup, swung himself into the saddle. Then he looked back at her.
"I have a feelin' about you, ma'am. I shall come to Los Angeles sometime, just to see if I'm right."
And he rode away into the night. For a moment the firelight was on his broad back; for a moment or two after that we heard the grate of his horse's hooves on gravel, and
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