"No; I mean it. And there's fifty to bind the bargain. Never
mind the receipt. It's the rich ones that need watching, their
memories being so infernal short, you know. Here's my address.
You've got to deliver it to the railroad. And now, show me the
way out of here. I want to get up to the top."

On through the chaparral he went, following faint cattle.
trails and working slowly upward till he came out on the divide
and gazed down into Napa Valley and back across to Sonoma
Mountain... "A sweet land," he muttered, "an almighty sweet
land."

Circling around to the right and dropping down along the
cattle-trails, he quested for another way back to Sonoma Valley;
but the cattle-trails seemed to fade out, and the chaparral to
grow thicker with a deliberate viciousness and even when he won
through in places, the canon and small feeders were too
precipitous for his horse, and turned him back. But there was no
irritation about it. He enjoyed it all, for he was back at his
old game of bucking nature. Late in the afternoon he broke
through, and followed a well-defined trail down a dry canon.
Here he got a fresh thrill. He had heard the baying of the hound
some minutes before, and suddenly, across the bare face of the
hill above him, he saw a large buck in flight. And not far
behind came the deer-hound, a magnificent animal. Daylight sat
tense in his saddle and watched until they disappeared, his
breath just a trifle shorter, as if he, too, were in the chase,
his nostrils distended, and in his bones the old hunting ache and
memories of the days before he came to live in cities.