a river a mile wide rushing down the valley:  we knew where the trees had been, by the swirling waves.  A flood is like those serpents which fascinate before they strike.  The monotonous rain failing ohne Hast, ohne Rast, the dead immutable murk of the sky, the rush of gray wave after wave, induced a state of dull lethargic wonder:  the feet—­the foot more, would it accomplish that?  Already the floor of the ranch-house was under water.  But there was soon a sufficient dashing about of riders in long yellow oil-skin coats, and all was done that the situation seemed to demand or admit of.  The culminating moment of the day came toward two in the afternoon, when we stood on the roof of the ranch-house, with our eyes glued to a sulphur-colored patch a mile up the valley.  It was a flock of sheep congregated on an unsubmerged knoll in the middle of the torrent.  There was a sudden movement in the mass, the sulphur patch vanished, and there was borne to us distinctly a long, plaintive cry:  the flock had been swept away.  In a few minutes, however, we caught sight of many of them swimming admirably, and, much to our astonishment, they found a desperate footing opposite the ranch across the swift sweep of the arroyo.  A dozen Mexicans were equal to the emergency.  They stripped, threw themselves in, stemmed the current, and, with amazing pluck and fortitude, worked about amid the submerged cactus and chaparral, which must have wounded them savagely, holding the sheep together.  Finally, after desperate urging, a wether was induced to breast the rush of the arroyo and landed safely high and dry on the hither bank, when, thanks to their disposition to follow a leader, all plunged in, and, after a vigorous push, found their perils at an end.  But the count showed some six hundred missing.

It ceased raining toward four o’clock, and the sun set in great splendor.  The next day the water had quite subsided, and I went, unsuccessfully, after plover over the bed of yesterday’s river, but the beauty of the creek had been destroyed for the season.  And farther down, where the flood had come at midnight, it had swept away many lives.

In November, when the broom on the sides of the hills was a fine pink-brown, and when the wet places which the flood had left abounded in jack-snipe and afforded the neatest shooting in the world, I turned my back upon the ranch, where I had been very prodigal of the best of riches,—­“the loose change of time.”  I did so with a warm feeling of regret,—­a feeling somewhat tempered by the thought that I should soon be in a region of homes, constant greetings, and the morning newspapers.  But after a few weeks of the morning newspapers it has been borne in upon me that a great deal is to be said for the place which does not know them.

E.C.  REYNOLDS.

THE LADY LAWYER’S FIRST CLIENT.

TWO PARTS.

I.