broke the harness and the whole team became unmanageable and got away from him. He let them go and started toward the house, pouring out a steady stream of oaths as he went. Just at the gate he met the boss and greeted him with, 'I'll see that team in Hell before I'll ever draw another line over their backs.' Funson asked him what was the trouble, and Pete said, 'that off mule has been raising hell, and the Devil has got into 'em all, breaking the harness and running away.' The boss told Pete not to make a fool of himself, but to go back to the field and get his team together. Pete said, 'I'll see you in Hell before I'll ever touch that team again. You haven't a well broke team on the ranch for a man to handle. You buy a lot of half-broken, bucking, balky teams because you can get 'em cheap. You don't care how much hell it gives a man to drive 'em.' Funson told him to go and hunt up some cattle, and sent another man to drive the mules. It's an actual fact, father, that if a man had told the boss in polite and correct language what had happened to the team, he would have stared in utter astonishment and surprise."

"Quite true, my son, quite true," said the old gentleman.

"The man that took Pete's place," continued Charles, "drove the team two days and that let him out. Then I came along and got the job. Didn't Pete laugh when he came through the field with a bunch of cattle and saw me trying to take the contrariness out of the leaders. He called out, 'Give 'em hell, give 'em hell!'

"When I came up to the barn at night, Pete was there putting up his broncho, and he greeted me with, 'Well, Charles, how do you like your job?'

"I said I wasn't stuck on it.

"'It's hell, ain't it?' said he; then added, 'the only way you can ever get that team to pull steady is to get right in and cuss 'em good; they are broke to cussing.'

"After supper the boys got together in the barn and played cards for two hours. When they were tired of card-playing, they interested each other by telling yarns about experiences with women, each striving to make his story more thrilling than the last, and this entertainment continued until they were ready to spread out their blankets and sleep.

"It is pretty cold sleeping in a barn December nights, even in our California climate; but, as you know, there are few ranches where the men are allowed to sleep in the house.

"I had to be up before it was light in the mornings and clean off those mules, feed and harness them, and then have my breakfast. After breakfast, just as it was getting light, we started to work. The mornings were very cold. About dark I would bring my team in and by the time I had unharnessed them, fed them, and had my supper, I was ready for bed.

"After a man has put all his energy into a long, hard, tedious day's work, he feels more like a worn-out old plug than a man. He has no surplus force left to expend in elevating mental pursuits, for it has been all exhausted in severe physical labor.

"Such labor continually kept up, has a tendency to dull what few good aspirations a man may have had to bring his animal nature under control. Therefore, after such a day's work, if he has any desires, they are those of the brute, and it is no wonder that men should want something of a sensational, exciting nature at night to keep their minds off themselves and relieve the monotony of their toil.

"Well, father, I did lots of thinking when night came, about such subjects, and came to some very decisive conclusions; but to return to my story.

"One night when I was taking the harness off him, the near leader kicked me on the leg. The pain was so severe that I scarcely slept any that night. They say a mule will be good and gentle in the barn three hundred and sixty-four days in the year, for the sake of getting a chance to kick a man on the three hundred and sixty-fifth day, and I believe it is so.

"After dinner one day, we had just left the house when one of the men said, 'Didn't the old woman give the boss hell, this noon? I tell you she's got a temper.' 'Yes,' said Pete, 'but she's not very old, not forty yet. She's always firing up about something; she keeps him in hell most of the time. The trouble is,' continued he, 'he's got nothing broke on his ranch; his mules are not broke, his broncho cows are not broke, his wife is not broke, and the old cuss himself is not broke.'

"After enduring all the torment and petty aggravation that a man could stand for three months, I left and went to work at the White Oak Ranch. The boss there set me to grubbing out oaks, and I can assure you it was a relief after driving those mules.

"The third night I was at this place, I was the last to join the men at the barn, and when I got there I found the teamsters, George and Harry, making the air blue with oaths. They were giving it to the boss because he would not get new harnesses, the old ones being mended all over with wire and baling rope and the lines rotten. Harry's leaders had broken their lines twice that day, it seemed, and he had nearly lost control of them in consequence. 'The old fool keeps a-promising and a-promising to get new harness,' said George, 'but he never gets it; and he hasn't got a harness on his whole darn ranch that's worth a whoop in hell.' 'My old plugs broke their harness five times to-day,' said Harry. 'Since I've been here, the teams have done more damage and lost more than would pay for a new harness ten times over.'

"When I had been there about a month, the hot weather began to come on, and the feed to dry up, and I had to help clean the ditches out, ready for irrigating. It was a big job, so many willows to grub out, and it took much longer to finish it because we were so constantly called away to drive out cattle and hogs that had broken into the orchard and grain fields. You see, the feed was getting scarce, there was more stock than there was feed for, and the fences were very shaky. The boss kept talking about new fences, but he never had them built, he was satisfied with patching the old ones.

"Well, we got the ditches cleaned out and commenced to irrigate, using all the water we could get. I was one to help irrigate and look after the ditches. The work would have been really pleasant if we could only have kept the band of hogs out. They would get in after the green feed and break the ditches, causing the water to wash the soil away. That band of hogs began to torment me as much as the mules had done. They were so hungry you could not keep them out. I didn't blame them, poor, lank, starved creatures, for getting in and getting something to eat. I would have done the same in their case.

"At last the boss thought he would shut them up in the barnyard and feed them. Well, he had forty starved hogs shut up, and he gave them about as much food each day as ten hogs could eat. Of course, they became like a pack of wolves, and it was all a man could do to get through the yard. Forty hogs would come all around him, squealing and yelling as though they were being butchered, and you had to keep moving lively or they would bite your legs. Henderson, one of the men, told me they ate up four cats and three kittens and more chickens than had been on the table for a year.

"One Sunday morning, after breakfast, I commenced to wash my shirt and overalls, when Henderson called to me, 'Cattle in the peach orchard!' Now, at the further end of the peach orchard there were a hundred nice young trees, covered with tender foliage, looking fine. It seems the cattle got into the orchard in the night and ate all the growth off them, so they looked just like sticks. It really was a shame to see such fine trees damaged in that way, but the boss would not take time to build a good fence around them. That afternoon I went to lie down in the barn; it was hot, the