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It was somewhere in the seventies when old Peaceful Hart woke to a realization that gold-hunting and luo do not take kindly to one another, and the fact that his pipe and dim-eyed meditation appealed to him more keenly than did his prospector's pick and shovel and pan see old He was a silentabout it; but, like the wild things of prairie and wood, instinctively began preparing for the winter of his life Where he had lately been washing tentatively the sand along Snake River, he built a ranch His prospector's tools he used in digging ditches to irrigate his new-ain only in halting recital to his sons when they clamored for details of the old days when Indians were not ossiped with and fed, but eneht, upon occasion
They felt that fate had cheated them--did those five sons; for they had been born a few years too late for the fun Not one of them would ever have earned the title of "Peaceful," as had his father Nature had played a joke upon old Peaceful Hart; for he, the mildest-mannered man who ever helped to ta, had soht meant fun--and the fiercer, the funnier
He used to suck at his old, straight-steard them with a bewildered curiosity sometimes; but he never tried to put his puzzlement into speech The nearest he ever came to elucidation, perhaps, hen he turned from them and let his pale-blue eyes dwell speculatively upon the face of his wife, Phoebe Clearly he considered that she was responsible for their dispositions
The house stood cuddled against a rocky bluff so high it dwarfed the whole ranch to pygazed down froray bowldersdown and crushing the buildings to dust and fragers used to keep a wary eye upon that bluff, as if they never felt quite safe from its menace Coyotes skulked there, and tarantulas and "bobcats" and snakes Once an outlaw hid there for days, within sight and hearing of the house, and stole bread froht--but that is a story in itself
A great spring gurgled out froe bowlder just behind the house, and over it Peaceful had built a stonehours in cool retires to eat and to drink There was fruit cake always hidden away in stone jars, and cheese, and buttermilk, and cream