"
"What makes you think so?" asked Bob.
"Well, Smith, he's superintendent at White Oaks, you know, he's
favourable to us. I seed him myself. And even Plant, he's sent old
California John back to look over what shape the ranges are in. There
ain't no doubt as to which way he'll report. Old John is a cattleman,
and he's square."
One day Bob found himself belated after a fishing excursion to the upper
end of the valley. As a matter of course he stopped over night with the
first people whose ranch he came to. It was not much of a ranch and it's
two-room house was of logs and shakes, but the owners were hospitable.
Bob put his horse into a ramshackle shed, banked with earth against the
winter cold. He had a good time all the evening.
"I'm going to hike out before breakfast," said he before turning in, "so
if you'll just show me where the lantern is, I won't bother you in the
morning."
"Lantern!" snorted the mountaineer. "You turn on the switch. It's just
to the right of the door as you go in."
So Bob encountered another of the curious anomalies not infrequent to
the West. He entered a log stable in the remote backwoods and turned on
a sixteen-candle-power electric globe! As he extended his rides among
the low mountains of the First Rampart, he ran across many more places
where electric light and even electric power were used in the rudest
habitations.
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