The California Poppy
"Years have gone by since the last vaquero, Spanish horse and longhorn steer passed from the soil of California into the pages of history. Only memories of them remain with a few old men whose ranks are thinned year by year and whose tales of the old days are stilled as, one by one they leave us. In a little while these survivors of a day now gone forever will be gathered to their fathers and posterity could be without a record of the vaquero. Since children of these men have failed to recoginze the historical value of the recollections of the old people, a time could well come when scholars would search in vain for accounts of lost legends, folklore and customs of this colorful period of California's past, the saga of the vaquero."
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"The wolves grouped in front of the old mare and rushed at her. They had pulled her to her knees when we heard a loud bray and then approaching hoofbeats. Charging around the hill with head along the ground, ears laid back, teeth bared, mouth wide open and braying in a high pitched scream came a burro manadero, breeding jack, and fell upon the wolves. They ran off over a hill and we saw them no more." ...
