all, and we had to take turns in beating him up to the top. We boys
walked for exercise, which we got to our hearts' content.

It is only five or six miles from the old Mountain Mill (a picture of
which Jack will send you), and the ascent is pretty stiff climbing,
though nothing terrific. We lost the trail once, and floundered
about in the chaparral for half an hour, till Bell began to make a
poem on the occasion, when we became desperate, and dashed through a
thicket of brush, tearing ourselves to bits, but stumbling on the
trail at last. The view from the top is simply superb. The valleys
below are all yellow with grain-fields and green with vineyards, with
here and there the roofs of a straggling little settlement. The
depression in the side of the mountain (you will observe it in the
picture) Polly says has evidently been 'bitten out' by a prehistoric
animal, and it turns out to be the loveliest little canyon
imaginable.

We have had one novel experience--that of seeing a tarantula fight;
and not between two, but five, tarantulas. We were about twenty
miles from camp, loping along a stretch of hot, dusty road. Jack got
off to cinch his saddle, and so we all stopped a moment to let our
horses breathe. As I was looking about, at nothing in particular, I
noticed a black ball in the deep dust at the side of the road. It
suddenly rolled over on itself and I called to the boys to watch the
fun. We got off, hitched our horses, and approached cautiously, for
I had seen a battle of the same kind before. There they were--five
huge, hairy, dirty, black creatures, as large as the palm of Dicky's
hand, all locked in deadly combat. They writhed and struggled and
embraced, their long, curling legs fastening on each other with a
sound that was actually like the cracking of bones. It takes a