details of the old days when Indians were not mere untidy
neighbors to be gossiped with and fed, but enemies to be fought,
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 tame the West when it
really needed taming, had somehow fathered five riotous young
males to whom fight meant fun--and the fiercer, the funnier.

He used to suck at his old, straight-stemmed pipe and regard them
with a bewildered curiosity sometimes; but he never tried to put
his puzzlement into speech. The nearest he ever came to
elucidation, perhaps, was when 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 pygmy size when one gazed down from the rim,
and so steep that one wondered how the huge, gray bowlders
managed to perch upon its side instead of rolling down and
crushing the buildings to dust and fragments. Strangers 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 from Phoebe's
pantry at night--but that is a story in itself.