He was a
silent man, by occupation and by nature, so he said nothing about
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-made meadows, and his mining days he lived over
again only in halting recital to his sons when they clamored for
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.
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