through the steep soft clay to the bottomrnand across a succession of giillevs to thernfence, where we dismounted and tiedrnup to sagebushes to eat our lunch, whilernthe cows bedded gratefully at a discreetrndistance of 50 yards. Wc ate ham andrncheese sandwiches and drank fruitrndrinks, and were concerned with dividingrna Twinkle in three pieces when thernflatbed truck and trailer arried at thernbridge. Wfe mounted quickK’, roused therncows from their nap, and drove themrnacross the highwav into the riverine cottonwoods,rnwhere Mickey and Liirda hadrnmade an improvised corral with an arrangementrnof hinged panels placed betweenrnthe rig and the fenceline. Afterrnsome effort wc drove the cattle into therncorral, then beat them with sticks of rottenrnCottonwood until they crowded intornthe trailer. As we were loading the panelsrnafter them, Dick showed up with thernsemi, and an electric cattle prod. “Thosernaren’t my cows,” he explained. “What?”rnMary asked him. “They aren’t our cows.”rn”What do you mean, not vour cows?”rnThe animals’ new winter coats had partialK’rnobscured the brands, wiiich in an-rncase we had not thought to check.rn”Well,” Mary said, “I guess we’re fired.”rnSusie thought the cows belonged to Zucotniks,rnand Nhckey and Linda agreed torntruck them back to the Thoman ranchrnand put them in a separate corral. Whoever’srncows they were, we had saved himrnthe effort of gathering them.rnI rode with Dick in his 1979 Kenworth,rnthe engine smooth and quiet afterrnmore than a million miles, and hisrneight-year-old son Ben down the GreenrnRiver to a simple-truss bridge and a corralrnclose by its western end. On the shortrntrip there, Ben described catching a twoand-rna-half pound brown trout in the riverrnbelow Fontcnelle Dam, and Dick andrnI discussed our feelings regarding BillrnClinton. Behind the bluff on the oppositernbank of the river straight plumes ofrnsteanr and smoke rose from the Rhone-rnPoulene trona plant near Big Island.rnDick made a wide turn with the semirnand backed it against the loading chuternby which his tall gray horse, unsaddled,rnstood tied. We climbed down from therncab and Ben piled after us, on his wavrnto saddle the elderlv pon’ his parentsrnhad bought him the previous fall. WhilernMan and I readied our horses Ben, withrnhis small brother mounted behind himrnon the croup, galloped up and do^’n inrnthe road spra)ing stones, his face veryrnwhite and earnest above the potbelliedrnpony’s graying patient one, until hisrnmother, having bitted her feisty bav, tookrnthe little bov from him and set him behindrnher own saddle where she alreadyrnheld the younger daughter against thernpommel.rnWe divided into two groups, Mary,rnDixie, and I riding cross country toward arndistant line of trees marking the irrigationrnditches where Dick had seen threernbulls two da s before, and Susie with therntwo children and Ben on the pony keepingrnto the river bottom in search of thernherd. It was now three o’clock in the afternoon:rna hard breeze had arisen and anrnovercast moved in, gray sky above grayrndesert. We refastened our clothes andrnrode for the most part in silence, Dixiernmaintaining the grave self-composedrndignity appropriate to 13 years old as wernsquinted against the wind for bulls. Afterrnriding for three-quarters of an hourrnwe spied a ruined headgate and reachedrnthe first of the ditches. Wide, smooth,rnand grassy in the bottoms, they maderngood windbreaks for cattle, but no cattlernsheltered there this afternoon. Upstreamrnthe Green, swollen by fall rains, flowedrntoward us in dark rippling bends,rnthrough leafless cottonwood breaks andrnthe empty xellow meadows. We turnedrnthe horses and followed it back downstream,rnMary and Dixie riding togetherrnwhile I diverged in the direction of thernriver bank, looking for cows and fightingrnthe horse who, separated fronr the others,rnwhinnied, sidestepped, spun, and finallyrncommenced to buck before I gotrnhim in control again. I picked up sevenrnhead of stragglers in the willows and togetherrnwc drove these past an abandonedrnranch at which the horse, going at a lope,rnshied and made a final and nearly successfulrnattempt at unloading me, back tornthe corral where Susie and Ben held therngathered herd in the road, waiting for us.rnWhen we had driven all the cattle intornthe corral, Mar’ and Dick began cuttingrnout the cows and loading the calvesrninto the upper compartments of thernstock trailer while Dixie held back therncows with a stick, Ben ran at the calvesrnwaving his arms and shouting, and BillrnThoman looked on from under the brimrnof his sweatstained Stetson. The grayrntwilight thickened with dust, cattlernbawled and milled, dogs jumped, andrnthe aluminum trailer rattled and banged,rnswaying on its springs, as one rufous backrnafter another clambered up the chuternand vanished inside. When the calvesrnrefused to move forward in their berth.rnSusie Thoman ran at the trailer, climbedrnhand over haird up the side of the metalrncage, and began prodding the animalsrnthrough the spaces between the slats. Itrnwas while she was doing this that I recalledrnan environmentalist nrember of arnrange conservation committee tellingrnMary that she and the other members ofrnthe Thoman family needed to get themselrnes retrained for some environmental-rnIv more acceptable line of work thanrnranching.rnRanch life is not just admirable, it isrnenviable. And it is envied, but usuallvrnnot for the right reasons. In the West,rnthe environnrentalist movenrent in general,rnand the range reform program inrnparticular, arc mainly an expression ofrnlandless activists’ jealousy and rescntnrcntrnof landowners, though they themselvesrnwould not know what to do withrnlanded property if they had it, beyondrnputting in a swimming pool and postingrnNO TRESPASSING signs. In environmentalism,rnenvironmentalists have discox’credrna means to exercise political andrnadministrative control over something tornv’hieh they can never hope to gain the legitimaternrights of ownership. Urban inrnculture and outlook, though not alv’avsrnresident in cities, thev are aggressivelyrnscornful of the virtues, satisfactions, andrnpleasures of agriculture and pastoralismrn—alienated completely from therngrounded life and culture of the AmericanrnWest. The greatest irony of environmcntalismrnis in its claim to be the swornrnenemy of modern commercial teehnoindustrialismrnand humanity’s Faustianrnambition to transcend nature, since therntypical environmentalist is not someonernwho regularly engages nature on a practicalrnor utilitarian basis, but rather onrnan aesthetic or recreational—which isrnto say, a superficial—one. He is not arnrancher, nor is he a hunter: if he is anythingrnmore than an armchair outdoorsman,rnhe is probably just a backpackerrnand a photographer. So far from acceptingrnthe traditionalist ideal of man-in-naturc,rnand the idea of human culture as arnproduct of man in his honest, active, andrnfruitful relationship with nature, he aimsrnat the abstract Enlightenment ideal ofrnman-outside-of-nature—which givesrnhim more in common with the bankrnpresidents, utilities executives. Chamberrnof Commerce members, resort developers,rnand Republican politicians he hatesrnand opposes than with the Indians,rnBushmen, Eskimos, and other huntergatherersrnhe praises and defends. crn50/CHRONICLESrnrnrn