The Enchanted Hill

Book excerpt: The Enchanted Hill is a western novel by famous author Peter B. Kyne. He was born and died in San Francisco, California. More than 100 films were adapted into screenplays. Kyne created the character of Cappy Ricks in a series of novels. Excerpt: "San Onofre was accustomed to silence. It was a flag station in the heart of El Valle de los Ojos Negros, and over it and the cattle corrals and loading chute, the complaining windmill and a five-thousand-gallon water-tank kept guard. It boasted neither station agent nor station loafers; even the trains did not stop there to take on water, for the windmill and tank had been erected by the railroad company to supply water to the transient herds of cattle held in the corrals for car shipment, and for the horses and men who drove the cattle thither. Hence, except on those occasions when the cow-men who ranged in El Valle de los Ojos Negros and the public grazing lands in the forest reserve to the north and northeast drove their beef cattle in for shipment, no human voice competed in San Onofre with the zephyr, the grasshoppers, the crows and the woodpecker..."