A la California - Chapters VI-VIII



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CHAPTER VI. IN THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO. 
Cosmopolitanism of San Francisco.--Its Street Panoramas and Pictures and 
Sounds.--An Autumn Morning.--The "Barbary Coast."--The Chinese 
Missionary.--Factory Hands on Holiday.--Funeral of Ah Sam.--A Chinese 
Faction-fight.--An Equestrian Outfit.--The Poundmaster's Van.--General 
Stampede: its Cause and its Course.--The Pine-apple Plant.--The Passers-
by. 

COSMOPOLITAN, in the fullest acceptation of the term, above that of any 
other city of America, perhaps of the world, is the population of this 
goodly City of San Francisco, the metropolis of an empire in the near 
future, of the wealth and grandeur of which we of to-day have hardly yet 
commenced to dream. Here on the Shore of the blue, illimitable Pacific, 
the human tides circling around the globe from east and west, from Europe 
and the Atlantic slope of America, from Asia, the isles of the ocean, 
Australia, and farthest Africa, meet and commingle with a deep, incessant 
roar, even as the waves from the shores of China, Japan, and the Spice 
Islands meet the floods from the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, at her 
Golden Gate, and burst in thundering surf on the frowning rocks of Point 
Lobos and Point Bonita. 

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One may wander far and wide over the earth without finding another such a 
motley crowd as that which on a pleasant evening pours in a living stream 
through Kearney or Montgomery Street. Natives of the soil of every State 
in the Union, Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen, Welshmen, French, Germans, 
Italians, Greeks, Russians, Swedes, Norwegians, Lapps, Fins, Portuguese, 
Spaniards, Mexicans, Panamenos, Chilenos, representatives from every 
Central and South American Country, Canadians, Chinese, Japanese, and 
Kanakas, abound; and here and there in the throng, at wider intervals, you 
may at times see the supple, silent little Lascar, or Hindoo, gliding 
stealthily and serpent-like through the throng; or note the tall turban of 
the Parsee, or Persian, merchant, who is waiting for the steamer of the P. 
M. S. S. Co. to bear him back to the shores of Asia; or the red fez of the 
Turk or Algerine, as he wanders dreamily along, unconsciously lending his 
assistance in making up the wonderful panorama unrolling itself before 
you. 

In walking two blocks you may hear every leading language of Europe, Asia, 
and America spoken, and see every type of female beauty, from the blonde 
of the north to the brunette of the sunny South, the dull, almond-eyed 
daughter of the Celestial Empire to the olive-hued seorita with eyes of 
liquid flame, from Andalusia or Tropical America. The ever-changing scene 
is always one of interest, and often at the most unexpected moment one may 
witness incidents and gaze upon sights such as could not be observed 
elsewhere in America. 

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It is a glorious autumn morning, when the summer trade-winds have spent 
their force and ceased for the season, and the winter rains have not yet 
commenced: Sunday, and the whole population is abroad on the streets; 
churchward bend the few; in search of pleasure the many. Passing along 
Stockton Street, we hear the strains of the organ and the voices of the 
choir, in the Christian temple, mingling with the babel of many tongues on 
the street, and the rattle arid roar of fireworks, and the shrill sounds 
of the gong, in the Courtyard of the temple of Buddha or Foh, where "the 
heathen in his blindness," etc., almost under its very eaves, and beneath 
the shadow of the Cross, and turn down towards the "Barbary Coast," where 
thieves, murderers, prostitutes, and vagabonds from every clime beneath 
the sun meet and mingle on a common level, and vice, and crime, and 
wretchedness, and moral and physical degradation unutterable are stamped 
on the face of every denizen of the evil neighborhood, marking him or her 
as an outcast, a leper, a pariah, among the children of men. 

A narrow alley, inclosed by high brick buildings cut into innumerable 
small tenements, and swarming with Chinese men and women of the lower 
class, runs through the centre of a Square or block, from one street to 
another. This alley is a study for the student of humanity. At its 
southern entrance a dozen or twenty persons, all Chinese, male and female, 
are gathered around a box upon which stands a neatly-clad Chinaman, who 
holds an open book in Chinese characters in his hand, and is expounding 

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the story of the Man of Sorrows, and the mystery of the crucifixion, the 
resurrection, and the plan of salvation to the listless, indifferent 
audience. His manner is quiet but earnest, and to us, at first, 
impressive; but there is a smile of mocking incredulity, or the blank look 
of utter apathy, on the face of every hearer, and we find ourselves 
insensibly falling into the line of doubting not only that the listeners 
really have souls to be saved, but even that the preacher believes that 
they have, or in fact feels within himself any deep and abiding interest 
in the question one way or the other. 

Farther down the alley, a party of Chinese cigar-makers and factory-
operatives, on holiday, are playing a curious game of shuttlecock, 
catching the bat upon their heels, knees, elbows, hands, or heads, as it 
may chance, and keeping it bounding into the air, and from one player to 
another, without ever stopping or touching the ground, for half an hour at 
a time. The crowd of spectators of various nationalities is much larger 
here than around the preacher at the entrance of the alley. 

But down at the lower end of the alley, near Jackson Street, the largest 
crowd is gathered and the greatest interest centres. Elbowing our way into 
the circle of spectators, we manage to gain a view of the ceremonies going 
on within. In the middle of the alley upon low trestles stands a richly 
mounted rosewood coffin; and all around it "joss sticks," or little 
colored wax candles, and sticks of incense, supported by slips of rattan 
stuck in the earth or the cracks of the planking, are burning. At the 

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foot of the coffin stands a long table covered with a white cloth, and 
literally loaded with the materials for a Chinese feast. At the head of 
the table is a tall pyramid of pink and white rice-cakes, choice fruits, 
confectionery, gold tinsel ornaments, and flowers. Next comes a huge 
platter, upon which rests a hog roasted whole, and fancifully adorned, 
flanked by a chicken and a duck fashioned, with a strange, perverted 
ingenuity, into the semblance of grotesque, half-human figures, and at the 
lower end there is a sheep also roasted whole, with a crown of the native 
wool, fancifully cut and trimmed, still adorning the head. A multitude of 
little dishes, Containing sauces and condiments, are scattered over the 
table as adjuncts to this feast of the dead. A tall young Chinaman, who is 
either priest or chief mourner,--we are in doubt which,--stands by the 
head of the table and directs the ceremonies. He is clad in a simple 
narrow robe of common unbleached white cotton sheeting, confined at the 
waist with a girdle of the same material, and has a strip of the same 
goods bound around his head. Three assistants, each similarly clad, are 
ranged alongside the coffin, and at intervals they kneel and bring their 
foreheads down to the dust, wailing forth their grief--real or simulated: 
the latter probably--in unison, chanting what may be a dirge, or a prayer, 
or a hymn of praise, in the highest key on the scale, while a band, 
consisting of half a dozen players on the Chinese clarionet, and its 
variations, one-stringed fiddle, and the indispensable, inevitable, 
clanging gong, standing around the head of the coffin, fill the 

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air with wild, barbarous music, in which the average Caucasian ear fails 
to catch even the faintest under strain of genuine melody. Chinese women 
with painted faces, silk and satin garments, and lustrous blue-black hair, 
wonderfully dressed and adorned, look on and laugh and chatter like so 
many parrots. Chinese artisans in holiday costume smoke their cigars, and 
coolly comment on the ceremonies and the performers, while Americans, 
Europeans, and negroes look in and drop out of the crowd, the scene being 
too common to them to possess more than a momentary interest. A reporter, 
note-book in hand, climbs into a window from which he can overlook the 
crowd, and jots down, "Funeral of Ah Sam, boss Chinese cigar-maker, China 
Alley--died of Consumption, induced by opium smoking," jumps down, and is 
off in search of something more sensational; and we follow him. 

The Chinese Theatre fronts on Jackson Street, nearly opposite the alley 
from which we have just emerged. There is a large gathering of the lower 
class of Chinamen, all in dark-blue clothing, around the outer doors, and 
a deep excitement pervades the surging mass. There is some trouble between 
two of the leading Chinese clans or companies, and' the factions have met 
before the theatre by accident or design, to discuss the question of the 
day. The women keep awe from the crowd, and a number of well-dressed 
Chinamen, evidently of the mercantile class, stand some distance away, 
watching the progress of events with evident anxiety. Suddenly the tide of 
angry discussion 

[image caption: CATCHING A RUNAWAY.]

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rises higher; harsh voices, pitched to their highest key, convey epithets 
of infamous import back and forth; there is a rush one way, and a 
scattering in all the others, and a lively fight has commenced. We see 
hats knocked off catch glimpses of steel bars swung into the air above the 
heads of the excited mass, see here and there the glinting of short 
swords, brandished with desperate earnestness of intent, and hear the low 
thud, thud, thud, of the heavy bars falling on naked scalps. Then a pistol 
rings out sharp and clear above the din, and there is another scattering 
of the combatants, just as, in answer to the shrill whistles blown long 
and loud by outside spectators, the police arrive on the run, and knocking 
right and left with their heavy lignumvit clubs and the butts of their 
revolvers, beat their way through the crowd and arrest the luckless devil 
who has just been knocked down, beaten, and shot through the shoulder, and 
now lies bleeding and helpless on the sidewalk, and hurry him and the 
witnesses away to the calaboose. 

As the officers and their. prisoner hurry along Kearney Street toward the 
City Hall, they divide the attention of the crowds on the sidewalks for 
the moment with a slender, black, little Mexican, with a thin, sharp face 
and long moustache, through which his white teeth show, and over which his 
dark eyes flash with a peculiar Mephistophelean effect, attired in full 
Spanish-American costume, broad sombrero, short, embroidered jacket, with 
silver buttons, wide, slashed buckskin pants, looped up with silver 
lacings at the sides, and long, inlaid 

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Spanish spurs, which jingle like a string of little bells, riding on a 
fiery little pinto horse, which has the artificial paser gait, trotting 
with the fore legs and galloping with the hind ones, so much prized by gay 
caballeros who daily ride out on the paso in his native city of the 
Montezuma. The headstall is of fine braided hair, and consists of a single 
strap passing from the bit on either side up to the ears, where it is 
split to pass on both sides of those organs, to keep it from slipping 
off,--no forehead-band, curb-strap or throat-latch being used,--and united 
by a broad silver button at the top of the head. The terrible Spanish bit, 
at which the high-spirited little steed chafes and champs incessantly 
until the foam flies right and left from his quivering mouth, is plated 
with silver; and silver chains attach it to the long, braided hair rein, 
terminating in a whip, which the rider whirls carelessly around in the air 
as he rides gayly along with affected indifference to the sensation he is 
creating. The high pommel of the Spanish saddle is covered with silver; 
the long tapaderos, which cover and depend, from the stirrups, are tipped 
with the same metal, and the whole saddle is elaborately embossed and 
ornamented. Behind the crupper is an embroidered baquerillo, with sides of 
llama skin with long, glossy, black wool hanging down almost to the 
ground. It is "an outfit" which would make a sensation in Hyde Park or the 
Central, and always attracts the admiring attention of strangers as it 
passes along the streets of San Francisco. 

Early on a week-day morning you may see another of the specialties of San 
Francisco,--the 

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poundmaster's van and its attendants,-a van with open sides, through which 
may be seen the heads of luckless, unlicensed dogs and goats, and 
occasionally a pet pig or lamb, drawn by two horses driven leisurely along 
by a fat and happy-looking assistant dog-pelter, by whose side sits a 
Mexican or native Californian half-Indian vaquero, with his long, rawhide 
rieta coiled ready for instant use in his hand. Beside the van rides 
another vaquero on horseback ready for the chase; and behind rides, on 
horseback, a policeman with star and baton exposed, ready to arrest 
anybody guilty of interfering with the operations of the dog ordinance of 
the city and county of San Francisco, and the statutes of the State "in 
such cases made and provided." 

As the van jolts along over the rough cobble pavement the imprisoned 
canines give vent to mournful howls, on hearing which every unlicensed but 
"posted" dog on the street takes to his heels and flees from the 
neighborhood as from a pestilence, while the licensed cur, with the tax-
collector's tag upon his collar, comes boldly up to the vehicle ln perfect 
consciousness of security, and howls defiance at the persecutors of his 
race. 

A Frenchwoman of no uncertain social status is passing along the street at 
the moment, with a King Charles spaniel snugly ensconced in her arms and a 
sprightly black-and-tan running along by her side. There is no tag on the 
neck of either dog, a fact which the poundmaster's assistants comprehend 
at a glance, and the vaquero on the driver's seat jumps down on the 
instant and darts toward them. The 

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woman sees the peril of her pets, and attempts to catch up the black-and-
tan also in her arms; but the rieta comes spinning through the air, and 
the fatal noose is around his neck before her hand has touched him. In the 
effort to grasp him as he is jerked away she drops the spaniel also, and 
in the fraction of a second the mounted vaquero whirls the rieta around 
his head and sends it straight as an arrow at the little fellow, lassoes 
him at the first attempt, and lands him. half way into the middle of the 
street with the recoil of the rieta, as a boy would land a perch or chub, 
at the end of his line, on the bank of a stream. There is a wild outcry on 
the part of the woman, an indignant appeal for help to the unsympathetic 
bystanders, a tearful and angry dispute with the smiling driver of the 
van, and finally the excited woman pays over ten dollars in coin,--five 
dollars for each pet,--receives a mild caution not to let them be caught a 
second time without the license-tag on their collars, and moves hurriedly 
away, breathing maledictions long and loud upon the devoted heads of the 
poundkeeper and all his assistants and the makers of the infamous laws, 
which thus tear the heartstrings out of a poor woman and rob her of her 
hard-earned dollars. 

A wilder excitement, something more peculiarly Californian, and as such 
more keenly enjoyed by the excitement-loving San Franciscans, follows 
close upon the last. Shouts of warning, the fall of goods piled up in 
front of Kearney Street stores and shops, the banging of doors, and the 
rattle of many 

[image caption: THE POUNDMASTER'S VAN.]

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feet upon the sidewalk, announce the presence of physical danger and the 
commencement of a general stampede. Out of Pacific Street into Kearney, 
with head erect, glaring eyes, and nostrils wide distended with rage, 
terror and fatigue, rushes a wild, long-horned, Spanish steer, which has 
broken away from a drove being landed at North Beach, and, Malay-like, is 
running a muck through the city, to the imminent peril of life and limb of 
every person he meets on his way.' The frightened and infuriated animal 
dashes madly at every living object which attracts his attention, knocks 
down and tramples upon several persons not fleet enough to escape him, and 
is only prevented from goring them to death with his long, sharp horns, by 
the shouts and execrations of his pursuers, two swarthy, Mexican vaqueros, 
mounted and equipped like the poundmaster's assistant, who are all the 
time close upon him, endeavoring to head him off and turn him back or 
capture him at the first opportunity. Dashing full tilt at a passing 
vehicle, the steer recoils half-stunned from the shock, and in an instant 
the lasso, hurled by one of the vaqueros, is around his head under the 
horns, and the other has caught him in a similar manner by one of the hind 
legs. One of the vaqueros, with a deep-drawn "C-a-r-a-j-o!" swings his 
excited pony-steed sharply half around in one direction, the other swings 
his in the opposite; there is a sharp thud as each rieta straightens like 
a bowstring, and the steer goes down heavily in the dust. He struggles 
madly in the toils for an instant, but in less time than it takes to write 
this, or to read it, 

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one of the poundmaster's assistants is by his side, throwing his rieta 
around him in every direction, as he twists and turns, until his limbs are 
securely bound like those of a fly in the web of a spider, and he lies 
panting, bruised, bleeding, and helpless on the pavement. Such scenes as 
this are now less common in San Francisco than a few years since, but they 
may still be witnessed occasionally, and add something to the charm of 
life in the Golden City. 

In a window on Kearney Street a pineapple plant, in full bearing, with the 
ripe, luscious fruit in perfection upon the top, is on exhibition as an 
advertisement of a famous suburban garden where it was raised under cover. 
As the crowd drifts idly along, one and another turn to look at the glory 
of the tropics with a casual remark. A party of young Spanish-American 
girls pause longer, and speak in low, soft tones of the memories called up 
by it. As they too turn to go, a yellow negress, from Panama, Peru, or one 
of the Spanish West India Islands, clad in a long, loose gown of gaudy-
hued calico, with a scarlet handkerchief of rich China silk bound around 
her head, forming a turban, and loose, slipshod slippers on her feet, 
lazily puffing away at a cigarrito which she holds daintily between her 
thumb and forefinger of the left hand, waddles up before the window and 
looks in. "Ah, Dios mio! Dios mio! Hijo de mi pais!" she exclaims, 
clapping her hands in sudden excitement, every trace of listless 
indifference gone in an instant. Pouring forth a volume of broken English 
and provincial Spanish 

[image caption: REMINISCENCES.]

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by turns, she looks first at one bystander and then at another, addressing 
each invariably in the wrong tongue, gesticulating wildly as she strives 
to express the delight which fills her heart at this sudden recalling of 
the memories of her childhood, and the scenes and associations which 
surrounded the home of her youth. "One touch of nature makes the whole 
world kin;" the prejudices of race and education give way before it, and 
there is something of human sympathy on the face of every bystander as she 
moves reluctantly away, turning ever and anon for another glance at the 
souvenir of her native land, which, like the palm-tree in the gardens of 
Paris to the desert Arab, long wandering from his home, has become to her 
an object of adoration. 

Such, in brief, are some of the scenes which one may witness, and which 
will most attract the attention of the stranger, in a morning's ramble 
through the streets of San Francisco. 



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CHAPTER VII. TAMALPAIS. 
Where it is Situated.--Some Speculation as to the Signification of the 
Name and its Possible Origin.--Our Start for the Mountain.--The Trip to 
San Rafael and Adventures by the Way.--Ascending the Mountain.--First 
Blood.--The View of the Bay and City of San Francisco.--Mount Diablo puts 
in an Appearance.--At the Summit.--A Bear-faced Fraud.--Fine Study of a 
Fog Bank.--A Faithless Guide.--Wandering in the Mist.--Out of the Woods.--
An Afternoon's Sport.--A Painful Subject.--Adios Tamalpais! 

THERE is not a finer mountain for its height,--two thousand six hundred 
feet,--on all the continent of America, than Tamalpais, the bold abutment 
of the Coast Range on the northern side of, the Golden Gate, a low spur of 
which runs down into the Pacific Ocean and forms Point Bonita (Beautiful 
Point), on which stands the lighthouse which guides the mariner into the 
entrance of the Bay and Harbor of San Francisco. The origin and 
signification of the name are matters of doubt. Mal pais is a common 
designation for rocky barren ground, in all Spanish-American countries, 
and Ta-mal-pais may be a corruption of that term, the, unnecessary primary 
syllable having perhaps been engrafted upon it by the Indians or Russians 
after the Spanish settlement of the country. Another suggestion--a very 
hazardous one--as to its origin is as follows. There is a dish, toothsome, 

[image caption: MT. TAMALPAIS, FROM THE EASTERN SLOPE OF ANGEL ISLAND.]

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and dear to every Spanish-American epicure, known as tamals. "Tamal-pais" 
may possibly mean simply "tamal country," or as we would say, "the country 
of tamals," from somebody having in early days produced tamals there. 
Tamales-or Tomales--Bay, lying in the rear of Mount Tamalpais, on the 
ocean side, helps to give a color of probability to this proposed solution 
of the question. However that may be, the mountain has been known as 
Tamalpais since the time when the memory of man runneth not to the 
contrary, and it may be after all merely an Indian name signing nothing at 
all, like Alabama, Ohio, and Iowa. Quien sabe? 

The mountain looks well from any point of view, in summer or in winter; 
but its outlines seem boldest, and the dim blue haze, which envelops it 
always, the softest and most beautiful I think, when looked upon from the 
Bay of San Francisco, or the heights of Telegraph or Russian Hill. It 
stands in Marin County, or rather it is Marin County; for take away 
Tamalpais, and what is left of Marin County would hardly fill a 
wheelbarrow. 

We three--Dr. Murphy, the eminent physician of San Francisco, Lloyd, the 
rising young criminal lawyer, and myself--had looked with longing eyes in 
that direction, even as Moses looked toward the Promised Land, for months 
and years, and at last the longing to go over there and explore the 
mysterious fastnesses of the mountain became too great for further 
repression. We knew that quail, deer, hare, and rabbits abounded there, 
that deer were often killed there, that California lions had been seen 
there, 

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that grizzly bears were numerous there years ago, and as one was never 
known to die of his own volition and none were known to have ever been 
killed there, it was a fair inference that they were there still. Were we 
not all mighty hunters, and was not that a field in which to display 
talents and accomplishments such as ours? The only reflection in 
connection with our projected trip, which gave us uneasiness, was as to 
its probable effect on the game market,--a fall in prices which would 
inevitably ruin all the pothunters in the State and all the wholesale game-
dealers in San Francisco being looked upon as a foregone conclusion. We 
were duly sorry for it, but how could we help it? 

The Doctor is an ambitious and sanguinary man, his professional experience 
having given him a taste for blood; and he went in for big game. I don't 
think he would have discounted the proceeds of that foray at anything less 
than a grizzly, a pair of California lions, half a dozen wild-cats, and a 
wagon load of deer; and I know that he had hopes of hare and small game 
almost without limit. He was armed with a Henry rifle, five hundred rounds 
of cartridges, and a butcher-knife with a blade sixteen inches in length. 
Lloyd took a No. 8 stub and twist double-barrelled gun,--which by rights 
should have been mounted on a swivel in a boat, or on a raft,--two hundred 
and fifty Ely's wire cartridges, a bag of B B shot, half a keg of powder,-
he hesitated a long time as to whether he should fill up the keg, but 
finally concluded that in case he run out he could buy more at San 
Rafael,--and an army size Colt's 

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revolver. I, who am of a more modest and less ambitious turn of mind, took 
along only a light No. 14 double-barrelled gun, which once upon a time had 
done fearful execution at both ends in the Great Winnebago Swamp in 
Illinois, a flask of powder, one of Shot, and a bottle or two of 
California wine, which had been boiled to concentrate the Strength and 
save freight. Each had marked out a particular line of destruction for 
himself to follow,--each one equally confident of achieving a mighty 
triumph in his way. The pathway of our life is strewn with the wrecks of 
fond hopes blighted and promises unfulfilled; it pains me to reflect upon 
the harvest of such wrecks which my most intimate friends were called upon 
to gather on that ever memorable occasion. I doubt if I promised less than 
one thousand dozen quail, and larger game in proportion; but I call Heaven 
to witness that I did 50 honestly, and with the very best intentions as to 
fulfilling my engagements. It is some consolation to a tax-payer to feel 
that the pavement of a certain nameless place will not require renewal or 
repair for many years to come. 

We were to go on horseback, starting at 2 P.M. from San Francisco, on the 
2d of September. I rode my old pet,. a half-breed mare, Juanita, which the 
accursed, sneaking Chimahuepis Indians stole from my side as I slept, a 
year later, on the banks of the Colorado River. Lloyd bestrode a fiery, 
untamed, mouse-colored steed, received from a client subsequently hanged,--
he shed no tears over his grave; and the Doctor galloped on the road to 

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glory and renown on a livery hack warranted to be "just lightning," and 
better able to make good the warranty than any other four-legged brute on 
the top of the earth, to the best of my knowledge and belief. From the 
plaza to the boat-landing--about half a mile--the journey was 
comparatively uneventful, the Doctor having merely run down an old woman 
at the crossing of Battery and Washington Streets, while Lloyd's horse, 
having collided with a passing vehicle, got even by wheeling suddenly and 
letting fly his heels at me viciously, one hitting the saddle and nearly 
knocking me out of it, the other making a deep indentation in the barrel 
of my gun and sending it flying some ten feet out of my hand. I killed 
nobody myself. We disembarked in safety at San Quentin; many of Lloyd's 
clients had done the same in years gone by,--the State Prison is located 
half a mile from that landing. 

Here the trouble began. The Doctor, by reason of his greater age and 
presumably riper judgment and greater discretion, was entrusted with the 
transportation of the saddle-bags, in which were packed a chicken-
luncheon, a lot of ammunition, and a few bottles. He hung them across the 
back of his saddle, gravely mounted to his seat, grasped his deadly rifle 
firmly, and gave the signal for the start in a loud clear voice: Vamos! It 
was as even a start as I ever saw on a race-track, all three horses 
bounding about ten feet at the first jump. Mousey, Lloyd's horse, shot a 
little ahead; Juanita followed close on his flank; and Whitey, the 
Doctor's incomparable mustang, dropped a trifle in the 

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rear. At the end of forty rods there came a sudden change in the order of 
the procession. Lloyd's horse had run away with him, and, from sheer force 
of habit, taken the left-hand road toward the State Prison, instead of the 
right-hand one leading to San Rafael. The Doctor seeing the mistake called 
out "No! no!" at the top of his voice. His intelligent mustang, from an 
excess of zeal to obey orders, had both ears erect and open, expecting 
that our speed would not last and the order "whoa" would be given. In the 
excitement of the moment he mistook the word, or feared that he might have 
mistaken it, and to make a sure thing put out his fore legs, stiff-kneed, 
which movement by a horse of playful disposition is termed "bucking." 
Horse and rider in such cases generally find it difficult to continue in 
company, and so part, as the best of friends sometimes must. That is just 
what the Doctor and his mustang did, at the moment I turned my head. 
Following the Doctor something rose gracefully from the rear of the 
saddle, described a gentle curve in the air, and landed with a loud thud 
and a sharp jingle on the hard road, a few feet ahead of him. It was the 
saddle-bags, and the jingle sounded suspiciously like that of broken 
glass--which we found no difficulty in ascertaining that it was. Juanita, 
not caring to run over the Doctor, jumped backward suddenly, and in doing 
so left me sitting unsupported in the air. I make it a rule not to war 
against nature's laws. Those laws say that in such cases one must come 
down. The ground in that particular locality is very solid, as I 
ascertained beyond a doubt. 

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Juanita walked up to the saddle-bags, sniffed at them with distended 
nostrils and eyes opened wide with horror. Well might she do so! The 
escaping fluid made the leather curl up like a burned boot, and as I held 
them up the liquor ran from them much as you may see it run from a clam 
fresh dug from the sand. 

A startling thought suggested itself, and I was on the point of dropping 
them when the Doctor rolled over in the dust and called out, "Oh, never 
fear; there ain't going to be a second explosion; the powder is in a tin 
case on the other side!" I felt reassured and comforted, and proceeded to 
replace them upon the Doctor's saddle and tie them on. None of the horses 
appeared to have been seriously hurt. 

The party once more united, we took a fresh start. Whitey, with the Doctor 
in the saddle, led off this time. Some of the liquor from the saddle-bags 
oozed out upon his back, and appeared to infuse new spirit into him. He 
reared up behind, and let out his legs right and left as if feeling for 
the object which annoyed him, switched his tail and snorted viciously, 
then bolted for San Rafael as if life or death depended on his reaching 
there inside of ten minutes and he meant to be there on time. He buckled 
down to the work like a woodchuck hunting a new hole, and made every point 
tell. Occasionally his hind legs, getting impatient of the rate of 
progress made by the fore ones, would make a spasmodic effort to go off on 
their own hook and take the lead, thereby causing the Doctor to roll 

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and pitch like a ship in a cross sea with a head wind. But the Doctor is 
game when his blood is up, and it was at the boiling point just then, 
Holding the rein and grasping the pommel of the saddle at the same time 
with one hand, he swung his heavy Henry rifle with the other, bringing it 
down at every swing with vindictive energy upon the head of the accursed 
brute, whack! whack! whack! and thus he continued to encourage him all the 
way to San Rafael, a distance of some three miles. As the wrath of the 
Doctor rose, so did his pantaloons, the bottoms of which were soon riding 
in triumph above the tops of his boots, and essaying, with every prospect 
of success, a flight above his knees. The Doctor hung to the saddle and 
the rifle, and allowed minor matters to take their course. Mousey seemed 
to rather enjoy the situation, and kept close upon Whitey's heels, while 
Juanita, thinking it was a race for grand cash, went in to win or die. My 
foot coming in contact with Lloyd's horse was knocked out of the stirrup, 
and in attempting to replace it, I dropped the rein, which the gun in my 
hand prevented me from regaining, and I was at sea rudderless and drifting 
helpless before the storm. A gang of Chinese laborers were cutting a ditch 
alongside the turnpike, and seeing us coming, they ran up the side of the 
road, swinging their broad-brimmed bamboo hats, and making the air ring 
with shouts, beside which the note of the peacock on the wall in 
springtime is as the melody of the spheres. Two stage coaches filled with 
passengers had left the embarcadero ahead of us, bound for 

Page 152

San Rafael, and as we approached them, tile drivers kindly reined the 
teams out of the track to give us a clear field, while all hands lent us 
their assistance in the shape of three rousing cheers and a tiger. I am 
always thankful for human sympathy and encouragement, properly expressed 
and at the proper time, but I would at that moment, had I been consulted, 
have preferred that the demonstration made by the passengers in those 
coaches should have been a trifle less ostentatious and energetic, and 
possibly postponed altogether for a day or two. I have a dim recollection 
of hearing the Doctor give expression to a wish to see the entire party of 
them roasting somewhere, and of not feeling shocked thereat, although, as 
I am bitterly opposed to everything bordering on slang and profanity, I 
suppose I was in duty bound 'to' feel shocked at his remark; but I was 
very busy at the moment, and somehow I did not. I don't think a three-mile 
race-track was ever got over in less tee than it took us to make the run 
from the embarcadero to San Rafael after the second start. The hospitable 
citizens of San Rafael saw us coming, with a cloud of dust spinning out in 
our wake like the tail of a comet, and with one accord turned out to greet 
us. They appeared to be apprehensive that we might go right on to the next 
town without stopping, ad to ensure a different result they ranged 
themselves in a line across the road, brandished hands, arms, hats, and 
everything else they could lay hold of at the moment, shouting, as with 
one voice, whoa! Whitey and Mousey "whoaed" so suddenly that their riders 
were

[image caption: ON THE ROAD.]

Page 153

enabled to dismount without an effort; but Juanita having naught Save her 
own sweet will to guide her since I had lost the rein, turned aside, went 
through a picket-fence, caromed on a market-vegetable cart which stood in 
the field, and went down with a crash which sounded in my sensitive ears 
like that which will in due time announce the final dissolution of the 
universe. When I recovered my senses I was sitting in a potato-patch, 
Solitary in my glory, like Marius, with the ruins of Carthage around me. 
Thus we made our triumphal entry into San Rafael. 

We repaired to the hotel, bound up and anointed our smarting wounds, sent 
out a party to gather in our traps, which had been scattered all along the 
road, then held a council of war. We did not feel much like going forward, 
in truth, but then we were ashamed to go back, and advance we must. With 
much inquiry and diligent search, we found a native who knew the trail to 
the top of Tamalpais, and was willing, for a consideration, to pilot us 
there next day. The sum demanded for his services was more than he had 
honestly earned before in his entire lifetime, but we needed him, and were 
at his mercy. 

Sunrise saw us all in the saddle. We found that during the night, lumps of 
the size of acorns, hickory nuts, even black walnuts, had grown on those 
saddles just where we found it most inconvenient to have them, but were 
forced to grin and bear the infliction as best we might. After a half-mile 
ride through the fields, we came in sight of a flock of quail running 
along in the road ahead, and a halt along the entire 

Page 154

line was ordered. Lloyd, having the biggest gun, was ordered to dismount 
and deploy as skirmisher. With trailed shotgun he crept through an acre or 
two of dusty chaparral, and came to a halt at last on the flank and within 
twenty yards of the unsuspecting enemy. We saw him rise slowly and 
deliberately, bring his murderous weapon to bear, take deadly aim--it 
seemed to us, waiting there in breathless expectation, that it took him an 
hour at least to do it-then discharge both barrels at once. There was a 
shock and concussion like the explosion of a mine, a deep reverberation 
rolling away and dying in a thousand echoes in the gorges of the mountain. 
But the gunner, where was he? Lying prone upon his back in the bushes, 
kicking up as much dust as is raised by an ordinary threshing machine in 
full operation, as he kicked right and left in his agony. When he arose at 
last his upper lip was of the thickness of a fifty-cent sirloin steak., 
and his nose was bleeding profusely. He ventured the opinion that he must 
have been stung by hornets while he was down. If such was the case, it was 
a very unmanly and cowardly thing for the hornets to do; that is all I 
have to say on the subject. When the shot from his gun struck the dust in 
the road and raised it in a cloud, I looked to see at least a dozen quail 
lying in the agonies of death in the road, as it subsided. In place 
thereof I saw the entire covey on the wing for the chaparral higher up on 
the mountain-side. There were plenty of feathers in the road, however, 
which showed that he must have startled them considerably. 

Page 155

As next in rank I then took up the fight, and discharged both barrels at 
the flying enemy, as I sat on horseback, Juanita dancing a break-down jig 
as I did so. One bird came down with a crippled wing, but made tracks for 
the bushes the moment it touched the ground. Before he reached cover, the 
Doctor, who represented the artillery, sent half a dozen bullets from his 
Henry rifle whizzing after him, making it very lively indeed for him, but 
not even knocking out a feather. Just then a ranchero's dog came trotting 
down the road, and calling him to us, I pointed to the clump of chaparral 
in which the wounded quail had taken refuge, clapping my hands and 
shouting "sic him! sic him!" with all my might at the same time. Thus 
encouraged, our volunteer corps went in, and to our infinite satisfaction 
we heard that miserable quail piping like a sick chicken in a moment more. 
"We've got him! We've got him!" we shouted in chorus. We were in error 
again; the dog had got him, and a brief observation of his movements 
satisfied us that he meant to keep him too. The infamous brute absolutely 
had the audacity to walk out of the bushes with our quail in his mouth, 
right before our eyes, and refusing with a savage growl to surrender it to 
me, trot deliberately off down the road, toward the residence of his 
master. "Here, doggy! Come, doggy! O, the nice doggy! pretty doggy!" etc., 
we repeated in the most persuasive and endearing accents, only to provoke 
his visible contempt, and increase the derisive elevation of his vertebra 
and the rate of his speed. What kind of 

Page 156

an education must such a dog have had? let me ask in all seriousness. The 
Doctor could stand it no longer, but drew a bead and let drive a bullet 
full at his head. The bullet went just wide enough of the mark to 
accomplish the desired result. Dropping the quail with a savage growl he 
darted off on a run, howling and yelping with the full power of his lungs 
at every jump. To corral that quail, our first trophy, was the work of a 
moment. It is safe to say that we lost no time in wringing his neck after 
our hands were on him. 

Then a change came over the spirit of our dream. Our firing and the 
subsequent howling of the base, ungrateful cur, had attracted the 
attention of his baser owner, and he put in an appearance very suddenly 
and unexpectedly. Flourishing a hayfork threateningly, he demanded to know 
which thief had been trying to kill his valuable and intelligent "animal." 

Lloyd, who had just concluded the operation of washing his face in a 
spring, thereby apparently repeating the miracle of Cana, feeling that 
this was adding insult to injury, volunteered in clear and forcible 
language to "put a head on him," then and there, in three seconds, if he 
"would just lay down that pitchfork." "If the head you would put on me 
would resemble the one you carry around, I would sooner be shot down dead 
on the spot, and be out of misery at once, than take it! You look as if 
you were in the murder line, anyhow, and perhaps you might as well go 
right on with your infamous work as it is!" was the delicate and 
gentlemanly 

Page 157

reply of the irate tiller of the soil. We--the Doctor and myself--argued 
the case more temperately, and eventually the aggrieved owner of that lop-
eared cur became so far mollified as to accept of a drink from the bottle 
of new whisky, which we had procured at San Rafael, after our first 
disaster on the road. When he took the bottle from his lips, his eyes were 
full of tears, his lips were purple, and he gasped convulsively for 
breath. We felt that we were avenged, and, remounting, rode silently away 
up the trail, Carrying our dead and wounded with us. 

Out of the dusty carriage-road, at last we entered the narrow bridle-
trail, which winds up the steep mountain-side, through the rocky malpais, 
covered with wide fields of the bitter chemisal, which spreads over the 
whole upper part of the mountain. This bitter shrub, of the leaves of 
which no living creature will eat, grows only on ground which will 
support.nothing else, and is worthless for every purpose save that of 
holding the earth together. The sun was well up in the heavens and the air 
growing oppressively warm, when we passed above the timbered belt, and 
entered this chemisal country. We halted and looked back. In the 
southeast, San Francisco, lying overstretched, a tawny giant upon the gray 
hills of the peninsula, showed dimly through the veil of yellow dust, dun-
colored smoke, and thin, luminous vapor which overhung it' Down to the 
southward, almost at our feet, lay the Golden Gate, the Presidio of San 
Francisco, and the straits leading up from the ocean to the Bay of San 
Francisco, with the 

Page 158

rock fortress of Alcatraz presenting its tier above tier of black cannon, 
standing like the sentinel at the gateway, keeping grim watch and ward at 
the western portal of a mighty land. A huge, black-hulled steamer was 
heading out through the Golden Gate into the blue Pacific, bound for the 
Columbia, Victoria, Mexico, Panama, or possibly to far-off lands on the 
other edge of the world, beyond our western horizon. White sails gleamed 
here and there over the whole Bay of San Francisco, and over its broad 
surface white-bulled ferry and river steamers could be seen plowing their 
way. The Bay of San Pablo was a duck-pond at our feet-the Straits of 
Carquinez dwindling away to a mere silver thread in the distance--and the 
Bay of Suisun only a whitey-brown patch in the landscape farther north. 
Oakland, and all her sister towns along the eastern shore of the Bay of 
San Francisco, looked out here and there from the midst of embowering 
trees. Mount Diablo, clad in garments of dun and straw color, rose high 
into the blue sky on the eastward, seeming to ascend as we ascended, and 
grow taller and more gigantic at every step; following us up, as it were, 
and bullying us as we went, as if determined that we should not be 
permitted to look down upon him nor receive a diminished idea of his 
importance. Northward and northeastward, stretching out leagues on leagues 
from his base, were the wide, dark tule swamps, and half-submerged islands 
of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, bordered by bright, straw-colored 
valleys, stretching away to the point where the dark green line of the 
summits of the Sierra Nevada melted into 

Page 159

and blended with the blue cloudless sky of autumn, upon the farther verge 
of the horizon. We looked down upon the homes of two hundred thousand 
toiling, active and busy people. The homes of millions of. happy, 
contented, abundantly blessed people, will in a few years fill that broad 
land on which we gazed with deep and silent admiration that morning. If I 
were a painter, I would unroll my canvas at that point, and paint you such 
a picture as you should stand before and gaze upon with unspeakable 
delight from morn to night. I am not-more is the pity! For half an hour 
the glorious scene held us enchanted; then the destructive element in our 
nature asserted its supremacy again, and we began to talk of deeds of 
blood once more. 

"Manuel, when we engaged you as our guide, you promised on the honor of a 
descendant of conquering Castile, and the faith of a Christiano, to show 
us at least the track of a grizzly bear! Do it!" 

Manuel, with a brow slightly clouded, arose slowly, mounted his horse a 
little hesitatingly, and led us onward up the steep acclivity. Half a mile 
brought us to a saddle-back, on one side of which there was a narrow grass-
plat. Looking carefully along the other side, among the chemisal, broken 
rocks, and coarse gravelly soil, he discovered at length a track, at which 
he pointed in silent triumph. A painter desiring to catch the smile of 
benign ecstacy which illumined the countenance of the beloved disciple, 
would have found fame and fortune in the face of Manuel at that moment, 
had he the talent to catch the expression, 

Page 160

transcribe it faithfully, and hand it down to a devout and admiring 
posterity. Few and short were the words we spoke. The Doctor, with 
countenance grave and stern, refilled the magazine of his rifle with 
cartridges, and borrowed Lloyd's revolver. When I make my appearance upon 
the boards in the great character of "William Tell," I shall recall to 
mind the attitude and expression of the Doctor at that moment; and with 
such a model have never a fear but that the gods in the gallery will 
bestow their applause until the roof rings agaIn. Lloyd took up a position 
immediately in rear of the Doctor, with his teeth firm set, and his double-
barreled No. 8 stub-and-twist grasped pretty firmly in both hands. For 
myself, I determined that; come what might, I would not see the poor 
horses victimized for our folly, and I would stay by them, and get them 
out of danger as quickly at their legs could Carry them, on the first 
appearance of the infuriated grizzly. One of the most prominent features 
of my character has ever been a certain watchful forethought, which would 
have made me invaluable as the commander of an army. Had I commanded at 
Bull Run-but then, I did not command at Bull Run, and the history of that 
unfortunate affair has already been written! 

As I was proceeding to mount and ride off with the horses, I chanced to 
look at the bear track, where it crossed the soft bit of grassy ground on 
the side of the hog-back, opposite where Manuel had pointed it out in the 
hard, rocky soil; and with the bluntness of an impulsive and ingenuous 
nature, thoughtlessly remarked 

Page 161

that the Tamalpais grizzlies had the good sense to follow the example of 
the horses thereabouts, and wear sharp heel-corks. The Doctor heard the 
remark, and coming back to where I stood, examined the track carefully. I 
heard him utter something in a deep undertone, which I am sure was not an 
invocation of the blessing on the head of that descendant of the old 
Castilians. Manuel's quick ears caught it, and with an expression of 
general disgust as he looked at the whole party, and a glance of malignant 
hate at me, he turned his horse's head toward the summit of the mountain, 
and rode off without a word For the next half hour no one of us spoke a 
word--out hearts were two full. 

Two miles more of hard climbing, the sweat pouring in streams off our 
panting horses, brought us to a little secluded flat, in a narrow caon but 
a short distance below the summit. There is a fine spring of pure, cold 
water there, and a number of huge, old oaks, gray with the long, trailing 
moss, which is nourished by the abundant moisture condensed upon it daily 
from the dense sea fogs which roll up over the summit at brief intervals 
all the year round. Here we unpacked our traps, uncinched and picketed out 
our tired horses, and prepared for a long and vigorous campaign. The 
quails, driven up the mountain from all the valleys below by the incessant 
raids of the pot-hunters, fairly swarmed in this caon, having found it a 
safe haven of refuge up to this time that season. We killed several and 
badly frightened a considerably greater number. Then we spread our table 
and lunched gloriously. 

Page 162

After lunch, we went over the ground once more, bagging a few more quail, 
and then climbed to the summit of the mountain and looked down on the 
blue, illimitable Pacific; that is to say, we looked down the steep 
western slope of the mountain in the direction where the blue, illimitable 
Pacific was, and still is, and probably always will be, located, and would 
have seen it had it not been hidden beneath a bank of snow-white fog, as 
solid and impenetrable to the eye as the mountain itself We could hear the 
incessant moaning of the sea, as it dashed its waves on the rock-bound 
coast beneath us, but that was all. The bay where the chivalrous old 
filibuster and pirate Sir Francis Drake moored his fleet some centuries 
ago, and from whence he sailed some weeks later, without an idea of the 
existence of the grand Bay of San Francisco and the glorious country of 
which the Golden Gate, right under his long, sharp, rakish nose, is the 
portal, was just below us on the northwest, but it might as' well have 
been a thousand miles away. Point Lobos and Point Bonita were invisible, 
and the Farrallones were buried countless fathoms deep beneath the fog-
bank. All was an utter blank from a point a thousand feet beneath us. Even 
as we gazed upon it, the bosom of the snowy fog bank heaved and rocked at 
the touch of the rising gale; then the whole vast fleecy mass moved inward 
upon the land, and silently, but with the speed of thought, and apparently 
with irresistible force, came rushing like a mighty avalanche up the slope 
of the mountain toward the summit on which we stood. "We shall see 
nothing, and 

Page 163

may lose our way in the mist; let us -vamos, and we vamosed. 

As we turned our steps to the eastward and passed over the crest of the 
mountain again, we saw the mist moving up through the Golden Gate, and 
rolling over the island of Alcatraz, which in a moment was enveloped and 
hidden from sight. As the island disappeared the low, mournful voice of 
the tolling fog-bell Came faintly but distinctly to our ears, borne on the 
soft, moist air. B-o-o-m! b-o-o-m! b-o-o-m! a throbbing pulsation of 
sound, always inexpressibly painful for me to listen to, and I have heard 
it thousands of times. A San Francisco poet has beautifully expressed in 
the following lines the thoughts awakened by night-and by day as well-not 
in his mind alone, by the voice of 

THE FOG BELL OF ALCATRAZ. 

O weary warden, that o'er sea and marshes 
Monotonously calls 
Thy challenge to the foe, whose-stealthy marches 
Invest the city walls. 
Thy voice of warning far and wide diverges, 
Thrilling the midnight air; 
Yet in thy tower, above the rocking surges, 
Thou dost not heed, nor care. 
Thou readest not the message of thy bringing 
Thou dost not know the weight 
Of that which in thy little are forever swinging, 
Thou dost reiterate. 
Thou heedest not the text, whose repetition 
Makes the dark night more drear; 
Thou fill'st the world with formal admonition-- 
But show'st no sky more clear! 

Page 164

Thou see'st not the binnacle light that glistens 
Upon the slippery deck; 
Thou markest not the mariner who listens 
Thou see'st not the wreck. 
Vain is thy challenge-vain thy admonition-- 
To all who hear or pass 
Having not Love nor Pity--thy condition 
Is but "as sounding brass." 
O formal Dervish! rocking in thy tower, 
That looks across the deep, 
Cry, O Muezzin, "God is God!" each hour-- 
But let believers sleep. 
Thou hast the word, O too insensate preacher, 
But having nought beyond, 
The fate thou criest, and thyself the teacher, 
Alike by man are shunned. 

We listened some minutes to the steady, monotonous, and mournful pealing 
of the fog-bell, then hurriedly retraced our steps to the caon in which we 
had left our guide and the horses. The horses were all right; but the 
guide lay stretched at full length upon the ground, motionless and rigid 
as the Cardiff giant. We were by his side in a moment. "Asleep!" said 
Lloyd. "Dead!" suggested the Doctor. "In a fit!" hazarded your humble 
servant. He was drunk--simply, but terribly drunk-our bottle lying empty 
beside him, and our hearts were unutterably sad and full, aye, even 
slopping over--of bitterness. We found a flat rock of suitable 
proportions, and erected it, with an appropriate inscription, scrawled 
with the end of a burned stick, as a tombstone at his head; placed another 
at his feet, inserted a soft boulder under his head as a pillow, laid two 
smaller ones gently on his eyes, and rode away in sorrow and in silence. 

Page 165

That faithless watcher had told us before we left him to ascend to the 
summit, that a trail led back along a winding ridge and through a timbered 
country, and so down the mountain by the way of Lagunitas, a lumber-camp 
near the foot, and advised us to return that way. We started to carry out 
his programme without him. After we had ridden a short distance, a lone 
pigeon perched upon the top limb of a dead tree attracted our attention, 
and all firing at once, we brought him lifeless to the ground; then 
indulged in an animated and somewhat acrimonious discussion as to who 
fired the fatal shot, until the fog drift was upon us. We rode along the 
ridge a mile or two in the dense, salt fog, until our clothing was 
drenched as if from a thunder shower, and we all smelled like so many 
Point Lobos mussels, while water streamed out of the barrels of our guns, 
whenever we turned them muzzle downward. "This is poetry condensed!" I had 
exclaimed enthusiastically, as we looked down in delight upon the scene 
spread out before us, as we ascended the eastern slope of the mountain. 
"I'll be blamed if this is not prose!" said the Doctor, as he gazed 
ruefully at the approaching fog-bank which shut us out from the sight of 
everything on the west from the summit of the mountain. "This is blank 
verse!" cried Lloyd, as he now swept the drops of gathered moisture from 
his face in a shower, and mopped himself industriously with his dripping 
handkerchief. 

Suddenly we emerged from the cloud, and found ourselves below and outside 
of it, and in the sunshine 

Page 166

again. We halted and gave three cheers. We were out of the woods, and out 
of the fog, and five quails ahead. The fullness of our high hopes of the 
morning had fallen something short of realization, it is true, but we had 
got "a starter nevertheless, and still had before us some hours in which 
to retrieve the fortunes of the day. 

We went on down the steep declivity a mile or more; then came upon the 
edge of one still more precipitous, and looked down into a narrow, 
romantic caon, at the bottom of which is Lagunita, Descending this 
precipice, our horses occupied something the position of red squirrels 
Coming down the side of a barn. My horse being at the rear, had his nose 
projected far over the back of Lloyd's, and his in turn was telescoped-so 
to speak-over the Doctor's. I had always an inquiring mind, and a tendency 
toward experiments. I had a sharp stick in my hand, and inserted it 
playfully under the portion of Lloyd's horse nearest me. The experiment 
was an eminent success. Mousey, by way of passing on the compliment, 
seized Whitey by the rump, and gave him a nip that brought away the fur by 
the handful. Whitey having nothing before him to get even on, whirled half 
round, at the risk of his rider's neck, and went for his assailant "for 
all there was in sight." Mousey lifted his heels, and my horse caught the 
full force of the shock. Things rattled, and the air for the moment was 
blue with Cursing. When order was at last restored, we rode on in sulky 
silence. They were mad, and gave me no credit whatever for good 

Page 167

intentions. I felt hurt We reached and passed the saw-mills and hamlet at 
Lagunitas, and soon came to where the road forked. Falling carelessly 
behind, I watched my opportunity and quietly gave them the slip, turning 
off down one trail while they went the other. In the next mile's ride, I 
bagged two more quail. Then I came upon a little lustrous-eyed, white-
toothed Mexican boy in a caon, who was out with a bow and arrow, going the 
rounds to look at his quail-traps. He had several quail, and I acquired 
them. Then I rode on with him, chatting on various subjects, while we 
visited all his traps. He had lived some years in sight, and almost within 
hearing of the bells of the great city of the Pacific Coast, and had never 
been in it in his life. I told him what I could of its wonders, and when 
we parted company I was four bits out in coin, but had seven good, healthy 
quails to show for my work. I went on down toward the coast, where the 
quails had been less harassed by hunters, and coming upon several large 
coveys, swelled my game-bag considerably by well directed shots. I also 
got a snap-shot at a fine, large California hare, and corralled him. When 
the sun went down and evening stole over the land, I rode triumphantly 
into San Rafael with twenty-three quails in my game-bag and a hare slung 
behind my saddle. I was "happy and content as one of Swimley's boarders," 
and felt that I was the champion shootist of the party. 

Alas! not so. There is no limit to the duplicity and deceit of human 
nature. Lloyd and the Doctor heard my story in silence; saw me unpack my 
game, 

Page 168

and display it with honest pride, with an expression of contempt upon 
their faces; then led the way exultingly to where their game was hanging. 
There were exactly twelve dozen quails, tied neatly in bunches of two 
dozen each, hanging on the walk. I was staggered. After examining them 
Closely, I remarked that I had never seen so great a quantity of game 
killed with so slight an expenditure of ammunition-there was not a shot-
mark to be found on any bird in the entire lot so far as I could See; and 
nearly every one had his neck dislocated, or head crushed in. Travelers, 
according to popular opinion, are inclined to exaggeration, and will 
sometimes indulge in something very like outright falsehood, when the 
truth would fall short of creating the desired sensation. From my youth up 
I have been a hunter, and association with sportsmen and travelers has had 
a tendency to fill my mind with suspicion and doubt, as to the genuineness 
of trophies of the chase exhibited as the result of hunting expeditions, 
and the entire reliableness of travelers' tales. When Gordon Cumming 
returns to Europe, from a raid on the game of South Africa, it is a 
notorious fact that it is next to impossible to find any first-rate lion-
skins, leopard-skins, or elephant-tusks of extra large size for sale in 
the markets of Cape Town and Natal. In our own country, unscrupulous 
parties have not unfrequently brought obloquy upon the entire fraternity, 
by returning from a hunt with more game than they could possibly have shot 
within the number of hours they were out, even if the game had been ranged 
before them in platoons, and 

[image caption: MOUNTAINEERING.]

Page 169

they had nothing to do but to load and fire from morning to night. This is 
all wrong, and I took occasion to say as much-in a spirit of pure 
kindness, and more in sorrow than in anger-to my companions and a few 
Spectators at this time. Did I receive any thanks for my disinterested and 
gratuitous advice? Far from it; I got abuse and gross personalities 
instead. Such is human nature! I replied feelingly. I was tired and Sore, 
and possibly a little irritable; but I solemnly affirm that I never said 
that I could whip any man in the Company. I am no prize-fighter; why 
should I? As to the San Rafaelite who interfered, I consider him wholly 
inexcusable; and so far as he is concerned, am not sorry for what he got 
for his pains. It is an unpleasant subject, and I dislike to pursue it any 
further. 

Next morning we were in the saddle again at eight o'clock, having 
despatched our game and firearms by the express to San Francisco, and ran 
our horses at the dead jump all the way to San Quentin, arriving just in 
time to get on board the boat for the city. As the boat glided away down 
the Bay, we looked back from its deck and saw the mountain standing out 
bold and free from cloud or fog in the bright morning sunlight, and 
bitterly thought of the experience of yesterday. 

Thus, truthfully and dispassionately, after the lapse of months, have I 
written up this history of our great hunting, fishing, and warlike 
expedition to Tamalpais. As I have already remarked, Tamalpais is one of 
the finest of the lesser mountains of California; an attractive mountain 
to look at from Russian or Telegraph Hill. It is there all the time. You 
may see it any day; and you may have it all for me. The experiences of 
that trip disgusted me with it for all time, and I go there no more. 
Adios, Tamalpais! 



Page 171

CHAPTER VIII. NAPA VALLEY AND MT. ST. HELENA. 
From San Francisco to Vallejo.--What we Saw while Crossing the Bay of San 
Pablo.--The Valley of Napa.--A Moonlight Evening in the Mountains.--
Calistoga by Moonlight and Sunlight.--The Baths.--Hot Chicken-Soup 
Spring.--The Petrified Forest of Calistoga.--The Great Ranch and 
Vineyards.--Ascent of Mount St. Helena.--What we Saw from the Summit.--
Reminiscences of the Flood.--Story of the Judge and the Stranger.--" 
Presently, sir, presently!"--Good Joke on the Robbers.--What happened to 
Me in Arizona.--A Good story, but too Appreciative an Audience. 

A SOFT September afternoon; cloudless, warm,quiet, hardly a breath or 
breeze to ruffle the Bay of San Francisco. The summer winds, the curse of 
San Francisco, have died out, and one can enjoy life once more in the 
immediate vicinity of the metropolis of the Pacific. Brown, and looking as 
old as the hills on which she stands, is San Francisco, the wonderful city 
of a day, in her russet coat of summer dust, as we look back at her from 
the steamer's deck. Straw color, mauve, and ashes of roses, are the tints 
displayed by all the mountains around the Bay, save old Tamalpais, who, 
clad in royal purple, looks grandly down upon us on the westward as our 
steamer glides swiftly past frowning Alcatraz, Angel Island and the Red 
Rock, the Dos Hermanos and the Dos Hermanas (Two Brothers and Two Sisters, 

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curious round rocks rising from the bosom of the Bay), and glide into the 
Bay of San Pablo, with the pretty old town of San Pablo peeping out from 
beneath the evergreen live oaks, and exotic shade trees, on the Contra 
Costa shore on the right, and San Quentin, with its gloomy State Prison, 
on the Marin county shore on the left; and beyond, nestled in a little 
valley away up under the dark shadow of Tamalpais, the picturesque village 
of San Rafael, a noted health-resort for San Franciscans. Through the Bay 
of San Pablo, past Mare Island, with its navy-yard and barracks, our 
steamer moves, and turning abruptly northward, just as we catch a glimpse 
of the straits of Carquinez, opening eastward towards Martinez and 
Benicia, rounds to at the railroad wharf at Vallejo, some thirty miles 
from San Francisco. We saw two schools of porpoises playing in the waters 
of San Pablo Bay; thousands of pelicans and shags crowding the rocks at 
the Dos Hermanos, a number of huge fish, sturgeon or salmon, or both, 
leaping bodily out of the smooth waters; and a remarkably pretty girl, 
Spanish-American we judge, among the numerous passengers upon the steamer, 
as we came along. Masculine and human, we paid comparatively little 
attention to the birds and fishes. Vallejo, a large, straggling, ambitious 
village, standing where a City, like one of those which cluster around New 
York, may stand years hence, claims and receives but a passing glance, and 
we are on board the cars, gliding swiftly northward, out of the reach of 
the cool ocean breezes, and into one of the fairest valleys 

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that ever the sun shone' on, Napa At the lower end of this valley we pass 
through the thriving, prosperous-looking, young city of Napa, with its 
grain warehouses on the banks of a navigable creek, and vessels: masts 
showing over the housetops, as in Chicago. The streets are wide, and the 
houses, which have a neat and homelike Eastern air, are surrounded with 
blooming gardens and orchards, laden with red and golden fruit, and vines 
borne down to the very earth with luscious white, flame-colored, and 
purple grapes. Napa looks an attractive place for a quiet home, and such 
its people consider it. 

The sun has gone down in the purple west, and the full, round autumn moon 
climbs the Eastern horizon as we glide away northwards through the valley 
of Napa. The still, pure air is illuminated by the rays of the moon to an 
extent hardly to be credited in less favored lands beyond the Rocky 
Mountains; and trees, rocks, houses, vineyards, orchards and shadowy 
mountains stand out clear and distinct; every object within a range of 
many miles is seen almost as if by daylight. The valley is one wide, 
yellow stubble-field, only broken by patches of vineyard, long banks of 
grain in sacks, piled up in the fields, and left uncovered for months with 
perfect impunity in this rainless season; huge stacks of straw and hay, 
pressed into bales for the market, and white farm-houses, many of them 
Very Costly, indicating the possession of wealth and taste by their 
proprietors. At intervals we pass through natural parks, where the mighty 
live oaks are scattered through the whole broad valley, like apple trees 
in an 

Page 174

orchard. The mountains on either side of the valley grow more abrupt and 
rugged as we advance northwards. The deep green chemisal covers their 
sides, save where they are patched with vineyards, or the white lavatic 
rock beneath is laid bare by long, winding wagon-roads and bridle-trails, 
leading over them into minor valleys beyond. 

By our faith, it is a glorious land. 

Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see 
What Heaven has done for this delicious land! 
What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree- 
What glorious prospects o'er the hills expand! 

We gaze upon the swiftly-passing panorama for an hour in silence, and then 
to turn our companion on the next seat. 

"Charley, did you ever" see anything more beautiful in your life?" 

"Beautiful! magnificent! gorgeous! sublime! Our language has no fitting 
terms for it. Why her eyes would have driVen Mohammed mad--her teeth are 
bands of pearls, and her blue-black hair would shame--" 

'Twas ever thus! We might have known it from the start. That Spanish girl 
has set him as mad as a March hare. Well, well, we too were young once; 
and come to think of it to-night, it don't seem such a very long time ago 
either. 

The bell has been rung, and the name of the station called for the last 
time, and a long-drawn, exultant whistle from the locomotive startles 
Charley at last from his dream of Paradise and "the black-eyed girls in 
green," as it announces our arrival at Calistoga. 

Page 175

Declining the proffered carriage, we walk down a wide avenue into the 
hotel grounds, see rows of neat cottages stretching away on either hand, 
with families and groups lounging on the piazzas, telling Stories, 
singing, and mayhap love-making in the moonlight-enter the hotel, dine 
sumptuously--washing down our broiled chicken, trout and quail with the 
rich, fruity-red wine of Calistoga; and finally, well pleased with the 
world, ourselves, and mankind in general, retire to our cottage, disrobe, 
draw the drapery of our couch around us, and lie down to pleasant dreams. 

The noise of wheels rattling swiftly over the gravel walks, horses 
galloping away to the mountains; then the loud clangor of the hotel bell, 
and the long-drawn whistle of the locomotive, awaken us betimes in the 
morning. The sun is already high above the green-clad, rock-capped, rugged 
mountains on the eastern side of the valley, when we came out upon the 
piazza to take our first daylight view of Calistoga. It is glorious! 
Eastward, a long range of mountains, fantastic in form, abrupt and rugged, 
skirts the whole horizon. A long mesa, bench, or table, on the summit 
shows where the great river of lava flowed away from the crater southward 
towards the Bay of Suisun ages ago. Northward rises, majestically bold and 
beautiful, Mt. St. Helena, Cutting off the valley in that direction. The 
foot-hills and sides of this mountain are green in spring time and early 
summer, and golden later in the year, with the rank growth of wild oats, 
which covers the whole face of the Country where the plow has not 
disturbed the soil, up to the point where the old lava-flow 

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covers all the soil and leaves no room for vegetation. All the lower 
valley lands are dotted with huge oaks, with pensile limbs like trailing 
grapevines, which fairly sweep the ground, and often loaded with greenish-
gray moss, which gives the landscape such an aspect as that of the lowland 
Country of Texas and Louisiana, where the Creole-moss abounds. Higher up, 
the pines and redwoods bristle on every height, and fill every caon, 
imparting a sombre grandeur to the scene. Westward, a range of foot-hills, 
densely covered with oak, manzanita, and the peerless madroo, skirt the 
valley; and back of them, farther towards the ocean, towers a higher 
mountain range, breaking the sea breeze, and shielding the valley from the 
chill ocean fogs, the terror of visitors to San Francisco. Before us, at 
the foot of a conical hill, covered with grapevines, flowering shrubs and 
magueys (the "century plant" of Eastern hot-houses), and surmounted with 
an oriental summer-house, is the plain hotel building; and running around 
the grand rise which encircles "Mount Lincoln," is a row of neat Cottages, 
each with its large yard filled with flowers and thrifty-growing palm-
trees in front. Over to the southeast of the hotel stands a large 
structure, from the doors and windows of which steam is escaping. This is 
the great swimming-bath house. From many points along the level ground in 
that direction steam rises from the black earth, and a small creek of hot 
water, gathered from many sources, runs away through a deep, wide ditch. 
Mud baths, steam baths, shower baths, sulphur baths, and every kind of 
bath, in fact, 

[image caption: MOUNT ST. HELENA, FROM CASTILOGA.]

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are here provided for by nature-only the houses for hiding the bathers 
from general observation being a work of art. Centuries ago, the 
unlettered Indians of the Pacific coast were accustomed to resort here to 
soak away rheumatism and the many ills which aboriginal flesh is heir to, 
by wallowing in the hot, black, sulphurous mud, which boiled and bubbled 
like the witches' broth in infernal cauldrons. Wide grain fields, trim 
vineyards, and tea plantations spread away in all directions from the 
hamlet which surrounds the hotel. The proprietor of all this magnificent--
I may say princely--estate of Calistoga, is Samuel Brannan, one of the 
most enterprising of the early business men of the Pacific coast, He has 
recently disposed of all his productive property in the heart of San 
Francisco, and come here to make his home, and devote the autumn of life 
to building up as a monument of his energy, taste and public spirit, the 
great health and pleasure resort of California. The soil is wonderfully 
productive; the air in autumn, winter, and early spring pure and bracing; 
in summer tropical; the mountains round about are filled with attractions 
for the tourist and pleasure-seeker, and altogether Calistoga is one of 
the pet institutions of California, Just across the way from the hotel 
piazza is a little house, enclosing a spring of peculiar character. The 
water is clear as crystal, scalding hot, and impregnated with mineral 
substances of wonderfully health-restoring properties. A dash of salt and 
pepper causes a bowl of it to become, so far as sight, taste. and smell 
can distinguish, the exact counterpart of fresh chicken broth. Many 

Page 178

an invalid has swallowed a bowlful of it with keen relish, and then 
learned with indignant surprise that the soup was cooked in the reeking 
kitchen of his Satanic Majesty down deep in the bowels of the earth, and 
was as innocent of any contact with even the shadow of terrestrial chicken 
as any you could obtain at the best hotel in Saratoga, or the most 
fashionable boarding-house in New York. An iron pipe has been driven down 
deep into the earth at this point, and on letting down some fresh eggs in 
an open-work wire cage through the tube, you can have them hard boiled in 
Nature's kettle inside of three minutes. 

In front of the hotel stands a curious rude grotto or summer-house, 
apparently composed wholly of short sections of tree-trunks, unhewn and 
rough, placed endwise one upon another. A closer inspection reveals the 
fact that the trees from which these sections were broken were of solid 
stone. Ages and ages ago there stood upon the summit of one of the 
mountain ridges on the west of the valley,. some seven miles from the 
present site of Calistoga, a grove of great redwood trees, which, by some 
process of nature, became changed into stone, more enduring and permanent 
than the "everlasting hills" themselves. For years the fact of the 
existence of this phenomenon was unknown to the residents of the vicinity, 
the thick chapparal effectually hiding the fallen trunks from view. In 
1870, one of the terribly destructive fires which sweep over the mountains 
of California and Oregon year after year, laid bare the summit of this 
hill range, and the ground was found strewn 

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with the petrified trunks of giant trees, at interVals for several miles. 
This locality is now the subject of much curious investigation, and the 
origin of the "Petrified Forest of Calistoga" has been speculated upon 
learnedly by many scientists. The wood retains its grain perfectly, no 
difficulty being found in counting the consecutive rings supposed to 
indicate the years of growth of each fallen giant of the forest. The color 
is a whitey-brown, and there are occasional layers of clear white quartz 
in small crystals, apparently the result of water deposits. Evidences of 
remote volcanic action abound in the Vicinity, the whole surface of the 
ground being composed, in fact, of tufa, ashes, and coarse, broken 
sandstone, mixed with metamorphic rock, ascribed to the cretaceous age, 
and indicating disturbance by severe earthquakes or volcanic convulsions 
of a comparatively recent date. None of the trees are perfect--only the 
trunks and main roots appearing to have been petrified--and all are lying 
flat upon the ground, or half buried in it, scattered and broken, as if 
blown down by a sudden gale or whirlwind. Some of the trunks are from 
fifty to seventy-five feet in length, and nearly perfect, and others mere 
stumps and fragments, from ten to thirty feet long. Tourists visit the 
locality almost daily, and sample the trees so freely that a few years 
will suffice to obliterate all traces of the now famous grove. The stone 
takes a fine polish, and is much prized for seal-rings and jewelry. 

Professor Marsh, of Yale College, who examined the petrifaction, on the 
ground, in 1870, came to the 

Page 180

conclusion that the trees had first been overthrown by earthquake force, 
and buried beneath the debris from Some ancient eruption of Mount St. 
Helena, the summit of which is fully ten miles distant in a northeastern 
direction on the other side of the valley; then petrified by the action of 
acids contained in these volcanic deposits, and in the lapse of time again 
uncovered by the wearing away of the overlaying tufa by the action of the 
rains and storms. There are grave difficulties in the way of the 
acceptance of this theory. The locality is situated at an elevation of not 
less than 2,000 feet above the sea, and from 1,000 to 1,200 feet above the 
valley which intervenes between these hills and the mountain from whence 
the volcanic matter is supposed to have come. I hazard a purely 
unprofessional and gratuitous suggestion, that the trees were gradually 
petrified while they were yet upright and living, through the slow 
absorption at the roots of silic acid, which exuded from the rocks beneath 
and impregnated the soil around them. As the process of petrifaction 
progressed and extended upwards, the trees became top-heavy, and fell over 
from their own weight, the roots having become too brittle through decay 
or petrifaction to assist in sustaining them in their natural erect' 
position. The fact that the roots and lower parts of the trunks only were 
petrified-no fragments of the boughs are to be found--strengthens this 
last hypothesis. However, there is nothing on earth so cheap as theories--
certainly nothing more worthless-and the reader can take his choice, or 
reject them all and 

Page 181

form one of his own, if he pleases. On the whole. it is quite likely that 
he or she will get along just as well without any theory whatever--the 
petrified trees are there anyhow--and in doing so, save himself and 
mankind generally a world of trouble. I have observed in my capacity as a 
journalist, that the detective or other officer who forms a theory in 
regard to the perpetration of a crime, invariably warps all the facts to 
accommodate them to that theory, and in nine cases out of ten ends by 
going wide of the truth, and having the mortification of seeing some dull-
headed, non-theorizing plodder carry off the reward for the discovery of 
the criminal. As a rule, what is cheap is not worth having at any price, 
and the mere fact that a theory on any subject costs nothing at the start, 
is rather against it than otherwise. I used to have theories on politics 
and religion and social economy years ago, but I found that they kept me 
in hot water all the time, so I discarded them all, and have had abundant 
reason to thank a merciful Providence for having done so. As a rule, 
theories don't pay. It is true there are exceptions. I once knew a famous 
southern journalist who retired from the pursuit of his profession, and 
settled down as a theoretical and practical sheep-raiser, in Coural 
county, Texas. He had a theory. It was, that the sure road to fortune--for 
others--lay in buying blooded sheep for improving the native breed. He 
succeeded in convincing his fellow-citizens of the Lone Star State of the 
truth of this theory, and became rich by selling them the sheep at round 
prices. But you will readily observe 

Page 182

that he ran his theory, instead of following the usual custom, and 
allowing his theory to run him. Most people are run by their theories, and 
fail. Having never been able to sell my theories to others, and being 
determined not to buy any, or keep any on hand, I have retired from the 
theory business entirely, and do not propose to go back to it. 

The road leading up to the Petrified Forest from Calistoga is a romantic 
and beautiful one, and the trip on a pleasant morning or evening in the 
early springtime, when the hills are clad in vivid green, and the 
manzanita and the madroo are in blossom, loading all the air with their 
sensuous fragrance, is one to be enjoyed to the utmost, and ever after 
remembered with pleasure. 

"There is no beauty in star or blossom 
Till looked upon with a loving eye; 
There;s no fragrance in spring-time breezes 
Till breathed with joy as they wander by." 

Beautiful for aye to me are the stars which look down in their glory on 
this valley and these mountains; more fragrant than the winds from the 
sweet south, which have passed over "the Gardens of Gul in their bloom," 
are the soft breezes which I have here breathed with a tender joy 
unutterable. 

A two-mile ride through the fertile valley takes one to the foot of Mount 
St. Helena, and a winding carriage-road, supplemented by a bridle-path, 
leads thence to the summit of the grand old mountain. The tourists who 
every summer are whirled through this valley up to the Geysers and back 
again in hot haste, vainly imagining that they are seeing, when they 

Page 183

are in truth only "doing" California, know not what a treat they are 
missing in passing by Mount St. Helena without ascending it. The mountain 
rises only 4,345 feet above the sea, its altitude being really less than 
that of Mount Washington, in New Hampshire, but it so far overtops the 
surrounding hills and lesser mountains, that the view from its summit is 
grand and extended beyond the power of words to depict. From the broad 
Pacific on the west, to the snow-capped Sierra Nevada, which skirts the 
whole eastern horizon, and from San Francisco and the mountains of San 
Mateo, Alameda, and Santa Clara in the south, to the Black Buttes of 
Marysville and the valley of Russian River, the redwood forests of 
Mendocino and Sonoma, and the high mountain country of the Lakes on the 
northeast, northwest and north, the view is unbroken and uninterrupted, 
save by the isolated peaks of Mount Diablo, Tamalpais, and a few lesser 
landmarks of the Golden Land. The view from the summit of Tamalpais is 
worth a journey from Europe to behold--that from St. Helena is worth a 
hundred of it. To the stranger there is enchantment in the scene; to the 
old Californian, history, romance, suggestive memories, in every feature 
of the scene. Look over there to the eastward beyond the intervening coast-
range foot-hills into the valley of the Sacramento! Who, standing here and 
looking down for the first time upon that broad, straw-colored valley, dry 
as the dust of the highway, and glimmering in the hot sunshine, would 
believe that a few years since it was one wide sea of turbid waters, forty 
miles from 

Page 184

bank to bank, and stretching from the Bay of Suisun to the Black Buttes of 
Marysville and beyond? Yet such it was. In the winter of 1861-2, steamers 
went twenty miles inland from the banks of the Sacramento, and from tree-
tops, hay-stacks, and the roofs of houses and barns, or fixed rafts 
constructed of house and fence materials, rescued hundreds of families who 
otherwise must have perished in the raging floods. Those were indeed dark 
days for the dwellers in the valley of the Sacramento, and it seemed for a 
time that the whole country must be abandoned forever by man. For more 
than forty days and forty nights the windows of Heaven were opened, and 
the rain poured down almost incessantly. San Francisco was filled with 
refugees, supported by the charity of her citizens; and all the towns of 
the valley country were flooded, or saved from destruction only by 
incessant labor upon their levees. 

In those days people joked and laughed in the midst of their misfortunes 
with true California humor. Well do I remember hearing a party of the 
"drowned out, standing on the deck of a steamer which was carrying them to 
San Francisco, and relating with grim facetiousness the mishaps and 
adventures of the hour. One rough-bearded fellow, with a pale, shrinking, 
feeble woman by his sided and a half-clad, sick child in his arms, told 
how, while the family were clinging to the boughs of a tree just above the 
surging waters, they saw a house going swiftly down the stream, with a 
Chinaman sitting quietly astride the ridge of the roof. "Halloa, John! 
where are you 

Page 185

bound for?" called out one of the party as John was swept swiftly past. 
"Me no shabbe!" was John's prompt but half-despairing reply. Let us hope 
that he brought up in some safe harbor at last. Another of the group told, 
with an evident hearty relish and keen appeciation of the absurdity of the 
matter, how he had passed on a raft in the immediate vicinity of a country 
house, which, firmly anchored to two giant trees, held its own stiffly 
against the flood. The water stood four feet deep on the ground floor, and 
the children were looking composedly out of the chamber window at the old 
lady, who, armed with a long pole, was wading around armpit deep in the 
water some distance from the house. From time to time, she would turn the 
end of the pole downwards and feel about in the water for something. The 
party on the raft hailed her to know if any of her family had been 
drowned, intending if such was the case to offer to stop and help her 
search for the body. "No, thank you; family all safe, but the child'n is 
terribly dry, an' I never like to let 'em drink river water, 'cause its so 
agery, an' I'm jest tryin' to find the confounded well. If I don't think 
hit's gone an floated away, drown me, stranger; an' it cost us a heap o' 
money!" was the poor distressed woman's half-despairing reply. This 
prejudice against river water is doubtless to some extent justifiable, as, 
in the summer season, the amount of vegetable matter held in solution in 
it must be considerable; nevertheless, I incline to the impression that 
the old lady was rather running it into the ground under all the 
circumstances. 

Page 186

Away over there in the northwest, among the forest-clad hills which skirt 
the Valley of Russian River, is the favorite stamping-ground of certain 
amateur hunters and fishermen from San Francisco: members of the bar and 
occupants of the bench, who come here to spend the summer vacation, 
"camping out," roughing it, shooting, fishing, swapping anecdotes by the 
blazing camp-fires far into the glorious nights, and growing little poorer 
in pocket, while growing rich to abundance in the health, strength, and 
elasticity of spirit which they carry back to the city with them. 
Judge -----, of the U. S. ----- Court, in San Francisco, is one of these 
choice spirits. He is as captivating a talker as you may meet in many a 
long year's journeyings around this sinful world. His fame has gone out 
through the land, and everybody now knows him by sight, or reputation at 
least. It was different years ago. Once upon a time, a party of these city 
sports were camping in the mountains, and having a jolly good time. one 
evening a stranger came into camp, and as he appeared to be a nice, quiet, 
sociable, intelligent gentleman, he was made free to everything for the 
night. He soon showed himself not only a good story-teller, but something 
still dearer to the Judge's heart--a good listener. After supper, he 
seated himself upon a log before the blazing camp-fire, and the Judge, 
placing himself between him and tile fire, crossed his hands under his 
coat-tails, bent his face in close proximity to that of his victim, and 
went for him for all be was worth. An hour-two, three hours passed, and 
still the Judge talked on; and still 

Page 187

the stranger maintained his position, holding on to the log with both 
hands, and looking his honor fixedly in the face. One of the party called 
another to one side, and said to him anxiously: "For Heaven's sake, call 
the Judge off, or we won't sleep a wink to-night." Number two-approached 
the Judge-quietly, pulled him by the sleeve, and said: 

"See here, Judge, I have something that I would like to speak to you about 
for a few moments!" 

"Presently! 

An hour passed and the manuvre was repeated, with the same reply-- 

Presently!" 

Another hour, and another member tried it on. 

"Presently, sir; presently, I tell you!" was the Judge's somewhat 
impatient reply. 

Another and another tried it with like success, or want of success, and at 
last all gave it up and turned into their welcome blankets. All through 
the weary night the party turned uneasily in their blankets from time to 
time, and still heard the Judge going on--and on--and on--the stream of 
talk flowing as steadily and remorselessly as the stream of Time, which 
singeth as it flows-- 

"And men may come, and men may go, 
But I go on forever." 

Morning broke over the grey mountains at last, and the party arose to 
prepare for breakfast. The fire had gone out, but the Judge stood there as 
he had been standing on the evening before, with his hands clasped behind 
him, his back bent towards 

Page 188

where the fire had been, and his-face toward the foe--still talking on--
and on--and on. And the stranger? He sat there still, with his eyes fixed 
in a dull, stony stare straight in the Judge's face-mad, hopelessly mad! 
They pulled the Judge away by main force, and compelled him to notice the 
condition of his victim, something he had utterly omitted to do before. It 
was too late; reason had given way at last before the terrible strain, and 
she never recovered her throne. To this day, a grey-haired, quiet, 
hopelessly-afflicted patient wanders around in the public. ward of the 
Insane Asylum at Stockton, looking with a fixed, stony stare before him, 
and never speaking to any human being; only at long intervals muttering 
half incoherently, "Presently, presently!" while the Judge goes on the 
even tenor of his way, dealing out justice to his fellow-men, and sleeping 
at nights like a Christian when he has nobody to talk to. 

Years passed on, and the "road agents"who had long made it lively for the 
travelers and expressmen in the Sierra Nevada and the gold districts of 
the foothill country of California, finding the old stamping-ground 
becoming comparatively unproductive, shifted their base of operations over 
to-the western and southern parts of the State, and set to work with fresh 
energy to gain a livelihood by the industrious practice of their 
profession. In the spring and summer of 1871 they affected Sonoma county 
to a disagreeable extent, and cleaned out stage-load after stage-load over 
there in the northwest, about Cloverdale. You can see the road with the 
glass, there where it winds 

Page 189

over the divide coming out of the Russian River Valley. One night in 
August a party of San Franciscans went up the valley from Santa Rosa, 
bound on a hunting expedition into the mountains, and the gentlemen of the 
road, mistaking their ambulance for the regular stage, came quietly out 
into the road from the dusty chapparal on either side, like so many 
ghosts, in slouched hats and black crape veils, and presenting their shot-
guns, ordered the party to stand and deliver. The party, never dreaming of 
such a misadventure, had their guns all stowed away in their cases in the 
bottom of the carriage, and were in no condition to resist. The beau and 
wit of the party arose, and with a deprecatory gesture commenced to 
address the veiled figures before him: 

"Gentlemen, I regret to disappoint you and give you so much unnecessary 
trouble, but the fact is, you have made a trifling mistake, This isn't a 
stage. We are a party of peaceful citizens bound on a hunting and fishing 
expedition, and haven't got so much as a dollar in cash, a watch or a ring 
in the party. We don't carry 'em when we go on such a trip. It isn't safe. 
You know how it is yourselves!" 

"Oh, cut it short! Save the rest for the next party. Git down there d--d 
quick!" was the emphatic remark of the leader of the gang. The beau and 
wit got down in despair, and held up his hands. Then a woebegone visage 
was protruded from the side of the vehicle, and in solemn, sepulchral 
accents, a new address commenced as follows: 

"Gentlemen, it is not often that I am called upon 

Page 190

to make any remarks in a ease like this. It seems to me that the matter 
may be stated briefly as follows: Firstly, the -----" 

"Great G--d, boys!" fairly yelled the leader, as he recognized his man, 
"if this ain't old Judge -----, I'll be d--d! Let's get; for if he gets to 
talking to us, we'll die right here of old age or starvation!" and in half 
the time it would take me to tell it, the whole gang broke, as from the 
presence of the cholera, and disappeared in the chaparral from whence they 
came, never halting even to say good-by. 

That reminds me of the fellow who came up to me with an Apache arrow 
sticking in his back, on the Skull Valley road, in Central Arizona. 
He ----- 

It pains me to be compelled to cut that story short at the above point, 
but love of truth impels me to say that I never had an opportunity of 
finishing it in the presence of that company. Just as I started to tell 
what the poor fellow did, I heard one of the party remark to another, "No 
insane asylum in mine, if I know' it!" and a moment after observed them 
all, one by one, my beloved and trusted companions, crawling off over the 
rocks, like so many skulking Apaches, toward the spot where the horses 
were tied. When I overtook them, just as they were getting into their 
saddles, they assured me that they always liked that story about the 
Judge. They considered it "very neat and very appropriate." Well, so they 
did, and so do I; but I cursed in my heart the set of over-appreciative 
wretches who could draw a moral so fine, and put it in practice so 
suddenly. I like fun; but 

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practical jokes and practical jokers I detest, I was so disgusted that I 
never looked behind me to see what else was to be seen from the summit of 
Mount St. Helena, and in sorrow and in silence rode away down the mountain 
to Calistoga again.