.1. V.-" LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIFT OF n PATHWAY TO WESTERN LITERATURE BY NETTIE S. GAINES Teacher in City Schools of Stockton, California Cover Design by W. S. RICE Stockton, California NETTIE S. GAINES All rights reserved COPYRIGHT 1910 BY NETTIE S. GAINES CONTENTS A STABTLING ADVENTURE J. Ross Browne 1 BBOWN WOLF Jack London ^. 9 COLUMBUS (Poem) Joaquin Miller /. 16 THE PASSING OF THE SPANISH HQME Helen Hunt Jackson U< 18 INDIAN BASKETBY Ella Higginson 22 AN ENGINEEBING TBIUMPH Dan De Quille 30 NOBILITY (Poem) Richard Realf 38 A UNIQUE HOUSE W. C. Bartlett 39 IN BLOSSOM TIME Ina Coolbrith ..U 40 AUTUMN IN SOUTHERN CALIFOBNIA Theodore Van Dyke 41 LEAF AND BLADE (Poem) Ina Coolbrith 45 ASCENT OF MT. TYNDALL Clarence King 46 TRIP TO THE FARALLONES Charles Keeler 53 THE OAKS OF TULARE (Poem) Lillian H. Shuey 59 292639 iv Contents FROM YUMA TO SALTON SEA George Wharton James ^ 60 LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE (Poem) Edwin Markham r^. 71 THE DESEET S CALL Mary Austin ^.. 73 THE GREAT BASIN Col. John C. Fremont X 75 THE MAN OF THE TRAIL (Poem) Henry Meade Bland 83 ON AN ALASKAN TRAIL Ella Higginson 84 THE WAY OF THE DESERT Idah Meacham Strobridge 97 HEIMWEH (Poem) Lowell Otus Reese 100 SAN FRANCISCO S CHINATOWN BEFORE THE EARTH QUAKE Frank Norms 102 ADVENTURES OF THE FORTY-NINERS Wm. Lewis Manly 107 How SANTA GLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON S BAR Bret Harte 113 THE PEARLS OF LORETA Gertrude Atherton 119 THE OVERLAND FLYER (Poem) Charles Keeler 125 A BREEZE FROM THE WOODS W. C. Bartlett 126 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BEFORE THE BOOM Theodore Van Dyke 129 Contents THE LUBE OF THE TRAIL Stewart Edward White... -^ 139 BEX FRANKLIN James C. Adams 113 THE MARIPOSA LILY (Poem) Ina Coolbrith ". 148 THIBST OF THE DONNEB PABTY C. T. McGlashan 149 STARVATION OF THE DON NEB PARTY C. T. McGlashan 153 A SONG OF AUTUMN (Poem) Henry Meade Bland 157 SAN GABRIEL VALLEY Theodore Van Dyke 158 THE POET S WEALTH (Poem) Richard Realf 161 THE ASCENT OF MT. RAINIER Ada Woodruff Anderson 162 To THE PIONEERS THAT REMAIN (Poem) A. J. Waterhouse 178 THE LOVE MASTER Jack London . . \ 179 FATHER SALVIEBDERRA S FAITH Helen Hunt Jackson -s. 188 "Two BITS" (Poem) Sharlott M. Hall 195 FEBNS AND FEBNEBIES Belle Sumner Angier 198 THE WHEAT Frank Norris . . 200 vi Contents PAGE NIGHTTIME IN CALIFORNIA (Poem) A. J. Water-house 210 SON OF COPPER SIN Herman Whitaker 212 OCTOBER CLOUDS (Poem) Mary B. Williams 221. HUMMERS Florence A. Merriam 222 THE FOOTHILLS Stewart Edward White. 231 "THE JOY OF THE HILLS" (Poem) Edwin Markham 234 DESERT ANIMALS John C. Van Dyke 235 THE LEGEND OF THE CHINA LILY Idah Meacham Strobridge 238 PEEFACE Western geography and history are slowly but surely gaining their rightful place in the public school system throughout the country. For a number of years the compiler of this book has been deeply interested in the literature of the West and has directed her efforts toward having it carried along side by side with the history and geography with which it is so closely allied. It was, therefore, a source of much gratification when James A. Barr, City Superintendent of the Stockton schools, suggested that a book be compiled composed of extracts from the works of Western writers to be used as a Supplementary Reader, for she believed that in this way children would not only gain power in reading, but that they would gradually come to possess a loyalty and love for all things Western. With this thought constantly in mind, the work required to compile such a book has been relieved of its arduousness and the task has been one of great pleasure and profit. It has been the aim to make the collection repre sentative of the coast, full of local color from pio neer days to the present. Many short extracts have been selected rather than a few long ones, hoping that a broader field may be covered. A small amount of preparation by the teacher will enable her to give a setting for any selection. This will not be required for all, as viii Preface a number are complete within themselves. After the children s interest in a selection has been se cured, then is the time when the author should re ceive recognition, and every teacher in our schools should welcome this opportunity of making the chil dren appreciative of Western writers. It has not been deemed advisable to classify con tents, as the book is designed for use in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades in connection with the history and geography of the West. Thus the teacher will use her own judgment as to the best means of correlation. Before submitting the manuscript of this book to the publishers, representative extracts were sent to city and county superintendents, as well as to a number of teachers, to be passed upon. The com mendations received assure the success of the un dertaking. While all extracts are from the Avorks of Western writers, yet it is hoped that the appeal of the book will not be confined to the West nor even to the con fines of the school room alone. The compiler of this book wishes to express deep appreciation to the following publishing houses for their courtesy in granting certain copyright privil eges: The Macmillan Company for selections by Jack London, Gertrude Atherton and Ella Higgin- son; Little, Brown & Company for selections by George Wharton James and Ada Woodruff Ander son; Harper & Brothers for selections by Herman Whitaker and J. Ross Browne; Houghton Mifflin & Company for selections by Bret Harte, Florence A. Merriam and Mary Austin ; Doubleday, Page & Company for selections by Stewart Edward White, Preface ix Edwin Markham and Frank Norris ; Charles Scrib- ner s Sons for selections by John C. Van Dyke and Clarence King; Paul Elder & Company for selec tions by Charles Keeler and Belle Sunnier Angler, and Funk "VYagnalls Company for poems by Rich ard Realf. Special permission has been granted by the fol lowing persons and to them the compiler is deeply indebted also: Charles Keeler, Ina Coolbrith, C. F. McGlashan, Lillian Hinman Shuey, Theodore Hit- tell, W. E. Bartlett, Theodore Van Dyke, Idah Meachani Strobridge, A. J. AYaterhouse, Henry Meade Bland, Mary B. Williams, Lowell Otus Reese, Joaquin Miller, Sharlott Hall; Out West Magazine and Pacific Monthly Magazine for illus trations. INTBODUCTION To present to the youth of California adequate selections from the writings of the best authors of the State is a laudable endeavor. I have long hoped to see it done. Why should our children s study of Literature be confined to the works of English and Eastern authors to the exclusion of the wealth of prose and poetry produced in the West. Cali fornia has made itself felt with dignity and power, as well as native force and originality, in the litera ture of the English-speaking world and it is appro priate that its literary contributions be placed be fore the future citizenship of the State. As I have constantly affirmed, so I sincerely be lieve that California has a wonderful destiny as the location of the highest civilization yet to be born, and this destiny is clearly foreshadowed in its literature. Its geographic isolation, its topo graphic cosmos, the climatic and scenic environ ment it affords, the pioneer basis of its civilization, all point to this exalted destiny. It is well, therefore, that its youth should be made familiar with what is their grave responsibil ity and glorious opportunity. Mrs. Gaines has exercised great care in making the selections of this volume, and that many of them are my own especial favorites that I had the pleasure of introducing to her does not lessen my gratification in seeing them gathered together in this form. xii Introduction The book as a whole will delight and interest as well as inform and inspire the children who read it. Other volumes undoubtedly will soon follow and thus the mine of the rich literary treasures of California be at least indicated to those to whom it is a natural inheritance. GEORGE WHARTON JAMES, Thanksgiving Day, 1909. Pasadena, California. i A STARTLING ADVENTURE BY J. Ross BROWNE DESCENDED several of these shafts rather to oblige my friend the Judge than to satisfy any curiosity I had on the subject myself. This thing of being dropped down two hundred feet into the bowels of the earth in wooden buckets, and hoisted out by blind horses attached to " whims, " may be very amusing to read about, but I have enjoyed pleasanter modes of locomotion. There was one shaft in particular that left an indelible impression upon my mind so much so, indeed, that I am as tonished every hair in my head is not quite gray. It was in the San Antonia, a mine in which the Judge held an interest, in connection with a worthy Norwegian by the name of Jansen. As I had trav eled in Norway, Jansen was enthusiastic in his de votion to my enjoyment declared he would go down with me himself and show me everything worth seeing even to the lower level just opened. While I was attempting to frame an excuse the hon est Norwegian had lighted a couple of candles, giv en directions to one of the "boys" to look out for the old blind horse attached to the whim," and now stood ready at the mouth of the shaft to guide me into the subterranean regions. "Mr. Jansen," said I, looking with horror at the rickety wooden bucket and the flimsy little rope that was to hold us suspended between the surface of the earth and eternity, "is that rope strong?" "Well, I think it s strong enough to hold us," 2 Pathway to Western Literature replied Jansen ; it carries a ton of ore. We don t weigh a ton, I guess. "But the bucket looks fearfully battered. And who can vouch that the old horse won t run away and let us down by the run?" Oh, sir, he s used to it. That horse never runs. You see, he s fast asleep now. He sleeps all along on the down turn. It s the up turn that gets him. "Mr. Jansen," said I, "all that may be true; but suppose the bucket should catch and drop us out?" "Well, sometimes it catches; but nobody s been hurt bad yet ; one man fell fifteen feet perpendic ular. He lit on the top of his head. "Wasn t he killed?" " No ; he was only stunned a little. There was a buzzing about among his brains for a few days after; he s at work down below now, as well as ever. "Mr. Jansen, upon the whole I think I d rather go down by the ladder, if it s all the same to you. "Certainly, sir, suit yourself: only the ladder s sort o broke in spots, and you ll find it a tolerably hard climb down; how so ever, I ll go ahead and sing out when I come to bad places. With this the Norwegian disappeared. I looked down after him. The shaft was about four feet square ; rough, black and dismal, with a small flick ering light, apparently a thousand feet below, mak ing the darkness visible. It was almost perpendic ular; the ladders stood against the near side, perched on ledges or hanging together by means of chafed and ragged-looking ropes. I regretted that I had not taken Jansen s advice and committed my- A Startling Adventure 3 self to the bucket ; but it was now too late. "With a hurried glance at the bright world around me, a thought of home and the unhappy conditions of widows and orphans, as a general thing, I seized the rungs of the ladder and took the irrevocable dive. Down I crept, rung after rung, ladder after ladder, in the black darkness, with the solid walls of rock pressing the air close around me. Some times I heard the incoherent muttering of voices below, but could make nothing of them. Perhaps Jansen was warning me of breaks in the ladder; perhaps his voice was split up by the rocks and sounded like many voices ; or it might be there were gnomes whisking about in the dark depths below. Down and still down I crept, slower and slower, for I was getting tired, and I fancied there might be poisonous gases in the air. "When I had reached the depth of a thousand feet, as it seemed, but about a hundred and forty as it was in reality, the thought occurred to me that I was beginning to get alarmed. In truth I was shaking like a man with the ague. Suppose I should become nervous and lose my hold on the ladder? The very idea was enough to make me shaky. There was an in definite extent of shaft underneath, black, narrow and scraggy, with a solid base of rock at the bot tom. I did not wonder that it caused a buzzing of the brain to fall fifteen feet and light on top of the head. My brain was buzzing already, and I had not fallen yet. But the prospect to that effect was getting better and better every moment, for I was now quite out of breath, and had to stop and cling around the ladder to avoid falling. The longer I stood this way the more certain it became that I 4 Pathway to Western Literature should lose my balance and topple over. With a desperate effort I proceeded, step after step, cling ing to the frail wood-work as the drowning man clings to a straw, gasping for breath, the cold sweat streaming down my face, and my jaws chat tering audibly. The breaks in the ladder were get ting fearfully common. Sometimes I found two rungs gone, sometimes six or seven, and then I had to slide down by the sides till my feet found a resting place on another rung or some casual ledge of rock. To Jansen, or the miners who worked down in the shaft every day, all of this, of course, was mere pastime. They knew every break and resting place ; and besides, familiarity with any par ticular kind of danger blunts the sense of it. I am confident that I could make the same trip now without experiencing any unpleasant sensation. By good fortune I at length reached the bottom of the shaft, where I found my Norwegian friend and some three or four workmen quietly awaiting my arrival. A bucket of ore, containing some five or six hundred pounds, was ready to be hoisted up. It was very nice-looking ore, and very rich ore, as Jansen assured me ; but what did I care about ore till I got the breath back again into my body ? "Stand from under, sir," said Jansen, dodging into a hole in the rocks; "a chunk of ore might fall out, or the bucket might give way." Stand from under ? Where in the name of sense was a man to stand in such a hole as this, not more than six or eight feet square at the b ase, with a few dark chasms in the neighborhood through which it was quite possible to be precipitated into the in fernal regions. However, I stood as close to the A Startling Adventure 5 wall as was possible without backing clean into it. The bucket of ore having gone up out of sight, I was now introduced to the ledge upon which the men were at work. It was about four feet thick, clearly defined, and apparently rich in the precious metals. In some specimens which I took out myself gold was visible to the naked eye. The indications of silver were also well marked. This was at a depth of a hundred and seventy-five feet. At the bottom of this shaft there was a loose flooring of rafters and planks. "If you like, sir," said Jansen, "we ll go down here and take a look at the lower drift. They ve just struck the ledge about forty feet below." "Are the ladders as good as those above, Mr. Jansen?" I inquired. "Oh yes, sir; they re all good; some of the low er ones may be busted a little with the blastin ; but there s two men down there. Guess they got down somehow. * 1 ( To tell you the truth, Mr. Jansen, I m not curi ous about the lower drift. You can show me some specimens of the ore, and that will be quite satis factory. "Yes, sir, but I d like you to see the vein where the drift strikes it. It s really beautiful." A beautiful sight down in this region was worth looking at, so I succumbed. Jansen lifted up the planks, told the men to cover us well up as soon as we had disappeared, in order to keep the ore from the upper shaft from tumbling on our heads, and then, diving down, politely requested me to fol low. I had barely descended a few steps when the massive rafters and planks were thrown across 2 6 Pathway to Western Literature overhead and thus all exit to the outer world was cut off. There was an oppressive sensation in be ing so completely isolated from the outside world- barred out, as it were, from the surface of the earth. Yet, how many there are who spend half their lives in such a place for a pittance of wages which they squander in dissipation! Surely it is worth four dollars a day to work in these dismal holes. Bracing my nerves with such thoughts as these, I scrambled down the rickety ladders till the last rung seemed to have disappeared. I probed about with a spare leg for a landing place, but could touch neither top, bottom nor sides. The ladder was apparently suspended in space like Moham med s coffin. "Come on, sir," cried the voice of Jansen far down below. "They re going to blast." Pleasant, if not picturesque, to be hanging by two arms and one leg to a ladder, squirming about in search of a foothold, while somebody below was setting fire to a fuse with the design, no doubt, of blowing up the entire premises ! "Mr. Jansen," said I, in a voice of unnatural calmness, while the big drops of agony stood on my brow, "there s no difficulty in saying Come on, sir ! but to do it without an inch more of ladder or anything else that I can see, requires both time and reflection. How far do you expect me to drop?" "Oh, don t you let go, sir. Just hang on to that rope at the bottom of the ladder, and let yourself down. I hung on as directed and let myself down. It was plain sailing enough to one who knew the A Startling Adventure 1 chart. The ladder, it seemed, had been broken by a blast of rocks ; and now there was to be another blast. We retired into a convenient hole about ten or a dozen paces from the deposit of Hazard s powder. The blast went off with a dead reverbera tion, causing a concussion in the air that affected one like a shock of galvanism ; and then there was a diabolical smell of brimstone. Jansen was charmed at the result. A mass of the ledge was burst clean open. He grasped up the blackened fragments of quartz, licked them with his tongue, held them up to the candle, and constantly ex claimed: There, sir, there! Isn t it beautiful? Did you ever see anything like it? pure gold, al most here it is! don t you see it?" I suppose I saw it ; at all events I put some speci mens in my pocket, and saw them afterward out in the pure sunlight, where the smoke was not so dense ; and it is due to the great cause of truth to say that gold was there in glittering specks, as if shaken over it from a pepperbox. Having concluded my examination of the mine, I took the bucket as a medium of exit, being fully satisfied with the ladders. About half way up the shaft the iron swing or handle to which the rope was attached caught in one of the ladders. The rope stretched. I felt it harden and grow thin in my hands. The bucket began to tip over. It was pitch dark all around. Jansen was far below, com ing up the ladder. Something seemed to be creak ing, cracking, or giving way. I felt the rough, heavy sides of the bucket pi-ess against my legs. A terrible apprehension seized me that the gear was tangled and would presently snap. In the pitchy 8 Pathway to Western Literature darkness and the confusion of the moment I could not conjecture what was the matter. I darted out my hands, seized the ladder and, jerking myself high out of the bucket, clambered up with the agil ity of an acrobat. Relieved of my weight, the iron catch came loose, and up came the bucket "Banging and thundering after me with a velocity that was perfectly frightful. Never was there such a sub terranean chase, I verily believe, since the begin ning of the world. To stop a single moment would be certain destruction, for the bucket was large, heavy and massively bound with iron, and the space in the shaft was not sufficient to admit of its passing without crushing me flat against the ladder. But such a chase could not last long. I felt my strength give way at every lift. The distance was too great to admit the hope of escape by climbing. My only chance was to seize the rope above the bucket and hang on to it. This I did. It was a lucky thought one of those thoughts that some times flash upon the mind like inspiration in a mo ment of peril. Afewmore revolutions of the whim" brought me so near the surface that I could see the bucket only a few yards below my feet. The noise of the rope over the block above reminded me that I had better slip down a little to save my hands, which I did in good style, and was presently landed on the upper crust of the earth, all safe and sound, though somewhat dazzled by the light and rattled by my subterranean experiences. From "Adven tures in the Apache Country." Brown Wolf 9 BROWN WOLF BY JACK LONDON Klondiker s face took on a contemptuous 1 expression as he said finally, I reckon there s nothin in sight to prevent me takin the dog right here an now." Walt s face reddened, and the striking-muscles of his arms and shoulders seemed to stiffen and grow tense. His wife fluttered apprehensively into the breach. "Maybe Mr. Miller is right," she said. "I am afraid that he is. Wolf does seem to know him, and certainly he answers to the name of Brown. He made friends with him instantly, and you know that s something he never did with anybody before. Besides, look at the way he barked. He was just bursting with joy. Joy over what? Without doubt at finding Mr. Miller." Walt s striking-muscles relaxed, and his shoul ders seemed to droop with hopelessness. "I guess you re right, Madge," he said. "Wolf isn t Wolf, but Brown, and he must belong to Mr. Miller." "Perhaps Mr. Miller will sell him," she sug gested. "We can buy him." Skiff Miller shook his head, no longer belligerent, but kindly, quick to be generous in response to gen- erousness. * * I had five dogs, he said, casting about for the easiest way to temper his refusal. "He was the leader. They was the crack team of Alaska. [Copyright by The Macmillan Company, 1906.] 10 Pathway to Western Literature Nothin could touch em. In 1898 I refused five thousand dollars for the bunch. Dogs was high then, anyway; but that wasn t what made the fancy price. It was the team itself. Brown was the best in the team. That winter I refused twelve hundred for m. I didn t sell m then an I ain t a-sellin m now. Besides, I think a mighty lot of that dog. I ve ben lookin for m for three years. It made me fair sick when I found he d ben stole not the value of him, but the well, I liked m. I couldn t believe my eyes when I seen m just now. I thought I was dreamin . It was too good to be true. Why, I was his wet-nurse. I put m to bed, snug every night. His mother died, and I brought m up on condensed milk at two dollars a can when I couldn t afford it in my own coffee. He never knew any mother but me. Madge began to speak : "But the dog," she said. "You haven t consid ered the dog. Skiff Miller looked puzzled. Have you thought about him ? she asked. "Don t know what you re drivin at," was the response. "Maybe the dog has some choice in the matter/ Madge went on. "Maybe he has his likes and de sires. You have not considered him. You give him no choice. It has never entered your mind that possibly he might prefer California to Alaska. You consider only what you like. You do with him as you would with a sack of potatoes or a bale of hay." This was a new way of looking at it, and Miller Brown Wolf 11 was visibly impressed as he debated it in his mind. Madge took advantage of his indecision. If you really love him, what would be happiness to him would be your happiness also, she urged. Skiff Miller continued to debate with himself, and Madge stole a glance of exultation to her hus band, who looked back warm approval. "What do you think? * the Klondiker suddenly demanded. It was her turn to be puzzled. "What do you mean ? she asked. "D ye think he d sooner stay in California?" She nodded her head with positiveness. "I am sure of it." Skiff Miller again debated with himself, though this time aloud, at the same time running his gaze in a judicial way over the mooted animal. "He was a good worker. He s done a heap of work for me. He never loafed on me, an he was a joe-dandy at hammerin a raw team into shape. He s got a head on him. He can do everything but talk. He knows what you say to him. Look at m now. He knows we re talkin about him." The dog was lying at Skiff Miller s feet, head close down on paws, ears erect and listening, and eyes that were quick and eager to follow the sound of speech as it fell from the lips of first one and then the other. "An there s a lot of work in m yet. He s good for years to come. An I do like him." Once or twice after that Skiff Miller opened his mouth and closed it again without speaking. Final ly he said : "I ll tell you what I ll do. Your remarks. 12 Pathivay to Western Literature ma am, has some weight in them. The dog s worked hard, and maybe he s earned a soft berth an has got a right to choose. Anyway, we ll leave it up to him. Whatever he says goes. You people stay right here settin down ; I 11 say good-bye and walk off casual-like. If he wants to stay, he can stay. If he wants to come with me, let m come. I won t call m to come an don t you call m to come back." He looked with sudden suspicion at Madge, and added, "Only you must play fair. No persuadin after my back is turned. "We ll play fair," Madge began, but Skiff Mil ler broke in on her assurances. "I know the ways of women," he announced. 1 ( Their hearts is soft. When their hearts is touched they re likely to stack the cards, look at the Hot- torn of the deck, an lie beggin your pardon, ma am I m only discoursin about women in gen eral." "I don t know how to thank you," Madge quav ered. "I don t see as you ve got any call to thank me, he replied ; * Brown ain t decided yet. Now, you won t mind if I go away slow. It s no more n fair, seem I ll be out of sight inside a hundred yards." Madge agreed and added, "And I promise you faithfully that we won t do anything to influence him." "Well, then, I might as well be gettin along," Skiff Miller said, in the ordinary tones of one de parting. At this change in his voice, Wolf lifted his head Brown Wolf 13 quickly, and still more quickly got to his feet when the man and woman shook hands. He sprang up on his hind legs, resting his fore paws on her hip and at the same time licking Skiff Miller s hand. When the latter shook hands with Walt, Wolf re peated his act, resting his weight on Walt and licking both men s hands. "It ain t no picnic, I can tell you that," were the Klondiker s last words, as he turned and went slowly up the trail. For the distance of twenty feet Wolf watched him go, himself all eagerness and expectancy, as though waiting for the man to turn and retrace his steps. Then, with a quick, low whine, Wolf sprang after him, overtook him, caught his hand between his teeth with reluctant tenderness and strove gently to make him pause. Failing in this, Wolf raced back to where Walt Irvine sat, catching his eoatsleeve in his teeth and trying vainly to drag him after the retreating man. Wolf s perturbation began to wax. He desired ubiquity. He wanted to be in two places at the same time, with the old master and the new, and steadily the distance was increasing. He sprang about excitedly, making short, nervous leaps and twists, now toward one, now toward the other, in painful indecision, not knowing his own mind, de siring both and unable to choose, uttering quick, sharp whines and Beginning to pant. He sat down abruptly on his haunches, thrusting his nose upward, his mouth opening and closing with jerky movements, each time opening wider. The jerking movements were in unison with the re current spasms that attacked the throat, each 14 Pathway to Western Literature spasm severer and more intense than the preced ing one. And in accord with jerks and spasms the larynx began to vibrate, at first silently, accom panied by the rush of air expelled from the lungs, then sounding a low, deep note, the lowest in the register of the human ear. All this was the nervous and muscular preliminary to howling. But just as the howl was on the verge of burst ing from the full throat, the wide open mouth was closed, the paroxysms ceased, and he looked long and steadily at the retreating man. Suddenly Wolf turned his head, and over his shoulder just as steadily regarded Walt. The appeal was un answered. Not a word nor a sign did the dog re ceive, no suggestion and no clew as to what his con duct should be. A glance ahead to where the old master was nearing the curve of the trail excited him again. He sprang to his feet with a whine, and then, struck by a new idea, turned his attention to Madge. Hitherto he had ignored her, but now, both masters failing him, she alone was left. He went over to her and snuggled his head in her lap, nudging her arm with his nose an old trick of his when begging for favors. He backed away from her and began writhing and twisting playfully, curvetting and prancing, half rearing and striking his fore paws to the earth, struggling with all his body, from the wheedling eyes and flattening ears to the wagging tail, to express the thought that was in him and that was denied him utterance. This too he soon abandoned. He was depressed by the coldness of these humans who had never been cold before. No response could he draw from Brown Wolf 15 them, no help could he get. They did not consider him. They were as dead. He turned and silently gazed after the old mas ter. Skiff Miller was rounding the curve. In a moment he would be gone from view. Yet he never turned his head, plodding straight onward, slowly and methodically, as though possessed of no interest in what was occurring behind his Hack. And in this fashion he went out of view. Wolf waited for him to reappear. He waited a long minute, quietly, silently without movement, as though turned to stone withal stone quick with eagerness and desire. He barked once, and waited. Then he turned and trotted back to Walt Irvine. He sniffed his hand and dropped down heavily at his feet, watching the trail where it curved emptily from view. The tiny stream slipping down the mossy-lipped stone seemed suddenly to increase the volume of its gurgling noise. Save for the meadow-larks, there was no other sound. The great yellow butterflies drifted silently through the sunshine and lost them selves in the drowsy shadows. Madge gazed tri umphantly at her husband. A few minutes later Wolf got upon his feet. Decision and deliberation marked his movements. He did not glance at the man and woman. His eyes were fixed up the trail. He had made up his mind. They knew it. And they knew, so far as they were concerned, that the ordeal had just be gun. He broke into a trot and Madge s lips pursed, forming an avenue for the caressing sound that it was the will of her to send forth. But the caressing 16 Pathway to Western Literature sound was not made. She was impelled to look at her husband, and she saw the sternness with which he watched her. The pursed lips relaxed, and she sighed inaudibly. Wolf s trot broke into a run. Wider and wider were the leaps he made. Not once did he turn his head, his wolf s brush standing out straight behind him. He cut sharply across the curve of the trail and was gone. From "Love of Life." COLUMBUS BY JOAQUIN MILLER BEHIND him lay the gray Azores, Behind the gates of Hercules ; Before him not the ghost of shores ; Before him only shoreless seas. The good mate said: "Now must we pray, For lo ! the very stars are gone. Brave AdmVl, speak; what shall I say?" "Why, say : Sail on ! sail on ! and on ! My men grow mutinous day by day ; My men grow ghastly wan and weak. The stout mate thought of home ; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. "What shall I say, brave AdmVl, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" Why, you shall say at break of day : t Sail on ! sail on ! sail on ! and on ! " [Copyrighted by the Whitaker & Ray Company, 1897. From "Joaquin Miller s Poems." Published by Whit- aker-Ray-Wiggin Co.] UNIVERSITY r Columbus 17 They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, Until at last the blanched mate said : * Why, now not even God would know Should I and all my men fall dead. These very winds forget their way, For God from these dread seas is gone. Now speak, brave AdmVl; speak and say" He said : Sail on ! sail on ! and on ! " They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate : * * This mad sea shows his teeth to-night. He curls his lip, he lies in wait, With lifted teeth, as if to bite ! Brave Adm r l, say but one good word; What shall we do when hope is gone?" The words leapt like a leaping sword : "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!" Then, pale and worn, he paced his deck, And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Of all dark nights ! And then a speck A light ! A light ! At last a light ! A light ! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled ! It grew to be Time s burst of dawn. He gained a world ; he gave that world Its grandest lesson : * On ! sail on ! " From "Book of Poems." 18 Pathway to Western Literature THE PASSING OF THE SPANISH HOME By HELEN HUNT JACKSON HPHE Senora Moreno s house was one of the best 1 specimens to be found in California of the representative house of the half barbaric, half ele gant, wholly generous and free-handed life led there by Mexican men and women of degree in the early part of this century, under the rule of the Spanish and Mexican viceroys, when the laws of the Indies were still the law of the land, and its old name, "New Spain," was an ever-present link and stimulus to the warmest memories and deepest pa triotisms of its people. It was a picturesque life, with more of sentiment and gayety in it, more, also, that was truly dramatic, more romance, than will ever be seen again on those sunny shores. The aroma of it all lingers there still; industries and inventions have not yet slain it ; it will last out its century in fact it can never be quite lost, so long as there is left standing one such house as the Senora Moreno s. When the house was built Senora Moreno owned all the land within a radius of forty miles forty miles westward, down the valley to the sea; forty miles eastward into the San Fernando Mountains; and a good forty miles, more or less, along the coast. The boundaries were not very strictly defined; there was no occasion in those happy days to reckon land by inches. It might be asked, perhaps, just how General Moreno owned all this land, and the question might not be easy to answer. It was not and could not be answered to the satisfaction of The Passing of the Spanish Home 19 the United States Land Commission, which, after the surrender of California, undertook to sift and adjust Mexican land titles, and that was the way it had come about that the Seiiora Moreno now called herself a poor woman. Tract after tract, her lands had been taken away from her ; it looked for a time as if nothing would be left. Every one of the claims based on deeds of gift from Governor Pio Pico, her husband s most intimate friend, was dis allowed. They all went by the board in one batch, and took away from the Senora in a day the great er part of her best pasture lands. They were lands which had belonged to the Buenaventura Mission, and lay along the coast at the mouth of the valley down which the little stream which ran past her house went to the sea; and it had been a great pride and delight to the Senora, when she was young, to ride that forty miles by her husband s side, all the way on their own lands, straight from their house to their own strip of shore. No wonder she believed the Americans thieves, and spoke of them always as hounds. The people of the United States have never in the least realized that the tak ing possession of California was not only a con quering of Mexico, but a conquering of California as well; that the real bitterness of the surrender was not so much to the empire which gave up the country, as to the country itself which was given up. Provinces passed back and forth in that way, helpless in the hands of great powers, have all the ignominy and humiliation of defeat, with none of the dignities or compensation of the transaction. Mexico saved much by her treaty, in spite of having to acknowledge herself beaten; but California lost 20 Pathway to Western Literature all. Words cannot tell the sting of such a trans fer. It is a marvel that a Mexican remained in the country ; probably none did, except those who were absolutely forced to it. Luckily for the Sefiora Moreno her title to the lands midway in the valley was better than to those lying to the east and to the west, which had once belonged to the missions of San Fernando and Buenaventura ; and after all the claims, coun terclaims, petitions, appeals and adjudications were ended, she still was left in undisputed possession of what would have been thought by any new comer into the country to be a handsome estate, but which seemed to the despoiled and indignant Sefiora a pitiful fragment of one. Moreover, she declared that she would never feel secure of a foot of even this. Any day, she said, the United States Government might send out a new land commis sion to examine the decrees of the first, and revoke such as they saw fit. Once a thief, always a thief. Nobody need feel himself safe under American rule. There was no knowing what might happen any day ; and year by year the lines of sadness, re sentment, anxiety and antagonism deepened on the Sefiora s fast aging face. It gave her unspeakable satisfaction when the commissioners, laying out a road down the valley, ran it at the back of her house instead of past the front. "It is well," she said. "Let their travel be where it belongs, behind our kitchens; and no one have sight of our front doors, except friends who have come to visit us." Her enjoyment of this never flagged. Whenever she saw, passing the place, wagons or carriages belonging to the hated The Passing of the Spanish Home 21 Americans, it gave her a distinct thrill of pleasure to think that the house turned its back on them. She would like always to be able to do the same herself ; but whatever she, by policy or in business, might be forced to do, the old house, at any rate, would always keep the attitude of contempt its face turned away. One other pleasure she provided herself with, soon after this road was opened a pleasure in which religious devotion and race antagonism were so closely blended that it would have puzzled the subtlest of priests to decide whether her act was a sin or a virtue. She caused to be set up, upon every one of the soft rounded hills which made the beautiful rolling sides of that part of the valley, a large wooden cross; not a hill in sight of her house left without the sacred emblem of her faith. "That the heretics may know, as they go by, that they are on the estate of a good Catholic, she said, "and that the faithful may be reminded to pray. There have been miracles of conversion wrought on the most hardened by a sudden sight of the Blessed Cross." There they stood, summer and winter, rain and shine, the silent, solemn, outstretched arms, and became landmarks to many a guideless traveler who had been told that his way would be by the first turn to the left or the right, after passing the last one of the Senora Moreno s crosses, which he couldn t miss seeing. And who shall say that it did not often happen that the crosses bore a sud den message to some idle heart journeying by, and thus justified the pious half of the Senora s im pulse? Certain it was, that many a good Catholic 3 22 Pathway to Western Literature halted and crossed himself when he first Beheld them, in the lonely places, standing out in sudden relief against the blue sky; and if he said a swift, short prayer at the sight, was he not so much the better? From "Ramona." INDIAN BASKETRY BY ELLA HIGGINSON INDIAN basketry is poetry, music, art and life itself woven exquisitely together out of dreams, and sent out into a thoughtless world in appealing messages which will one day be farewells, when the poor lonely dark women who wove them are no more. At its best, the Basketry of the islands of Atka and Attu in the Aleutian chain is the most beauti ful in the world. Most of the basketry now sold as Attu is woven by the women of Atka, we were told at Unalaska, which is the nearest market for these baskets. Only one old woman remains on Attu who understands this delicate and priceless work; and she is so poorly paid that she was recently re ported to be in a starving condition, although the velvety creations of her old hands and brain bring fabulous prices to some one. The saying that an Attu basket increases a dollar for every mile as it travels toward civilization is not such an exaggera tion as it seems. I saw a trader from the little steamer Dora the only one regularly plying those far waters buy a small basket, no larger than a [Copyright by The Macmillan Company, 1908.] Indian Basketry 23 pint bowl, for five dollars in Unalaska; and a month later, on another steamer, between Valdez and Seattle, an enthusiastic young man from New York brought the same basket out of his stateroom and proudly displayed it. "I got this one at a great bargain/ he bragged, with shining eyes. "I bought it in Valdez for twenty-five dollars, just what it cost at Unalaska. The man needed the money worse than the basket. I don t know how it is, but Fin always stumbling on bargains like that!" he concluded, beginning to strut. Then I was heartless enough to laugh, and to keep on laughing. I had greatly desired that basket myself. He had the satisfaction of knowing, however, that his little twined bowl, with the coloring of a Behring Sea sunset woven into it, would be worth fifty dollars by the time he reached Seattle, and at least a hundred in New York; and it was so soft and flexible that he could fold it up meantime and carry it in his pocket, if he chose to say nothing of the fact that Elizabeth Propokoffono, the young and famed dark-eyed weaver of Atka, may have woven it herself. Like the renowned Sally-Bags, made by Sally, a "Wasco squaw, the baskets woven by Elizabeth have a special and sentimental value. If she would weave her initials into them, she might ask, and receive, any price she fancied. Sally, of the Wascos, on the other hand, is very old ; no one weaves her special bag, and they are becoming rare and valuable. They are of plain, twined weaving, and are very coarse. A small one in the writer s possession is adorned with twelve fishes, six eagles, 24 Pathway to Western Literature three dogs, and two and a half men. Sally is ap parently a woman suffragist of the old school, and did not consider that men counted for much in the scheme of Indian baskets ; yet, being a philoso pher, as well as a suffragist, concluded that half a man was better than none at all. At Yakutat Mrs. Pete" is the best known basket weaver. Young, handsome, dark-eyed and clean, with a chubby baby in her arms, she willingly and with great gravity posed against the pilothouse of the old Santa Ana for her picture. Asked for an address to which I might send one of the pictures, she proudly replied, "just Mrs. Pete, Yakutat," Her courtesy was in marked contrast to the ex ceeding rudeness with which the Sitkan women treat even the most considerate and differential photographers; glaring at them, turning their backs, covering their heads, hissing and even spit ting at them. Basketry is either hand-woven or sewed. Hand- woven work is divided into checker work, twilled work, wicker work, wrapped work and twined work. Sewed work is called coiled basketry. Twined work is found on the Pacific Coast from Attu to Chile, and is the most delicate and difficult of all woven work. It has a set of warp rods, and the weft elements are worked in by two-strand or three-strand methods. Passing from warp to warp, these weft elements are twisted in half-turns on each other, so as to form a two-strand or three- strand twine or braid, and usually with a deftness that keeps the glossy side of the weft outward. "The Thlinkit, weaving," says Lieutenant Em- mons, "sits with knees updrawn to the chin, feet Indian Basketry 25 close to the body, bent-shouldered, with arms around the knees, the work held in front. Some times the knees fall slightly apart, the work held between them, the weft frequently held in the mouth, the feet easily crossed. The basket is held bottom down. In all kinds of weave, the strands are constantly dampened by dipping the fingers in water. The finest work of Attu and Atka is woven entirely under water. A rude awl, a bear s claw or tooth, are the only implements used. The Attu weaver has her basket inverted and suspended by a string, working from the bottom clown toward the top. Almost eveiy part of plants is used roots, stems, bark, leaves, fruit and seeds. The following are the plants chiefly used by the Thlinkits: The black shining stems of the maiden-hair fern, which are easily distinguished and which add a rich touch; the split stems of the bromegrass as an overlaying material for the white pattern of spruce-root baskets ; for the same purpose, the split stem of blue-joint ; the stem of wood reedgraco ; the stem of tufted hairgrass; the stem of beach rye; the root of horsetail, which works in a rich purple ; wolf moss, boiled for canary-yellow dye; manna- grass; root of the Sitka spruce tree; juice of the blueberry for a purple dye. The Attu weaver uses the stems and leaves of grass, having no trees and few plants. When she wants the grass white, it is cut in November and hung, points down, out-doors to dry; if yellow be desired, as it usually is, it is cut in July and the two youngest full-grown blades are cut out and split into three pieces, the middle one being re- 26 Pathway to Western Literature jected and the others hung up to dry out-doors ; if green is wanted, the grass is prepared as for yel low, except that the first two weeks of curing is carried on in the heavy shade of thick grasses, then it is taken into the house and dried. Curing re quires about a month, during which time the sun is never permitted to touch the grass. Ornamentation by menns of color is wrought by the use of materials which are naturally of a differ ent color; by the use of dyed materials; by over laying the weft and warp with strips of attractive material before weaving; by embroidering on the texture during the process of manufacture, this be ing termed "false" embroidery; by covering the texture with plaiting, called imbrication; by the addition of feathers, beads, shells and objects of like nature. Some otherwise fine specimens of Atkan basketry are rendered valueless, in my judgment, by the present custom of introducing flecks of gaily-dyed wool, the matchless beauty of these baskets lying in their delicate, even weaving, and in their exquisite natural coloring the faintest old rose, lavender, green, yellow and purple being woven together in one ravishing mist of elusive splendor. So enchant ing to the real lover of basketry are the creations of those far lonely women s hands and brains, that they seem fairly to breathe out their loveliness upon the air, as a rose. This basketry was first introduced to the world in 1874 by William H. Dall, to whom Alaska and those who love Alaska owe so much. Warp and weft are both of beach grass or wild rye. One who has Indian Basketry 27 never seen a fine specimen of these baskets has missed one of the joys of this world. The Aleuts perpetuate no story or myth in their ornamentation. AVith them it is art for art s sake; and this is, doubtless, one reason why their work draws the beholder spellbound. The symbolism of the Thlinkit is charming. It is found not alone in their basketry, but in their carvings in stone, horn, and wood, and in Chilkaht blankets. The favorite designs are shadow of a tree, water drops, salmon berry cut in half, the Arctic tern s tail, flaking of the flesh of a fish, shark s tooth, leaves of the fire- weed, an eye, raven s tail, and the crossing. It must be confessed that only a wild imagination could find the faintest resemblance of the symbols woven into the baskets to the objects they repre sent. The symbol called shadow of a tree really resembles sunlight in moving water. AVith the Haidah hats and Chilkaht blankets it is very different. The head, feet, wings and tail of the raven, for instance, are easily traced. In more recent basketry the Swastika is a familiar design. Many Thlinkit baskets have "rattly" cov ers. Seeds found in the crops of quail are woven into these covers. They are "good spirits" which can never escape, and will insure good fortune to the owner. AVoe be to him, however, should he permit his curiosity to tempt him to investigate; they will then escape, and work him evil instead of good all the days of his life. In Central Alaska, the basketry is usually of the coiled variety, coarsely and very indifferently ex ecuted. Both spruce and willow are used. From Dawson to St. Michael, in the summer of 1907, 28 Pathivay to Western Literature stopping at every trading post and Indian village, I did not see a single piece of basketry that I would carry home. Coarse, unclean and of sloven ly workmanship, one could but turn away in pity and disgust for the wasted effort. The Innuit in the Behring Sea vicinity make both coiled and twined basketry from dried grasses ; but it is even worse than the Yukon bask etry, being carelessly done the Innuit infinitely preferring the carving and decorating of walrus ivory to basket weaving. It is delicious to find an Innuit, who never saw a glacier, decorating a paper- knife with something that looks like a pond lily and labelling it Taku Glacier, which is three thou sand miles to the southeastward. I saw no attempt on the Yukon, nor on Behring Sea, at what Mr. Mason calls imbrication the beautiful ornamenta tion which the Indians of Columbia, Prazer and Thompson Rivers and of many Salish tribes of Northwestern Washington use to distinguish their coiled work. It resembles knife-plaiting before it is pressed flat. This imbrication is frequently of an exquisite dull, reddish brown over an old, soft yel low. Baskets adorned with it often have handles and flat covers; but papoose baskets and covered long baskets, almost as large as trunks, are com mon. The serpent has no place in Alaskan basketry for the very good reason that there is not a snake in all Alaska, and the Indians and Innuit probably never saw one. A woman may wade through the swamp iest place or the tallest grass without one shivery glance at her pathway for that little sinuous ripple which sends terror to most women s hearts in Indian Basketry 29 warmer climes. Indeed, it is claimed that no poisonous thing exists in Alaska. There was once a tide in my affairs which, not being taken at the flood, led on to everlasting re gret. One August evening several years ago I landed on an island in Puget Sound where some Indians were camped for the fishing season. It was Sun day; the men were playing the fascinating gamb ling game of slahal, the children were shouting at play, the women were gathered in front of their tents, gossiping. In one of the tents I found a coiled, imbricated Thompson River basket in old red-browns and yel lows. It was three and a half feet long, two and a half feet high, and two and a half wide, with a thick, close-fitting cover. It was offered to me for ten dollars, and that I should live to chronicle it ! not knowing the worth of such a basket. I closed my eyes to its appealing and unforgetable beauty, and passed it by. But it had, it has, and it always will have its silent revenge. It is as bright in my memory to day as it was in my vision that August Sunday ten years ago, and more enchanting. My longing to see it again, to possess it, increases as the years go by. Never have I seen its equal, never shall I. Yet I am ever looking for that basket, in every Indian tent or hovel I may stumble upon in vil lages, in camps, in out-of-the-way places. Sure am I that I should know it from all other baskets, at but a glance. I knew nothing of the value of baskets, and I fancied the woman was taking advantage of my 30 Pathway to Western Literature ignorance. While I hesitated, the steamer whistled. It was all over in a moment ; my chance was gone. I did not even dream how greatly I desired that basket until I stood in the bow of the steamer and saw the little white camp fade from view across the sunset sea. From " Alaska. " AN ENGINEERING TRIUMPH BY DAN DE QUILLE ANOTHER work that has been of great benefit to the towns along the Comstock, and to all the mining and milling companies in and about the towns, and along the canons below, was the bring ing of an ample supply of pure water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In the early days, when the first mining was done at Virginia City and Gold Hill, natural springs furnished a supply of water for the use of the few persons then living in the two camps. For a time after the discovery of silver, these springs, and a few wells that were dug by the settlers, sufficed for all uses, but as the towns grew in population an increased supply of water was demanded. A water company was formed and the water flowing from several tunnels, that had been run into the moun tains west of Virginia City for prospecting pur poses, was collected in large wooden tanks, and dis tributed about the two towns by means of pipes. At length the tunnels from which this supply was obtained began to run dry, and a water famine was threatened. It then became necessary to set men to r An Engineering Triumph 31 work at extending the tunnels further into the hills to cut across new strata of rock. This increased the supply for a time, but at length the whole top of the hill into which the tunnels extended ap peared to be completely drained. Early in the spring, when the snow was melting, they afforded a considerable supply; but in the summer, when water was most needed, the tunnels furnished but feeble streams and these were much impregnated with minerals, one of the least feared of which was arsenic. The ladies rather liked arsenic, as it improved their complexion; made them fair and rosy-cheeked almost young again, some of them. The miners did not object to ar senic, as, while it did not injure their complexion, it strengthened their lungs made them strong- winded, and able to scale mountains. (Every man of them hungered to hunt the wild chamois.) But there were other minerals held in solution in the water that were not so well thought of. The nearer hills having thus been drained, tun nels were run into such of those further away as were of sufficient altitude to permit of streams from them being brought to the two towns. These tunnels were run for no other purpose than to find water. A hill was examined with a view to its water-producing capacity. It was found that those which rose up in a single sharp or rounded peak were not rich in water. The best water-pro ducers were hills on the tops of which there were large areas of flat ground. That portion of a range of mountains which contained on the summit a large, shallow basin surrounded by clusters of hills or peaks was found to yield largely and for a 32 Pathway to Western Literature long time, when tapped by a tunnel run under the basin or sink at the depth of three or four hundred feet. Dams were constructed across the outlets of these basins to hold back the water from the melt ing snow, in order that it might filter down through the earth to the tunnels. At the mouths of the tunnels heavy bulkheads of timber and plank were constructed, to keep back and dam up the water where it could be kept cool and pure. Where deep shafts stood near the line of these tunnels, ditches were dug to them along the sides of the hills, and the water formed by the melting of the snow in the spring was let into them. All manner of devices, in short, were resorted to for the pur pose of keeping in and upon the hills all of the moisture from snow or rains that fell upon them. Yet, one after another these hills failed. When once the tops had been thoroughly drained it ap peared to require all of the water that fell on them in any shape during winter to reach down into and moisten them to the level of the tunnels. Finally, there were, in all, many miles of these horizontal wells. All the hills from which water could be brought, for miles away to the northward and southward of Virginia City and Gold Hill, were tapped, thousands on thousands of dollars being expended in this work. When a reservoir of water was first tapped in a new hill there would be poured out a great flood for a few days ; this would then fall to a moderate stream and so remain for a month or two, when it would begin to dwindle away. The water from the many tunnels was col lected by means of small wooden flumes or troughs, An Engineering Triumph 33 winding about the curves of the hills for miles, and in summer, when most wanted, the sickly streams from the more distant tunnels were lost by leakage and evaporation before having finished half their course to the towns. Virginia City and Gold Hill were frequently placed upon a short allowance of water, and it was seen that a great water famine must soon prevail in both towns, in case the tunnels that had been run into the mountains were depended upon for a sup ply. The Virginia and Gold Hill Water Company then determined to bring a supply of pure water from the streams and lakes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains from the regions of eternal snow. The distance from Virginia City to the first available streams in the Sierras was about twenty- five miles ; but between the Virginia range of moun tains and the Sierras lay the deep depression known as Washoe Valley in one part of which is situated "Washoe Lake. The problem to be solved in bringing water from the Sierras to Virginia City was how to convey it across this deep valley. Mr. H. Schussler, the engineer under whose su pervision the Spring Valley "Water Works, of San Francisco, were constructed, was sent for, and crossing the Sierras he made an examination of the route over which it was proposed to bring the water. He acknowledged that the undertaking was one of great difficulty. To convey the water across the deep depression formed by Washoe Val ley would demand the performing of a feat in hydraulic engineering never before attempted in any part of the world. This was to carry the water through an iron pipe under a perpendicular 34 Pathway to Western Literature pressure of 1,720 feet. This feat, however, Mr. Schussler said could be performed, and he was ready to undertake it at once. Surveys were made, in the spring of 1872, and orders given for the manufacture of the pipe. To make the pipe was the work of nearly a year. The manufacturers were furnished with a diagram of the line on which it was to be laid and each section was made to fit a certain spot. AVhen the route lay round a point of rocks the pipe was made of the required curve, and other curved sections were re quired when the line crossed deep and narrow ravines. The first section of pipe was laid June llth, 1873, and the last on the 25th of July the same year. The whole length of the pipe is seven miles and one hundred and thirty-four feet. Its interior diameter is twelve inches, and is capable of deliver ing 2,200,000 gallons of water per twenty-four hours. It lies across Washoe Valley in the form of an inverted syphon. The end at which the water is received rests upon a spur from the main Sierras at an elevation of 1,885 feet above Washoe Valley. The outlet is on the crest of the Virginia range of mountains, on the eastern slope of which are sit uated the towns of Virginia and Gold Hill. The perpendicular elevation of the inlet above the out let is four hundred and sixty-five feet. Thus is brought to bear a great pressure which forces the water rapidly through the pipe. The water is brought to the inlet through a large wooden flume, and at the outlet is delivered into a similar flume, twelve miles in length, which conveys it to Virginia City. The pipe is of wrought iron, An Engineering Triumph 35 and is fastened by three rows of five-eighths-inch rivets. At the lowest point in the ground crossed, the perpendicular pressure is one thousand seven hundred and twenty feet, equal to eight hundred pounds to the square inch. Here the iron is five- sixteenths of an inch in thickness, but as the ground rises to the east and west, and the pressure is reduced, the thickness of the iron decreases through one-fourth, three-sixteenths, down to one- sixteenth. In its course the pipe crosses thirteen deep gulches, making necessary that number of undula tions, as it is throughout its length laid at the depth of 21/2 feet below the surface of the earth. Besides these, there are a great number of lateral curves round hills and points of rocks. There was just one place and none other for each section of pipe as received from the manufactory. At each point where there is a depression in the pipe there is a blow-off cock, for the removal of any sediment that may collect, and on the top of each ridge is an air-cock, for blowing off the air when the water was first let in, and at other times when the pipe is being filled. The pipe contains no less than 1,150,000 pounds of rolled iron, is held together by 1.000.000 rivets, and there were used in securing the joints 52,000 pounds of lead, which was melted and poured in from a portable furnace that moved along the line as the work of laying the pipe pro gressed. Before being put down, each section of the pipe was boiled in a bath of asphaltum and coal-tar at a temperature of 380 degrees. At the first filling of the pipe a stream of water, about the thickness of a common lead-pencil, escaped through 36 Pathway to Western Literature the lead packing of a joint, at a point where the pressure was greatest. This struck against the face of a rock and, rebounding, played upon the upper side of the pipe. The water brought with it from the rock a small quantity of sand or grit, per haps, but at all events it soon bored a hole through the pipe, and from this hole, which shortly became two or three inches in diameter, a jet of water as- scended to the height of two hundred feet or more, spreading out in the shape of a fan toward the top. When this break occurred, a signal smoke was made in the valley, and the lookout at the inlet on the mountain spur shut off the water. Over each joint in the pipe was placed a cast-iron sleeve or band, weighing 300 pounds, and within this sleeve was poured the molten lead which served as pack ing. In all there were used 1,475, or 442,500 pounds, of these sleeves, and but three out of the whole number proved faulty and failed to sustain the strain brought upon them, and of 12,640 sheets of iron used in the pipe but one bad one was found. As it would have been a great task to test each section of the pipe by hydraulic pressure at the manufactory, the engineer proposed to bring the whole under the required strain at once, after they were put down. He began the pressure with a perpendicular height of 1,250 feet in the column of water, increased it to 1,550, to 1,700, and finally to 1,850, being 130 feet more than the pipe would be required to sustain when in actual use. During these experiments, men were stationed at the inlet of the pipe, at its outlet on the summit of the Virginia range, and at various points through the valley, as lookout men. They made their sig- An Engineering Triumph 37 nals by means of srnoke during the day, and a fire by night a trick learned from the Piute Indians. As the water came surging down through the great inverted syphon from the elevated mountain spur, and began to fill and press upon the parts lying in the deeper portions of the valley, one after another the blow-off cocks on the crests of the ridges crossed, opened, and allowed the escape of the compressed air. Compared with what was heard when these cocks blew off, the blowing of a whale was a mere whisper. The water finally flowed through the pipe and reached Gold Hill and Virginia City on the night of August 1, 1873. Early that evening a signal fire was lighted in the mountains at the inlet of the pipe, showing that the water had again been turned on. As the pipe filled, the progress of the water in it could be traced by the blowing off of the air on the tops of the ridges, through the valley and at last, to the great joy of the engineer and all concerned in the success of the enterprise, the signal fire at the outlet, on the summit of the Virginia range, was for the first time lighted, showing that the water was flowing through the whole length of the pipe. When the water reached Virginia City there was great rejoicing. Cannons were fired, bands of music paraded the streets, and rockets were sent up all over the city. Many persons went out and filled bottles with this first water from the Sierras, and a bottle of it is still preserved in the cabinet of the Pacific Coast Pioneers, From "The Big Bonanza." 38 Pathway to Western Literature NOBILITY BY RICHARD REALF CAN T man be noble unless he be great, With a patrimonial hall ; And heaps of gold and vast estate, And vassals at his call ? Can t man be noble unless there be A title to his name, Unless he live in luxury Or loll in the seats of fame? Can t man be noble unless his voice Be heard in the senate band; Or his eye flash bright and his words breathe light Through all his native laud ? Ah yes ! at the forge and the weaver s loom, As well as in hall of state, At the desk and in the cottage room, There are noble ones and great. They are springing up on every side, In hamlet and in town ; Where the stream pours and ocean roars, They are wreathing a laurel crown. They are weaving the mighty robe of truth, And bold are the throws they make, As they are teaching age and guilt Oppressive bonds to break. [From "Poems by Richard Realf." Copyright by Funk & Wagnalls, N. Y. and London.] A Unique House 39 Yes, these are the noble and the great Who will shine at a distant day, Where titled ones of hall and state Shall have been but far away. From "Poems." A UNIQUE HOUSE BY W. C. BARTLETT THE loftiest house, and the most perfect, in the matter of architecture, I have ever seen, was that which a wood-chopper occupied with his family one winter in the forests of Santa Cruz County. It was the cavity of a redwood tree two hundred and forty feet in height. Fire had eaten away the trunk at the base, until a circular room had been formed, sixteen feet in diameter. At twenty feet or more from the ground was a knot-hole, which afforded egress for the smoke. With hammocks hung from pegs, and a few cooking utensils hung from other pegs, that house lacked no essential thing. This woodsman was in possession of a house which had been a thousand years in process of building. Perhaps on the very day it was finished he came along and entered it. How did all jack- knife and hand-saw architecture sink into insig nificance in contrast with this house in the solitudes of the great forest! Moreover, the tenant fared like a prince ; within thirty yards of his coniferous house a mountain stream went rushing past to the sea, In the swirls and eddies under the shelving rocks if one could not land half a dozen trout .. 40 Patluvay to Western Literature within an hour he deserved to go hungry as a pen alty for his awkwardness. Now and then a deer came out into the openings, and, at no great dis tance quail, rabbits and pigeons could be found. What did this man want more than nature had furnished him? He had a house with a cupola" two hundred and forty feet high, and game at the cost of taking it. From "A Breeze From the Woods." IN BLOSSOM TIME BY INA COOLBRITH :T S my heart, my heart, To be out in the sun and sing To sing and shout in the fields about, In the balm and blossoming ! Sing loud, bird in the tree ; bird, sing loud in the sky, And honey-bees, blacken the clover beds There is none of you glad as I. The leaves laugh low in the wind, Laugh low, with the wind at play ; And the odorous call of the flowers all Entices my soul away! For but the world is fair, is fair And O but the world is sweet ! I will out in the gold of the blossoming mould, And sit at the Master s feet. Autumn in Southern California 41 And the love my heart would speak, I will fold in the lily s rim, That the lips of the blossom, more pure and meek, May offer it up to Him. Then sing in the hedgerow green, thrush, O skylark, sing in the blue; Sing loud, sing clear, that the king may hear, And my soul shall sing with you ! From "Songs of the Golden Gate." AUTUMN IN SOUTHEEN CALIFORNIA BY THEODORE VAX DYKE HPIIERE is nothing about autumn here that is at A all saddening or sentimental. It is only the long- lingering afternoon of a long-lingering summer day. There are dreamy hazes and filmy atmospheres enough, but they are not at all peculiar to autumn. The spider occasionally weaves his thin shroud and the gossamer rides the air; dead leaves rustle to the rabbit s tread ; the crow caws from the tree- top ; the jay jangles and the quail pipes ; but they have been doing it all summer, and, in truth, much of it in the spring. It is a bad country for "the singer," although one occasionally ventures "a poem" in which no one without looking at the title could tell which season it described. September brings no change along the rolling hills, except a little ashen tint upon the ramiria and the chorizanthe, a paler brown upon the dod der that clambers over the chemisal or buckwheat, a grayer shade upon the white sage and the dead 42 Pathway to Western Literature phacelias, a grayer brown upon the plains and table-lands. Smiling from unclouded skies, the sun passes the central line, the nights grow a trifle cooler, the ocean breeze a trifle fresher; but in stead of rain there is merely a dryer air. The lin net and the mocking-bird are heard no more; the cooing of the dove sounds more seldom from the grove; the brooding call of the quail has ceased along the hills and dales, and the young coveys gather into large bands. The mimulus that has lingered long among the shady chinks of the gran ite piles begins to close its crimson bugles ; the ivy that twines the oak above it shows a strong tinge of scarlet; the sand-verbena and other summer flowers begin to fade ; the wild gourd ripens on the low grounds, and the meadows along the edge turn a trifle sere. But in nearly all else it is summer. October comes, but the summer sun still rules the land. The low hills that are free from chapar ral grow paler where the dead mustard, wild oats, clover, alfileria and foxtail have so long lain bleach ing. The chaparral bushes look, perhaps, a trifle weary ; the green of the sumac is a little less bright than in July; the elder and the wild buckwheat look unmistakably worse for wear, and even the ever- vigorous cactus seems to think it has done full duty. But all these changes are very slight and would scarcely be noticed by the casual observer. For the whole host of bushes and trees that cover the hills, the living grass that covers the moist lands, and the dead grass that carpets the plains, all wear the same general appearance as in July; while some plants, such as goldenrod in the mead ows, are just coming into bloom, and on the dry Autumn in Southern California 43 lands the baccharis is rearing its snowy plumes. Many days will now be cooler than most days of the summer, hoar-frost will be found along the mountain valleys, some skies will be a little over cast, perhaps rain enough may fall to start the weather prophets; but the whole will be soft and bright like the sunset hour of a lovely summer day. November : Yet no leaden skies ; no sodden leaves on soaking ground; no snowflakes riding on howl ing blasts; no sloughs of mud in the roads to day, frozen hummocks to-morrow ; no robin chirp ing out a dismal farewell high above one s head; no fish-ducks whistling down the icy margin of the pond where of late the mallard quacked ; no spar rows sitting around with ruffled feathers. Only a little colder nights and shorter days; only a little frost along the bottoms of the valleys ; only a little stiller, drier air, often clearer than in summer, ex cept where brush-fires make it thick or hazy. The evaporation being checked by the longer and cooler nights, the water rises in the springs and runs in places where two months ago was nothing but dry sand. The wild duck appears along the sloughs, the honk of the goose is heard again in its winter haunts, the bluebird and robin come down from the high mountains, and the turtledove almost dis appears. The sycamore and cottonwood begin to look sere, the grapevine leaves are yellowing, and the willows are fast fading. But in nearly all else it is still summer. December comes at last, but few would suspect it. The nights are still colder, and the hoar-frost creeps higher up along the slopes of the valleys, and thin ice may form at daylight on some of the 44 Pathway to Western Literature lowest grounds. Yet the days are nearly like those of summer, though the Seabreeze is almost gone and the wind comes often from the north and east. The berries of the manzanita are now black and shining ; the heteromeles is aglow with scarlet clus ters ; the goldenrod that lately blazed along the meadows is grown gray and fuzzy ; the acorns pat ter on the roof beneath the spreading live-oak ; the plains look a little grayer, the table-lands a little browner. But the grand old oaks, the sumacs, the lilac, fuchsia, manzanita, madrona all the chapar ral bushes, in fact are very nearly as green as ever. We might as well call the whole of it sum mer, for it is only summer a little worn out. "How fearfully monotonous all that must be!" remarks one who has never passed through it. "I like something positive, some distinctive features about the seasons. It is so pleasant to sit by the fire and hear the snowstorm howl without ; sleigh- riding is so delightful, skating is such a luxury! And then the winter air is so bracing and sends the pulse bounding, and makes the cheek glow with health!" To w r hich it might be replied : There are some things that are not always objectionable even when monotonous; such things as health and wealth, for instance. It is possible that such things appear monotonous to those who do not possess them ; and also possible that after a thorough trial of them they might change their opinion of them. One who has never spent an autumn outside of an um brella or an overcoat, and all whose winters have b een largely spent sitting by the fires and listen ing to the raging of the storm without, is hardly a Leaf and Blade 45 competent judge compared with one who has given both sides of the case a fair trial, as have most of the residents of California. At all events, there is always one resource for any one whom such mo notony troubles to return to the East and try once more those good old days by the fire. Few ever stay East long enough to test them again thor oughly; from those that do, "monotony" is the least complaint ever heard after their return to California. From "Southern California. i LEAF AXD BLADE BY INA COOLBBITH AM a lowly grass blade, A fair green leaf is she, Her little fluttering shadow Falls daily over me. She sits so high in sunshine, I am so low in shade, I do not think she ever Has looked where I am laid. She sings to merry music, She frolics in the light; The great moon plays the lover AVith her through half the night. The swift, sweet winds they flatter And woo her all the day I tremble lest the boldest Should carry her away. 46 Pathway to Western Literature Only a little grass blade That dare not look so high, Yet, oh ! not any love her One-half so well as I. My little love so happy ! My love so proud and fair ! Would she might dwell forever In the sweet summer air. But, ah ! the days will darken, The pleasant skies will pall, And pale, and parched, and broken, My little love down fall. And yet the thought most bitter Is not that she must die, But that even death should bring her To lie as low as I. From " Songs From the Golden Gate." THE ASCENT OF MT. TYNDALL BY CLARENCE KING THHERE was no foothold above us. Looking 1 down over the course we had come, it seemed, and I really believe it was, an impossible descent; for one can climb upward with safety where he cannot downward. To turn back was to give up in defeat ; and we sat at least half an hour, suggesting all possible routes to the summit, accepting none, and feeling disheartened. [Copyright, 1902, by Charles Scribner s Sons.] The Ascent of Mt. Tijndall 47 About thirty feet directly over our heads was another shelf which, if we could reach it, seemed to offer at least a temporary way upward. On its edge were two or three spikes of granite; whether firmly connected with the cliff, or merely to blocks of debris, we could not tell from below. I said to Cotter, I thought of but one possible plan : It was to lasso one of these blocks, and to climb, sailor fashion, hand over hand, up the rope. In the lasso I had perfect confidence, for I had seen more than one Spanish bull throw his whole weight against it without parting a strand. The shelf was so narrow that throwing the coil of rope was a very difficult undertaking. I tried three times, and Cotter spent five min utes vainly whirling the loop up at the granite spikes. At last I made a lucky throw, and it tightened upon one of the smaller protuberances. I drew the noose close, and very gradually threw my hundred and fifty pounds upon the rope ; then Cotter joined me and, for a moment, we both hung our united weight upon it. Whether the rock moved slightly or whether the lasso stretched a little we were unable to decide; but the trial must be made, and I began to climb slowly. The smooth precipice-face against which my body swung offered no foothold, and the whole climb had, therefore, to be done by the arms, an effort requiring all one s determination. When about halfway up I was obliged to rest, and curling my feet in the rope, managed to relieve my arms for a moment. In this position I could not resist the fascinating temptation of a survey downward. 48 Pathway to Western Literature Straight down, nearly a thousand feet below, at the foot of the rocks, began the snow, whose steep, roof -like slope, exaggerated into an almost vertical angle, curved down in a long white field, broken far away by rocks and polished, round lakes of ice. Cotter looked up cheerfully and asked how I was making it, to which I answered that I had plenty of wind left. At that moment, when hanging be tween heaven and earth, it was a deep satisfaction to look down at the wild gulf of desolation beneath, and up to unknown dangers ahead, and to feel my nerves cool and unshaken. A few pulls hand over hand brought me to the edge of the shelf, when, throwing an arm around the granite spike, I swung my body upon the shelf and lay down to rest, shouting to Cotter that I was all right, and that the prospects upward were cap ital. After a few moments breathing I looked over the brink and directed my comrade to tie the barometer to the lower end of the lasso, which he did, and that precious instrument was hoisted to my station, and the lasso sent down twice for knap sacks, after which Cotter came up the rope in his very muscular way without once stopping to rest. We took our loads in our hands, swinging the barometer over my shoulder, and climbed up a shelf which led in a zigzag direction upward and to the south, bringing us out at last upon the thin blade of a ridge which connected a short distance above with the summit. It was formed of huge blocks, shattered and ready, at a touch, to fall. So narrow and sharp was the upper slope that we dared not walk, but got astride, and worked slowly along with our hands, pushing the knap- The Ascent of Mt. Tyndall 49 sacks in advance, now and then holding our breath when loose masses rocked under our weight. Once upon the summit, a grand view burst upon us. Hastening to step upon the crest of the divide, which was never more than ten feet wide, frequent ly sharpened to a thin blade, we looked down the other side, and were astonished to find we had as cended the gentler slope, and that the rocks fell from our feet in almost vertical precipices for a thousand feet or more. A glance along the summit toward the highest group showed us that any ad vance in that direction was impossible, for the thin ridge was gashed along in notches three or four hundred feet deep, forming a procession of pillars, obelisks, and blocks piled upon each other, and looking terribly insecure. TTe then deposited our knapsacks in a safe place, and, finding that it was already noon, determined to rest a little while and take a lunch at over thir teen thousand feet above the sea. The view was so grand, the mountain colors so brilliant, immense snowfields and blue alpine lakes so charming, that we almost forgot we were ever to move, and it was only after a swift hour of this de light that we began to consider our future course. "We re in for it now, King," remarked my comrade, as he looked aloft, and then down; but our blood was up and danger added only an ex hilarating thrill to the nerves. The shelf was barely more than two feet wide and the granite so smooth that we could find no place to fasten the lasso for the next descent: so I determined to try the climb with only as little aid as possible. Tying it around my breast again, 50 Pathway to Western Literature I gave the other end into Cotter s hands, and he, bracing his back against the cliff, found for himself as firm a foothold as he could, and promised to give me all the help in his power. I made up my mind to bear no weight unless it was absolutely neces sary; and for the first ten feet I found cracks and protuberances enough to support me, making every square inch of surface do friction duty, and hug ging myself against the rocks as tightly as I could. When within about eight feet of the next shelf, I twisted myself round upon the face, hanging by two rough blocks of protruding feldspar, and looked vainly for some further handhold; but the rock, beside being perfectly smooth, overhung slightly, and my legs dangled in the air. I saw that the next cleft was over three feet broad, and I thought possibly I might, by a quick slide, reach it in safety without endangering Cotter. I shouted to him to be very careful and let go in case I fell, loosened my hold upon the rope, and slid quickly down. My shoulder struck against the rock and threw me out of balance; for an instant I reeled over upon the verge, in danger of falling, but, in the excitement, I thrust out my hand and seized a small alpine gooseberry bush, the first piece of vegetation we had seen. Its roots were so firmly fixed in the crevice that it held my weight and saved me. I could no longer see Cotter, but I talked to him, and heard the two knapsacks come bumping along till they slid over the eaves above me, and swung down to my station, when I seized the lasso s end and braced myself as well as possible, intending, if he slipped, to haul in slack and help him as best The Ascent of Mt. Tyndall 51 I could. As he came slowly down from crack to crack, I heard his hobnailed shoes grating on the granite; presently they appeared dangling from the eaves above my head. I had gathered in the rope until it was taut, and then hurriedly told him to drop. He hesitated a moment and let go. Be fore he struck the rock I had him by the shoulder and whirled him down upon his side, thus prevent ing his rolling overboard, which friendly action he took quite coolly. The third descent was not a difficult one, nor the fourth ; but when we had climbed down about two hundred and fifty feet the rocks were so glacially polished and water-worn that it seemed impossible to get any farther. To our right was a crack pene trating the rock perhaps a foot deep, widening at the surface to three or four inches, which proved to be the only possible ladder. As the chances seemed rather desperate, we concluded to tie our selves together, in order to share a common fate, and with a slack of thirty feet between us and our knapsacks upon our backs, we climbed into the crevice and began descending with our faces to the cliff. This had to be done with unusual caution, for the foothold was about as good as none, and our fingers slipped annoyingly on the smooth stone; besides, the knapsacks and instruments kept a steady backward pull, tending to over-balance us. But we took pains to descend one at a time and rest whenever the niches gave our feet a safe sup port. In this way we got down about eighty feet of smooth, nearly vertical wall, reaching the top of a rude granite stairway, which led to the snow; and here we sat down to rest and found to our as- 52 Pathway to Western Literature tonishment that we had been three hours from the summit. After breathing a half minute we continued down, jumping from rock to rock, and, having by practice become very expert in balancing our selves, sprang on, never resting long enough to lose the aplomb, and in this way made a quick de scent over rugged debris to the crest of a snow- field, which, for seven or eight hundred feet more, swept down in a smooth, even slope, of very high angle, to the borders of a frozen lake. Without untying the lasso which bound us to gether, we sprang upon the snow with a shout and glissaded down splendidly, turning now and then a summersault and shooting out like cannonballs almost to the middle of the frozen lake, I upon my back, and Cotter feet first, in a swmming posi tion. The ice cracked in all directions. It was only a thin, transparent film, through which we could see deep into the lake. Untying ourselves we hurried ashore in different directions, lest our combined weight should be too great a strain upon any point. With curiosity and wonder we scanned every shelf and niche of the last descent. It seemed quite impossible we could have come down there, and now it actually was beyond human power to get back again. But what cared we? "Sufficient unto the day." We were bound for that still dis tant, though gradually nearing, summit; and we had come from a cold, shadowed cliff into delicious- ly warm sunshine and were jolly, shouting, singing songs and calling out the companionship of a hun- A Trip to the Farallones 53 dred echoes. From "Mountaineering in the Sierra Xevadas. A TRIP TO THE FARALLOXES BY CHARLES KEELER AT daylight, on a Sunday morning in July, I found myself with one companion standing up on Fisherman s AVharf in San Francisco and waiting for the signal to start upon a trip to the Farallones. The early hour had been chosen on account of the tide, which was then on the ebb, a circumstance of no little importance in undertaking to beat out to sea through the Golden Gate against the fresh head wind which was then blowing. The sun was just flushing the misty sky over the Berkeley hills across the bay, and the staunch craft of the Greek fishermen were bobbing about at their moorings beside us. One or two were already starting off and spreading their graceful lateen sails to the morning breeze. A group of bronzed fishermen, in their blue shirts, rubber boots and bright sashes, were at work making ready some of the boats for the day s labor, washing seines, hauling them in to dry and cleaning off the decks. The captain and two hands, composing the crew of our little boat, were late in arriving, but pre sently appeared on the wharf with supplies for the trip. Like most of the fishermen, our men were Greeks, understanding but little English and speak ing less. Our boat was the largest of the fisher men s one-masted craft with lateen sails, and was 54 Pathway to Western Literature decked over, leaving an apartment below in which one might sit or crawl about in the darkness. All jbeing ready, the anchor was drawn in and stowed below, and the long oars were brought into use to carry us well out into the stream. By this time the breeze had freshened so that the water was flecked with big white combers. Several fishing boats had started out before us and a number followed close ly after, making a picturesque little flotilla scudding along under closely reefed sails. The raising of our mainsail in so stiff a breeze was attended with no little difficulty, but at last, after much pulling, jumping about, shouting and dodging of flapping canvas and swinging boom, it was up and we were started on our voyage. My companion and I were safely stowed out of harm s way below deck, with the hatch tightly closed over our heads and the odors of unsavory viands and bilge water about us in the darkness. The boat was bobbing about like a cork and the one controlling passion of our lives was to get out of our prison into the sunlight. This we presently insisted on doing, and, upon opening the hatch and standing up in the well, life took on quite a differ ent aspect. The cold, salt air soon restored us to a more comfortable frame of mind, although, every few minutes, a vigorous wave would come cathud against the bow and hurl a bucketful of water in our faces. The fortunate possession of a rubber coat saved me from being completely drenched, and, with the exception of the seepage from an oc casional shower of spray running down my neck, and a pair of wet shoes, I kept tolerably dry. The case was otherwise with my companion, however; A Trip to the Faralloncs 55 he had no rubber coat and was accordingly soon compelled to go below, drenched and disconsolate. We passed the ships anchored in the stream. Alcatraz, with its array of fortifications, was on the right of us and Black Point on the left. As we stood out past Lime Point, in the teeth of a stiff breeze, I occupied myself watching the California murres disporting jn the water. The murre is one of the low forms of sea bird which nest along the exposed rocky cliffs of both the Atlantic and Pa cific Oceans. The breeze was still blowing and our little craft tumbling about as it approached the bar of the Golden Gate. When a little way out at sea, we noticed, slightly isolated from the mainland, a large rock completely whitened with the guano of this bird, a fact indicating the presence of a large rookery. The wind, which had been uncomfortably brisk inside the bay, left us almost entirely after we were well off the shore, and we were soon rolling aimless ly on the broad ocean swells, with only now and then a puff of air to make the sails flap. Thus we spent the rest of the day, the great glassy undulating surface of the sea rocking us about upon the very threshold of our journey, with the bleak coast-line visible far behind us bold, bare and black in hue, save for some yellow patches of dead grass and the Farallones lost in the mist at sea. The sun went down behind them and out of the west came the cold, pervasive fog, folding us in its mantle of utter darkness. Ships were near us, becalmed in like manner. At intervals their foghorns blew and our captain responded upon a dismal tin horn. One ship drew so near that we could hear the 56 Pathway to Western Literature cries of the men as they tugged at the ropes, the voice of the mate calling orders and the noise of the flapping sails. We went supperless to bed, our stomachs not ad mitting of experiments with the coarse fare of the fishermen, and lay in our close, damp quarters in uneasy sleep. At daybreak next morning the dark, lead-colored water and foggy air looked cheerless enough, but we were consoled by the information that we were sailing under a good breeze directly toward our destination. Soon the North Farallones loomed up through the fog little bare rocks vis ible only as we rose on the crest of a wave, with the surf dashing against their sides. Presently Midway Rock was passed and at last we were in sight of South Farallone. Almost before we knew it the mainsail had been lowered. As we rounded a projecting rock the jib was taken in and we slip ped past Sugar Loaf Rock into Fisherman s Bay, where the anchor was dropped and the fog-horn blown to summon the eggers on shore to send us a skiff in which to land. Drawing near the island we found ourselves in a new and strange wonder land. There was but a bare, jagged ridge of rock cut out in places into great cones and pyramids. Yonder was one shaped like a titanic bee-hive and about it swarmed a vast throng of sea birds in lieu of bees. Off toward the farther end was a rock with a little archway cut through it near the top. The rocks were of a light pinkish or cream color, from the guano upon them, interspersed with patches of pale green where some mosses or lichens had taken root. Lower down, where the waves dashed upon them, they were clean and almost r A Trip to the Farallones 57 black in color, while in beautiful contrast to their somber hue the breakers were shattered into white foani and pale green opaline tints. But that which interested us most was the vast assemblage of birds. Every cranny upon the face of the rough, granitic cliffs was alive with murres, uttering their characteristic note, some at rest, some fluttering and scrambling or bobbing their heads, the whole scene being one of indescribably weird animation, and unlike anything else imaginable unless it be the witches in Faust on Walpurgis night. Here and there the black figure of a cormorant upon her nest was noticed, or one would fly past with a fish in her bill, headed toward her young. Occasional ly a puffin, or sea parrot, as he is aptly called a queer fellow with his immense red bill would pass our way. The most familiar birds were the western gulls, which flocked about the boat in considerable numbers, displaying their beautiful slate-blue man tles and yellow, scarlet-spotted bills. They were at tracted by the refuse of the men s breakfast which had been thrown overboard in the cove, but in spite of their fine plumage and graceful actions they proved to be disagreeable, noisy, quarrelsome birds. After our half hour of impatient waiting the eggers appeared on the cliff above us, and, lower ing a skiff which hung suspended from a sling, rowed out to take us ashore. Once safely landed we climbed up the long, ladder stairway to the level bluff whence the roadway leads around to the light house settlement. Having fasted for thirty-six hours it was annoying to be overcome by seasick ness and to be compelled to take a cup of tea in lieu of breakfast. However, time was precious. 58 Pathway to Western Literature and, as we had come on a scientific excursion, we were determined to make the best of it. The eggers started early on their morning s round, so we trudged along after them as briskly as we could. It may be well to digress a few moments to ex plain the vocation of egging as carried on at the Farallones a few years ago. The egg of the Cali fornia murre was found to have possibilities, as a marketable commodity, of being converted into omelettes and sundry other mysterious dishes in the San Francisco restaurants. The shell is so tough that the eggs may be tossed about almost as freely as so many cobblestones, thus making the cargo an especially easy one to handle. A party of Greek fishermen made a practice of camping upon the Farallones during the egging season and gathering enough eggs to keep one of their largest craft constantly employed transporting them to town. Upon establishing themselves upon the island they would first go about the accessible area occupied by the birds and destroy every egg which could be found. A day or two later they would repeat their visit, gathering a large supply of fresh eggs. These visits were continued every second or third day of the season, until the resources of the birds were about exhausted. The eggers wore rope shoes to make their footing secure upon the dan gerous, rocky ledges, and the fronts of their shirts were converted into great pockets in which to carry the plunder. Ropes, to which the men could cling as they advanced, were secured to the rocks in the more perilous places. The government has now wisely put a stop to this traffic, which was rapidly The Oaks of Titian 59 depleting this locality of its sea birds. From " Bird Notes Afield." [All copyright privileges are retained by the author.] THE OAKS OF TULABE BY LILLIAN HINMAN SHUEY GO up the broad valley, the far land, the fair land, Where the plain stretches on like a slumbering sea; Where rivers flow down from high mountains snow-crowned, And the wind seeks the desert to roam and be free. Go there when sweet April her soft showers carry To the wonderful grove land, the oaks of Tulare. Go there in bright June when the slow-creeping shadows, In the rank meadow grasses lie dewy and cool ; The boughs all attune with the sky-larks and lin nets, While the soft winds of summer the leafy courts rule. One still autumn day in thy green aisles to tarry Is forever to love thee, dear oaks of Tulare. I see the blue sky and the high fretted arches, And the moss-tangled branches all knotted and gray; 60 Pathway to Western Literature Fond memory pictures the calm, sacred places AVhere I waited and loitered that happy June day. While Hope, eager-winged as some comforting fairy, Is alluring me back to the oaks of Tulare. Great oaks leading up to the steep sunny hillsides, Stretching down to the banks of the slow, wind ing stream, I see, through thy vistas, the homestead, the cot tage, And the pink-tinted orchards in radiance gleam. Some day may I rest there, long, glad years to tarry, In my wonderful grove land, the oaks of Tulare. From California Sunshine." FEOM YUMA TO SALTON SEA BY GEORGE WHAHTON JAMES PURCHASING two boats at Yuma, one a flat- 1 bottomed ordinary gig, stoutly built, with six oars, and the other a mere tub, or light scow, with flat bottom and stub nose, such as miners and pros pectors have made to float down the Colorado River, our party of six whites left "the city of torrid heat." There were Brown (partner of Burton Holmes, the well-known lecturer) ; Grip ton, of New York ; Van Anderson, of New York ; Judson, dean of Fine Arts Department of University of South- [From "The Wonders of the Colorado Desert," bV George Wharton James. Copyright, 1906, by Edith E. Farns- worth.] From Yuma to Salton Sea 61 ern California ; Lea, missionary to the Yumas, and myself, whom the boys in fun called Commo dore." We had been warned of the dangers and diffi culties we were sure to encounter. There were some ten miles where the wild river ran through a mesquite forest, through which we should have to cut, push, force our way. Then if we succeeded in getting through the mesquite and reached Sharps the point in Mexico where the waters are taken and distributed through head-gates into the irrigating canals of the Imperial country we should have some fifty miles of the Alamo River to run which had never before been done. The difference in level between the water at Sharps and at the Salton Sea is nearly three hundred feet, and a fall of three hundred feet in fifty miles surely meant rapids galore; indeed we were warned that we should make the "fifty miles in fifty minutes. * Then the engineers assured us that the force of the flood had so scoured out the channel that the banks, from being mere ridges, were now high walls, thirty, forty, fifty and more feet high, and one great danger to be apprehended and guarded against was the fact that the rapid flow of the stream was constantly undermining certain por tions of these banks and they fell into the stream in such vast quantity that they would destroy or sink any boat unfortunate enough to be under them. This was a serious enough danger, as we afterwards learned, when we saw thousands of tons of earth fall, sending up great waves which came near swamping our boats. Certain custom-house officers whom we met as- 62 Pathway to Western Literature sured us that we should all be good ship-carpenters before our trip was concluded, and another desert humorist warned us to be ready with an axe so that when snags came through the bottom of our boats we could cut them off. Then, said he, "You ll have enough from what you ve cut off to use as firewood. We were a jolly party when we set out from Yuma. Easily we drifted with the current, our artist impatient all the time to catch the marvelous colors that seemed to be produced that evening for his especial delectation. I shall never forget his delight when I pulled inshore and called out, Camp for the night." Forgetful of everything, he jumped out and came near being swallowed up in the quick,: r.nd, for here there is little or no clay to make wet parts of the banks secure. Without waiting, however, to cleanse himself from the mud, he fixed his easel and in a few moments was obliv ious to the world in the revelry of color the sunset was giving him. By noon the next day we were examining the work being done for the permanent head-gate, a magnificent reinforced concrete structure that is to receive the main supply of water for the Imperial region. Later in the day we came down to the scene of the desperate efforts six in number made to con trol the unexpected flood of the Colorado, already described. A mile or so below this point we reached the busy and bustling camp of the lower intake, with store, bakery, large dining tents, doctor s office, steam engines, pile-drivers, centrifugal suction pumps, From Yuma to Salton Sea 63 electric light plants, all revealing the great activity and determined pressure of the work. All the men that could possibly be used were working day and night on the construction of the Rockwood head- gate. Here our Indians joined us for the main part of the trip. Talk about Indians being fools ! They were both keen ? observing, wide-awake, daring, serene in the face of danger, self-contained and hard-working. There s many a white man who would look down on these " savages" who could not begin to compare with them in intelligence and practical usefulness. Leaving the lower intake in three boats with six whites and these two Indians we started down the Alamo as the canal should properly be termed. For the first ten miles it was plain, easy, smooth floating on the bosom of a great river, for, as I have shown, all the water of the Colorado was pour ing through the " temporary cut" into it. The great volume had widened and deepened the chan nel until now it was no longer a "canal," but a mighty river, nearly 1,000 feet across. At the end of this ten miles our troub es began. As we had been warned, we found the river had left its bed and overflowed the country in every direction, in all of which was a mesquite forest. The mesquite, for all practical purposes where man is concerned, should be called the mescratch, for its thorns are large, sharp and penetrating. As the diminished current bore us on we ran end on, stern on, sidewise, anyhow, into these mesquite thorns. I was in the front boat, in the bow, seeking the way. As the stream divided and subdivided it 64 Pathway to Western Literature required speedy observation to tell which was the larger current and follow it, and Jim and I were kept very busy. There was no time given for de cision, for we were borne on into one of the waiting trees, ready to pierce us from "stem to stern " with its poisonous thorns. I learned to "take" them head on as a goat takes its foes. Pulling my broad- brimmed sombrero over my ears, lifting up my coat collar and lowering my head I "butted in." But the fun came when we stuck there. Fun? Oh, it was great, to find yourself lodged in the heart of the branches of a mesquite, the thorns making fresh punctures in your tires at very movement, and the uneasy current beneath swaying and swinging you to and fro ! Many a time we had to resort to machete, hatchet or axe and literally chop our way through. Then ; as the many divisions and diversions of the current reduced the flow of water, we ran on to sandbars in these mesquites and for hours at a time we had to wade in the water, up to our middles, often sinking in the quicksands up to our knees and higher, lifting, pushing, pulling, straining to get our boats along, while the mesquite thorns got in their work. And the joy of it was increased as night came on. We were still in the thick of it. No place to camp. Not a sign of dry bank anywhere. There was nothing for us but to stop in the first Break big enough for three boats to be tied side by side, for misery loves and needs company, and eating our cold supper, scratched from top to toe, wet through, muddy, bedraggled, and wretched in ap pearance, our "joy" was added to by a heavy UNIVERSITY From Yuma to Salt on Sea 65 downpour of rain. Physically we were so miser able that it made us laugh. Where were we to sleep? Nowhere but in the boats. Now it cannot be conceded that the slats at the bottom of a boat are at all conducive to sleep , especially when the slats are wet and very muddy. With evident shrinking these scions of noble houses stretched out their blankets. Brownie and Lea took the scow, the two Indians the bow of the big boat, Grippie the wide stern-seat, to which he built an extension for his feet, and Van on the slats below, while I had the other small boat to myself. My! how it did pour, and I guess those boats leaked extra on purpose. Wet through, I awoke to find Van wringing out his blankets, and at another time to hear Grippie laughing as if he would burst. ""What s up?" I asked, to which he gave the in telligible response, "I m laughing because I m so miserable. No hot coffee ! no hot steak ! no steaming fried onions ! no hot anything, except a hot temper ! But we had vowed we would "grin and bear" whatever came along, so with "brave hearts and dauntless spirits" we swallowed a cold biscuit and started on. It was four times worse that morning than it had been the preceding day. Hour after hour we toiled along, up to the waist in water, chopping, cutting, pushing, pulling, and getting, scratched, mainly the latter. Several times we had to cut down mesquite trees that completely blocked our way, and I never knew Before how hard it was to cut down a tree below the water line. For, of course, if the stump was left high enough to pre- 66 Pathway to Western Literature vent our boats going over them, we might as well have left the trees standing. Hour after hour it kept up, until at last peace reigned within, for we were back again in the main current and channel. The contour of the country here is such that, while a small part of the water had escaped and flowed off by way of the Rio Padrones, the larger amount converges and re- enters the banks of the Alamo at a point called Seven Wells. As soon as we could we camped, spread out our bedding to dry, while Brownie made sweet music with steak, onions, potatoes and corn on the frying-pan and stew-kettles. That night in camp on the Alamo we uneasily tossed on our blankets, for all of us had a number of thorns deep seated in various and many parts of our systems. While the thorns in our bodies made our sleep that night somewhat disturbed, it was a great improvement upon the night we spent in the boats. The following day we had reasonably good row ing, though the wind arose and blew dead against us for several miles. But with a fair current in pur favor we were able to make headway. That afternoon we reached Sharps, the point in Mexico where the waters of the river are taken and diverted into the canals of the Imperial reg ion. Leaving one of our boats here, we were soon gliding easily along down the strong current. There was a trifle of nervousness at first, lest we get too far apart, and one or the other of us get into trouble, so the order was, "Keep close to gether, and listen for each other s signals." Our first rapid gave us quite a little thrill. It was noth- From Tuma to Salt on Sea 67 ing very great or dangerous, but to hear the roar and rush, and swish and dash of the water, and to see the rising and falling, the spray and spume, and the marked descent of the whole river for fifty feet or more, led us to wonder if we d get through all right. Indian Jim at the oars and I with the steer ing oar, we sent our boat right into the heart of it, and in a moment we were rising and falling, toss ing and bouncing, from one wave to another. We shipped a little water, but not enough to scare us, so it was with bolder hearts we ran the next and the next. Soon the lookout called, "Two water-tanks ahead, and when we all arose to see, there loomed before us on the right, the tanks of the power house at Holtville. We tied up here, for three of our party, Brownie, Gripton and Lea, had to leave us, and Indian Joe went with them. They took team for Imperial, while Van Anderson, Indian Jim and I were left to run the rapids alone. The question arose in my mind : Shall we go in two boats or one? The square-nosed scow had served us so well I hated to part with it, so with out consulting the others I decided to handle it myself. We started, and almost immediately ran into a "nasty" place. The railway bridge crosses the Alamo a short distance from where we were camped. It rests upon piles which stand obliquely to the course of the river. The result was that my boat was swept down and struck the piles, swerved into a snag with a lot of branches which had caught in nearly the same spot, and came near upsetting. There I was, held fast by the force of the current, and imprisoned in the arms of the snag. It took 68 Pathway to Western Literature quite a time of pulling, pushing and cutting be fore I got loose. Then on we went again. That was the beginning of the real fun of the trip. That afternoon and the next day we must have run over fifty rapids, some short, some long, some rough and dangerous, but most of them just exhilarating and exciting. How one s blood tingled with the dash and roar, the speed and the tossing, and how one s hands, wrists and arms had to work to keep the boat safe while in the middle of the rapids! We had no great rocks to contend with, but something equally dangerous. The rapids were filled with heavy masses of ll nigger-head " clay, and once or twice I got ugly bumps on these "heads" that shook the boat from end to end and nearly toppled me head over heels. In several places the river widened out for half a mile, or even a mile, and the flats were covered with ducks, geese and pelicans. I think I saw more of these aquatic birds in these two or three days than I had seen in the whole of my previous life. In some cases we were allowed to come as near to them as fifty feet, and with a gun an expert could have had his choice out of the thousands. And now we experienced the reality of one of the dangers against which we had been warned and that I had all along foreseen. The boats were about fifty feet apart. We were in the radius of a great curve. The mad river was here boring under the bank, which was fully forty feet high. No one who has not seen the cutting, or, literally, the auger-like bor ing power, of this river in such places can believe the extent of its work. It cut in deeply and re moved the entire foundation of the bank for ten, From Tuma to Salton Sea 69 fifteen, even twenty feet. Then, without a pre monitory warning, the whole bank for fifteen or twenty feet back, dropped with a terrific splash in to the river. And it fell off as if cut with some gigantic machine, almost as straight as the cutter slices a bar of soap. Both boats were almost swamped by the great waves that ensued, but for tunately neither of us was immediately under the bank, or this account would have had a more som ber ending. That night we camped at the deserted shack of a settler who had taken up * a homestead. We saw many pathetic evidences of a woman s presence in the rude and simple efforts to care for a woman s comfort. Just before the shack, the rapids dashed on to the sea. Early in the morning we started and for an hour had hard rowing. The banks were all gone, there was nothing but flats over which the river distributed itself, making it very hard to find the main current. The wind began to blow and ere long a perfect gale made waves which added to our difficulties. Soon I was completely stranded. I had been aground several times before, but this was permanent. The wind was blowing furiously and my companions could not hear my shouts, but fortunately one of them saw my predicament and they ran ashore and waited. There was but one thing to do. That was for me to go to them. Jumping into the water, and sinking up almost to the middle in quicksands, I struggled against the wind to reach them. Each time I pulled myself out of the treacherous sand the wind blew me back, and for a while I despaired of making headway. But keeping desperately at it I succeeded at last in 70 Pathway to Western Literature reaching their boat, where I fell over breathless, speechless and exhausted. When I was able to move we all jumped out into the water and lifted and pushed the boat back to where the other was stranded. There we took out everything of value, and said our final farewell to it. But our difficulties were not over. Though the three of us handled the oars, the six of them made so little headway that two hours rowing advanced us not more than half a mile. By this time the waves were running high and furious, and Jim, the Indian, got scared. He cried out : I no like this river. Pretty soon we tip over and this boat he sink. We no get there. "Are you scared, Jim?" I asked. "No!" he responded quickly, "no scared, but I no like em this river. Each time we got into the trough we shipped so much water that finally I decided to abandon the attempt to cross the sea. Giving the order, we turned stern to the wind and soon rowed over the flats, the water having been blown over them to a depth of several inches with the wind, and ran ashore opposite a large volcanic butte that stood out in the heart of the desert. We anchored the boat as well as we could and then proceeded to carry everything from the boat to the butte, where, pretty well above the then level of the sea, we piled them up, covered them with our bed-canvas and tied them down to the anchoring rocks. Then we started, each heavily laden with ca meras, canteens and food, for the nearest point on the railway. The efflorescing salts made a yielding Lincoln, the Man of the People 71 crust on the alkali soil in which we sank over the ankles at every step. One of my ankles was soon cut through and I suffered intensely. To add to our difficulties we soon came to the brink of a wide slough, far too deep for us to ford, and it was impossible to swim across heavy laden as we were. There was no other course than to go around it, and this added several weary miles to our tramp. At length, after full eighteen miles of a walk, wearied out but glad at the accomplishment of our trip, we reached Imperial Junction, from which point Indian Jim and I went to Yuma, while Van Anderson remained there all night, taking the morning train for Mecca. From "The Wonders of the Colorado Desert." LINCOLN, THE MAX OF THE PEOPLE BY EDWIN MABKHAM WHEN the Norn-Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour, Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, She bent the strenuous Heavens and came down To make a man to meet the mortal need. She took the tried clay of the common road Clay warm, yet with the genial heat of Earth, Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy; Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff. The color of the ground was in him, the red earth ; The tang and odor of the primal things The rectitude and patience of the rocks; The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn ; 72 Pathway to Western Literature The courage of the bird that dares the sea ; The justice of the rain that loves all leaves; The pity of the snow that hides all scars ; The loving kindness of the wayside well ; The tolerance and equity of light That gives as freely to the shrinking weed As to the great oak flaring to the wind To the grave s low hill as to the Matterhorn That shoulders out the sky. And so he came From prairie cabin up to Capitol, One fair Ideal led our chieftain on. Forevermore he burned to do his deed With the fine stroke and gesture of a king. He built the rail-pile as he built the State, Pouring his splendid strength through every blow, The conscience of him testing every stroke, To make his deed the measure of a man. So came the Captain with the mighty heart ; And when the step of Earthquake shook the house, Wrenching the rafters from their ancient hold, He held the ridge pole up, and spiked again The rafters of the Home. He held his place Held the long purpose like a growing tree Held on through blame and faltered not at praise. And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down As when a kingly cedar, green with boughs, Goes down with a great shout upon the hills, And leaves a lonesome place against the sky. From " Lincoln and Other Poems. " The Desert s Call 73 THE DESERT S CALL BY MABY AUSTIN IF one is inclined to wonder at first how so many dwellers came to be in the loneliest land that ever came out of God s hands, what they do there and why they stay, one does not wonder so much after having lived there. None other than this long- brown land lays such a hold on the affections. The rainbow hills, the tender bluish mists, the luminous radiance of the spring, have the lotus charm. They trick the sense of time, so that once inhabitating there you always mean to go away without quite realizing that you have not done it. Men who have lived there, miners and cattlemen, will tell you this, not so fluently, but emphatically, cursing the land and going back to it. For one thing there is the divinest, cleanest air to be breathed anywhere in God s world. Some day the world will understand that, and the little oases on the windy tops of the hills will harbor for healing its ailing, house-weary broods. There is promise there of great wealth in ores and earths, which is no wealth by reason of being so far removed from water and workable con ditions, but men are bewitched by it and tempted to try the impossible. You should hear Salty Williams tell how he used to drive eighteen and twenty-mule teams from the borax marsh to Mojave, ninety miles, with the trail wagon full of water barrels. Hot days the mules would go so mad for drink that the clank of the water bucket set them into an uproar of hide ous, maimed noises and a tangle of harness chains, 74 Pathway to Western Literature while Salty would sit on the high seat with the sun glare heavy in his face, dealing out curses of pacification in a level, uninterested voice until the clamor fell off from sheer exhaustion. There was a line of shallow graves along that road ; they used to count on dropping a man or two of every new gang of coolies brought out in the hot season. But when he lost his swamper, smitten without warning at the noon hour, Salty quit his job ; he said it was Too hot." The swamper he buried by the way with stones upon him to keep the coyotes from digging him up, and seven years later I read the penciled lines on the pine headboard, still bright and un- weathered. But before that, driving up on the Mojave stage, I met Salty again crossing Indian Wells, his face from the high seat, tanned and ruddy as a harvest moon, looming through the golden dust above his eighteen mules. The land had called him. The palpable sense of mystery in the desert air breeds fables, chiefly of lost treasure. Somewhere within its stark borders, if one believes report, is a hill strewn with nuggets; one seamed with virgin silver; an old clayey water-bed where Indians scooped up earth to make cooking pots and shaped them reeking with pure gold. Old miners drifting about the desert edges, weathered into the semb lance of the tawny hills, will tell you tales like those convincingly. After a little sojourn in that land you will believe them on their own account. From "The Land of Little Rain." The Great Basin 75 THE GREAT BASIN By COL. JOHN C. FREMONT IX arriving at Utah Lake, we had completed an immense circuit of twelve degrees diameter north and south, and ten degrees east and west; and found ourselves, in May, 1844, on the same sheet of water which we had left in September, 1843. The Utah is the southern limb of the Great Salt Lake; and thus we had seen that remarkable sheet of water both at its northern and southern extremity, and were able to fix its position at these two points. The circuit which we had made, and which had cost us eight months of time, and 3,500 miles of traveling, had given us a view of Oregon and of North California from the Rocky Moun tains to the Pacific Ocean, and of the two principal streams which form bays or harbors on the coast of that sea. Having completed this circuit, and being now about to turn our backs upon the Pacific slope of our continent, and to recross the Rocky Mountains, it is natural to look back upon our foot steps and take some brief view of the leading fea tures and general structure of the country we had traversed. These are peculiar and striking, and differ essentially from the Atlantic side of the country. The mountains all are higher, more nu merous and more distinctly defined in their ranges and directions; and, what is so contrary to the natural order of formations, one of these ranges, which is near the coast (the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range), presents higher elevations and peaks than any which are to be found in the Rocky rnoun- 76 Pathway to Western Literature tains themselves. In our eight months circuit, we were never out of sight of snow; and the Sierra Nevada, where we crossed it, was near 2,000 feet higher than the South Pass in the Rocky Moun tains. In height, these mountains greatly exceed those of the Atlantic side, constantly presenting peaks which enter the region of perpetual snow; and some of them volcanic, and in a frequent state of activity. They are seen at great distances and guide the traveler in his course. The course and elevation of these ranges give direction to the rivers and character to the coast. No great river does, or can, take its rise below the Cascade and Sierra Nevada range ; the distance to the sea is too short to admit of it. The rivers of the San Francisco Bay, which are the largest after the Columbia, are local to that Hay, and lateral to the coast, having their sources about on a line with the Dalles of the Columbia, and running each in a, valley of its own, between the Coast range and the Cascade and Sierra Nevada range. The Colum bia is the only river which traverses the whole breadth of the country, breaking through all the ranges, and entering the sea. Drawing its waters from a section of ten degrees of latitude in the Rocky Mountains, which are collected into one stream by three main forks (Lewis s, Clark s and the North fork) near the center of the Oregon Valley, this great river thence proceeds by a single channel to the sea, while its three forks lead each to a pass in the mountains, which opens the way into the interior of the continent. This fact in re lation to the rivers of this region, gives an immense value to the Columbia. Its mouth is the only inlet The Great Basin 77 and outlet to and from the sea ; its three forks lead to the passes in the mountains ; it is, therefore, the only line of communication between the Pacific and the interior of North America; and all op erations of war or commerce, of national or social intercourse, must be conducted upon it. This gives it a value beyond estimation, and would involve irreparable injury if lost. In this unity and con centration of its waters, the Pacific side of our con tinent differs entirely from the Atlantic side, where the waters of the Alleghany Mountains are dis persed into many rivers, having their different en trances into the sea, and opening many lines of communication with the interior. The Pacific Coast is equally different from that of the Atlantic. The coast of the Atlantic is low and open, indented with numerous bays, sounds and river estuaries, accessible everywhere and opening by many channels into the heart of the country. The Pacific Coast, on the contrary, is high and compact, with few bays, and but one that opens into the heart of the country. The imme diate coast is what the seamen call iron-baund. A little within, it is skirted by two successive ranges of mountains, standing as ramparts between the sea and the interior of the country; and to get through which there is but one gate, and that nar row and easily defended. This structure of the coast, backed by these two ranges of mountains, with its concentration and unity of waters, gives to the country an immense military strength, and will probably render Oregon the most impregnable country in the world. Differing so much from the Atlantic side of our 78 Pathway to Western Literature continent, in coast, mountains and rivers, the Pa cific side differs from it in another most rare and singular feature that of the Great Interior Basin, of which I have so often spoken, and the whole form and character of which I was so anxious to ascertain. Its existence is vouched for by such of the American traders and hunters as have some knowledge of that region; the structure of the Sierra Nevada range of mountains requires it to be there ; and my own observations confirm it. Mr. Joseph Walker, who is so well acquainted in those parts, informed me that, from the Great Salt Lake west, there was a succession of lakes and rivers which have no outlet to the sea, nor any connection with the Columbia, or with the Colorado or the Gulf of California. He described some of these lakes as being large, with numerous streams, and even considerable rivers falling into them. In fact, all concur in the general report of these interior rivers and lakes; and, for want of understanding the force and power of evaporation, which so soon establishes an equilibrium between the loss and supply of waters, the fable of whirlpools and sub terraneous outlets has gained belief, as the only imaginable way of carrying off the waters which have no visible discharge. The structure of the country would require this formation of interior lakes; for the waters which would collect between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, not being able to cross this formidable barrier, nor to get to the Columbia or the Colorado, must natural ly collect into reservoirs, each of which would have its little system of streams and rivers to supply it. This would be the natural effect; and what I saw The Great Basin 79 went to confirm it. The Great Salt Lake is a for mation of this kind, and quite a large one; and having many streams and one considerable river, 400 or 500 miles long, falling into it. This lake and river I saw and examined myself ; and also saw the AVah-Satch and Bear River Mountains, which en close the waters of the lake on the east, and con stitute, in that quarter, the rim of the Great Basin. Afterwards, along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada, where we traveled for forty-two days, I saw the line of lakes and rivers which lie at the foot of that Sierra and which Sierra is the western rim of the basin. In going down Lewis s fork and the main Columbia, I crossed only inferior streams coming in from the left, such as could draw their water from a short distance only ; and I often saw the mountains at their heads white with snow which, all accounts said, divided the waters of the desert from those of the Columbia, and which could be no other than the range of mountains which form the rim of the basin in its northern side. And in returning from California along the Spanish trail, as far as the head of the Santa Clara fork of the Rio Virgen> I crossed only small streams making their way south to the Colorado, or lost in sand (as the Mo-hah-ve) ; while to the left, the lofty mountains, their summits white with snow, were often visible, and which must have turned water to the north as well as to the south, and thus constituted, on this part, the southern rim of the basin. At the head of the Santa Clara fork, and in the Vegas de Santa Clara, we crossed the ridge which parted the two systems of waters. "We en tered the basin at that point, and have traveled in 80 Pathivay to Western Literature it ever since, having its southeastern rim (the Wah-satch Mountain) on the right, and crossing the streams which flow down into it. The existence of the basin is, therefore, an established fact in my mind; its extent and contents are yet to be better ascertained. It cannot be less than 400 or 500 miles each way, and must lie principally in the Alta Cali fornia, the demarcation latitude of 42 degrees probably cutting a segment from the north part of the rim. Of its interior but little is known. It is called a desert, and, from what I saw of it, sterility may be its prominent characteristic; but where there is so much water, there must be some oasis. The great river and the great lake, reported, may not be equal to the report; but where there is so much snow, there must be streams ; and where there is no outlet, there must be lakes to hold the accumulated waters, or sands to swallow them up. In this eastern part of the basin, containing Sevier, Utah, and the Great Salt Lakes, and the rivers and creeks falling into them, we know there is good soil and good grass, adapted to civilized settlements. In the western part, on Salmon Trout River, and some other streams, the same remark may Be made. The contents of this great basin are yet to be ex amined. That it is peopled, we know; but miser ably and sparsely. Prom all that I heard and saw, I should say that humanity here appeared in its lowest form, and in its most elementary state. Dis persed in single families; without firearms; eating seeds and insects; digging roots ^(and hence their name) such is the condition of the greater part. Others are a degree higher, and live in communities upon some lake or river that supplies fish and from The Great Basin 81 which they repulse the miserable digger. The rab bit is the largest animal known in this desert; its flesh affords a little meat; and their bag-like cov ering is made of its skins. The wild sage is their only wood, and here it is of extraordinary size- sometimes a foot in diameter and six or eight feet high. It serves for fuel, for building material, for shelter to the rabbits, and for some sort of cover ing for the feet and legs in cold weather. Such are the accounts of the inhabitants and productions of the Great Basin; and which, though imperfect, must have some foundation, and excite our desire to know the whole. The whole idea of such a desert, and such a peo ple, is a novelty in our country, and excites Asiatic, not American, ideas. Interior basins, with their own systems of lakes and rivers, and often sterile, are common enough in Asia ; people still in the ele mentary state of families, living in deserts, with no other occupation than the mere animal search for food, may still be seen in that ancient quarter of the globe ; but in America such things are new and strange, unknown and unsuspected, and discredited when related. But I flatter myself that what is discovered, though not enough to satisfy curiosity, is sufficient to excite it, and that subsequent ex plorations will complete what has been commenced. This account of the Great Basin, it will He re membered, belongs to the Alta California, and has no application to Oregon, whose capabilities may justify a separate remark. Referring to my journal for particular descriptions, and for sectional boundaries between good and bad districts, I can only say, in general and comparative terms, that 82 Pathway to Western Literature in that branch of agriculture which implies the cultivation of grains and staple crops it would be inferior to the Atlantic States, though many parts are superior for wheat, while in the rearing of flocks and herds it would claim a high place. Its grazing capabilities are great ; and even in the in digenous grass now there, an element of individual and national wealth may be found. In fact, the valuable grasses begin within one hundred and fifty miles of the Missouri frontier and extend to the Pacific Ocean. East of the Rocky Mountains it is the short, curly grass, on which the buffalo de lights to feed (whence its name of buffalo), and which is still good when apparently dry and dead. West of those mountains it is a larger growth, in clusters, and hence called bunch-grass, and which has a second or fall growth. Plains and mountains both exhibit them, and I have seen good pasturage at an elevation of ten thousand feet. In this spon taneous product the trading or traveling caravans can find subsistence for their animals, and in mil itary operations any number of cavalry may be moved, and any number of cattle may be driven; and thus men and horses may be supported on long expeditions, and even in winter, in the sheltered situations. Commercially, the value of the Oregon country must be great, washed as it is by the North Pacific Ocean fronting Asia producing many of the ele ments of commerce mild and healthy in its cli mate and becoming, as it naturally will, a thor oughfare for the East India and China trade. From "A Narrative of Adventures and Explora tions. " The Man of the Trail 83 THE MAN OF THE TRAIL BY HEXRY MEADE BLAND A SPIRIT that pulses forever Like the fiery heart of a boy ; A forehead that lifts to the sunlight. And is wreathed forever in joy ; A muscle that holds like the iron That binds in the prisoner steam : Yea, these are the trail-man s glory ! Yea, these are the trail-man s dream! An eye that catches the beauty That gleams from the mountain and sky ; And an ear that awakes to the song Of the storm, as it surges on high ; A sense that garners the splendor Of sun, moon, or starry gleam: Lo, these are the trail-man s glory! Lo, these are the trail-man s dream! The wild, high climb o er the mountains; The lodge by the river s brim; The glance at the fierce cloud-horses As they plunge o er the range s rim; The Jumper s balm for the nostrils; The dash in the cool trout-stream : Yea, these are the trail-man s glory! Yea, these are the trail-man s dream! The ride down fair river canyon, Where the wild oats grow breast high ; And the shout of the quail on the hillside ; The turtle-dove flashing by; 84 Pathway to Western Literature An eye round the fragrant fire, Where the eyes of a comrade beam : Yea, these are the trail-man s glory ! Yea, these are the trail-man s dream ! From * Out West Magazine. ON AN ALASKAN TRAIL BY ELLA HIGGINSON THE trip over "the trail" from Valdez to the Tanana country is one of the most fascinat ing in Alaska. At seven o clock of a July morning five horses stood at our hotel door. Two gentlemen of Valdez had volunteered to act as escort to the three ladies in our party for a trip over the trail. I examined with suspicion the red-bay horse that had been assigned to me. " Is he gentle ? " I asked of one of the gentlemen. "Oh, I don t know. You can t take any one s word about a horse in Alaska. They call regular buckers gentle up here. The only way to find out is to try them. This was encouraging. "Do you mean to tell me," said one of the other ladies, "that you don t know whether these horses have ever been ridden by women ? "No, I do not know." She sat down on the steps. Then there s no trail for me. I don t know how to ride nor to manage a horse." After many moments of persuasion, we got her [Copyright by The Macmillan Company, 1908.] On an Alaskan Trail 85 upon a mild-eyed horse, saddled with a cross sad dle. The other lady and myself had chosen side saddles, despite the assurance of almost every man in Valdez that we could not get over the trail sit ting a horse sidewise, without accident. "Your skirt 11 catch in the brush and pull you off," said one, cheerfully. "Your feet 11 hit against rocks in the canyon," said another. "You can t balance as even on a horse s back sideways, and if you don t balance even along the precipice in the canyon your horse 11 go over," said a third. * Your horse is sure to roll over once or twice in the glacier streams, and you can save yourself if you re riding astride," said a fourth. "You re certain to get into quicksand somewhere on the trip, and if your weight is all on one side of your horse you ll pull him down and he ll fall on top of you," said a fifth. In the face of all these cheerful horrors, our es cort said : "Ride any way you please. If a woman can keep her head, she will pull through everything in Alaska. Besides, we are not going along for noth ing!" So we chose side-saddles, that having been our manner of riding since childhood. We had waited three weeks for the glacial flood at the eastern side of the town to subside, and could wait no longer. It was roaring within ten steps of the back door of our hotel ; and in two min utes after mounting, before our feet were fairly 7 86 Pathway to Western Literature settled in the stirrups, we had ridden down the sloping bank into the boiling, white waters. One of the gentlemen rode ahead as guide. I watched his big horse go down in the flood down, down ; the water rose to its knees, to its rider s feet, to his knees He turned his head and called cheerfully, * Come on ! " and we went on one at a time, as still as the dead, save for the splashing and snorting of our horses. I felt the water, icy cold, rising high, high er ; it almost washed my foot from the red-slippered stirrup ; then I felt it mounting higher, my skirts floated out on the flood, and then fell, limp, about me. My glance kept flying from my horse s head to our guide and back again. He was tall, and his horse was tall. "When it reaches his waist/ was my agonized thought, * it will be over my head ! The other gentleman rode to my side. "Keep a firm hold of your bridle," said he gravely, "and watch your horse. If he falls " "Falls! In here!" 1 They do sometimes ; one must be prepared. If he falls of course you can swim?" * I never swam a stroke in my life ; I never even tried!" "Is it possible?" said he, in astonishment, "Why we would not have advised you to come at this time if we had known that, We took it for granted that you wouldn t think of going unless you could swim." "Oh," Maid I, sarcastically, "do all the Avomen in Valdez swim?" "No," he answered, gravely, "but then, they On an Alaskan Trail 87 don t go over the trail. Well, we can only hope that he will not fall. When he breaks into a swini " "Swim! Will he do that? " "Oh, yes, he is liable to swim any moment now." "What will I do then?" I asked, quite humbly; I could hear tears in my own voice. He must have heard them, too, his voice was so kind as he ans wered. "Sit as quietly and as evenly as possible, and lean slightly forward in the saddle; then trust to heaven and give him his head." Does he give you any warning ? "Not the faintest ah-h!" Well might he say "ah-h!" for my horse was swimming. Well might we all say "ah-h !" for one wild glance ahead revealed to my glimmering vis ion that all our horses were swimming. I never knew before that horses swam so low down in the water. I wished when I could see nothing but my horse s ears that I had not been so stubborn about the saddle. The water itself was different from any water I had ever seen. It did not flow like a river; it boiled, seethed, whirled, rushed; it pushed up into an angry bulk that came down over us like a del uge. I had let go of my reins and, leaning for ward in the saddle, was clinging to my horse s mane. The rapidly flowing water gave me the im pression that we were being swept down the stream. The roaring grew louder in my ears; I was so dizzy that I could no longer distinguish any ob ject; there was just a blur of brown and white water, rising, falling, about me; the sole thought 88 Pathway to Western Literature that remained was that I was being swept out to sea with my struggling horse. Suddenly there was a shock which, to my tor tured nerves, seemed like a ship striking on a rock. It was some time before I realized that it had been caused by my horse striking bottom. He was walk ing staggering, rather and plunging; his whole neck appeared, then his shoulders; I released his mane mechanically, as I had acted in all things since mounting, and gathered up the reins. "That was a nasty one, wasn t it?" said my escort, joining me. "I stayed behind to be of serv ice if you required it. We re getting out now, but there are at least ten or fifteen as bad on the trail if not worse. As if anything could be worse ! I chanced to lift my eyes then, and I got a clear view of the ladies ahead of me. Their appearance was of such a nature that I at once looked myself over and saw myself as others saw me! It was the first and only time that I have ever wished myself at home when I have been traveling in Alaska. "Cheer up!" called our guide, over his broad shoulder. l The worst is yet to come. He spoke more truthfully than even he knew. There was one stream after another and each seemed really worse than the one that went before. From Valdez Glacier the ice, melted by the hot July sun, was pouring out in a dozen streams that spread over the immense flats between the town and the mouth of the Lowe River. There were miles and miles of it. Scarcely would we struggle out of one place that had been washed out deep and On an Alaskan Trail 89 how deep we never knew until we were into it when we would be compelled to plunge into an other. At last, wet and chilled, after several narrow escapes from whirlpools and quicksand, we reached a level road leading through a cool wood for sev eral miles. From this, of a sudden, we began to climb. So steep was the ascent and so narrow the path no wider than the horse s feet that my horse seemed to have a series of movable humps on him, like a camel ; and riding sidewise, I could only lie forward and cling desperately to his mane, to avoid a shameful descent over his tail. Actually, there were steps cut in the hard soil for the horses to climb upon ! They pulled them selves up with powerful plunges. On both sides of this narrow path the grass, or " feed," as it is called, grew so tall that we could not see one another s heads above it as we rode; yet it had been grow ing only six weeks. Mingling with young alders, fireweed, devil s club and elderberry the latter sprayed out in scar let it formed a network across our path, through which we could only force our way with closed eyes, blind as Love. Bad as the ascent was, the descent was worse. The horse s humps all turned the other way, and we turned with them. It was only by constant watchfulness that we kept ourselves from sliding over their heads. After another ascent, we emerged into the open upon the brow of a cliff. Below us stretched the valley of the Lowe River. Thousands of feet be low wound and looped the blue reaches of the 90 Pathway to Western Literature river, set here and there with islands of glistening sand or rosy fireweed, while over all trailed the silver mists of morning. One elderberry island was so set with scarlet sprays of berries that from our heights no foliage could be seen. After this came a scented, primeval forest, through which we rode in silence. Its charm was too elusive for speech. Our horse s feet sank into the moss without sound. There was no under brush ; only dim aisles and arcades fashioned from the gray trunks of trees. The pale green foliage floating above us completely shut out the sun. Soft, gray, mottled moss dripped from the limbs and branches of the spruce trees in delicate, lacy fes toons. Soon after emerging from this dream-like wood we reached Camp Comfort, where we paused for lunch. This is one of the most comfortable road houses in Alaska. It is situated in a low, green valley; the river winds in front, and snow mountains float around it. The air is very sweet. It is only ten miles from Valdez, but those ten miles are equal to fifty in taxing the endurance. We found an excellent vegetable garden at Camp Comfort. Pansies and other flowers were as large and fragrant as I have ever seen, the coloring of the pansies being unusually rich. They told us that only two other women had passed over the trail during the summer. While our lunch was being prepared, we stood about the immense stove in the immense living room and tried to dry our clothing. The room was at least thirty feet square. It had On an Alaskan Trail 91 a high ceiling and rough board floor. In one cor ner was a piano, in another a phonograph. The ceiling was hung with all kinds of trail apparel used by men, including long boots and heavy stock ings, guns and other weapons, and other articles that added a picturesque and even startling touch to the big room. In one end was a bench, buckets of water, tin cups hanging on nails, washbowls, and a little wavy mirror swaying on the wall. The gentlemen of our party played the phonograph while we removed the dust and mud which we had gathered on our jour ney ; afterward, we played the phonograph. Then we all stood happily about the stove to "dry out," and listened to our host s stories of the miners who came out from the Tanana coun try laden with gold. As many as seventy men, each bearing a fortune, have slept at Camp Com fort on a single night. We slept there ourselves on our return journey, but our riches were in other things than gold, and there was no need to guard them. Any man or woman may go to Alaska and enrich himself or herself forever, as we did, if he or she have the desire. Not only is there no need to guard our riches, but, on the con trary, we are glad to give freely to whomsoever would have. Each man, we were told, had his own way of caring for his gold ! One leaned a gunny-sack full of it outside the house, where it stood all night un guarded, supposed to be a sack of old clothing, from the carelessness with which it was left there. The owner slept calmly in the attic, surrounded by men whose gold made their hard pillows. 92 Pathway to Western Literature They told us, too, of the men who came back, dull-eyed and empty handed, discouraged and foot sore. They slept long and heavily ; there was noth ing for them to guard. Every road house has its "talking machine," with many of the most expensive records. No one can appreciate one of these machines until he goes to Alaska. Its influence is not to be estimated in those far, lonely places, where other music is not. In a big store "to Westward" we witnessed a scene that would touch any heart. The room was filled with people. There were passengers and of ficers from the ship, miners, Russian half-breeds, and full-blooded Aleuts. After several records had filled the room with melody, Calve, herself, sang "The Old Folks at Home." As that voice of golden velvet rose and fell, the unconscious work ings of the faces about me spelled out their life tragedies. At last, one big fellow in a flannel shirt started for the door. As he reached it, another man caught his sleeve and whispered huskily : "Where you goin , Bill?" "Oh, anywheres," he made answer roughly, to cover his emotion; "anywheres, so s I can t hear that piece" and it was not one of the least of Calve s compliments. Music in Alaska brings the thought of home; and it is the thought of home that plays upon the heart-strings of the North. The hunger is always there hidden, repressed, but waiting and at the first touch of music it leaps forth and casts its shadow upon the face. Who knows but that it is this very heart-hunger that puts the universal human look into Alaskan eyes? On an Alaskan Trail 93 After a good lunch at Camp Comfort we re sumed our journey. There was another bit of en chanting forest ; then, of a sudden, we were in the famed Keystone Canyon. Here the scenery is enthralling. Solid walls of shaded gray stone rise straight from the river to a height of from twelve to fifteen hundred feet. Along one cliff winds the trail, in many places no wider than the horse s feet. One feels that he must only breathe with the land side of him, lest the mere weight of his breath on the other side should topple him over the sheer, dizzy precipice. It was amusing to see every woman lean toward the rock cliff. Not for the gold of Klondike would I have willingly given one look down into the gulf, sinking away, almost under my horse s feet. Some where in those purple depths I knew that the river was roaring, white and swollen, between its nar row stone walls "We finally reached a place where the descent was almost perpendicular and the trail painfully narrow. The horses sank to their haunches and slid down, taking gravel and stones down with them. I had been imploring to be permitted to walk ; but now, being far in advance of all but one, I did not ask permission. I simply slipped off my horse and left him for the others to firing with them. The gentleman with me was forced to do the same. "We paused for a time to rest and to enjoy the most beautiful waterfall I saw in Alaska Bridal Veil. It is on the opposite side of the canyon, and has a slow, musical fall of six hundred feet, AYhen we went on, the other members of our 94 Pathway to Western Literature party had not yet come up with us, nor had our horses appeared. In the narrowest of all narrow places I was walking ahead, when, turning a sharp corner, we met a government pack-train, face to face. The bell horse stood still and looked at me with big eyes, evidently as scared at the sight of a wo man as an old prospector who has not seen one for years. I looked at him with eyes as big as his own. There was only one thing to do. Behind us was a narrow, V-shaped cave in the stone wall, not more than four feet high and three deep. Into this we backed, Grecian-bend wise, and waited. We waited a very long time. The horse stood still, blowing his breath loudly from steaming nos trils, and contemplating us. I never knew before that a horse could express his opinion of a person so plainly. Around the curve we could hear whips cracking and men swearing; but the horse stood there and kept his suspicious eyes on me. "I ll stay here till dark," his eyes said, "but you don t get me past a thing like that!" I didn t mind his looking, but his snorting seemed like an insult. At last a man pushed past the horse. When he saw us backed gracefully up into the V-shaped cave, he stood as still as the horse. Finding that neither he nor my escort could think of anything to say to relieve the mental and physical strain, I called out graciously : "How do you do, sir? Would you like to get by?" On an Alaskan Trail 95 "I d like it well, lady," he replied, with what I felt to be his very politest manner. "Perhaps," I suggested sweetly, "if I came out and let the horse get a good look at me " "Don t you do it lady. That u d scare him plumb to death!" I have always been convinced that he did not mean it exactly as it sounded, but I caught the flicker of a smile on my escort s face. It was gone in an instant. Suddenly the other horses came crowding upon the bell-horse. There was nothing for him to do but to go past me or to go over the precipice. He chose me as the least of the two evils. "Nice pony, nice boy," I wheedled as he went sliding and snorting past. Then we waited for the next horse to come by; but he did not come. Turning my head, I found him fixed in the same place and the same attitude as the first had been ; his eyes were as big and they were set as steadily on me. Well there were fifty horses in that government pack train. Every one of the fifty balked at sight of a woman. There were horses of every color gray, white, black, bay, chestnut, sorrel, and pinto. The sorrel were the stubbornest of all. To this day I detest the sight of a sorrel horse. We stood there in that position for a time that seemed like hours; we coaxed each horse as he balked ; and at the last were reduced to such mis ery that we gave thanks to God that there were only fifty of them and that they couldn t kick side- wise as they passed. I forgot about the men. There were seven men. 96 Pathway to Western Literature and as each man turned the bend in the trail he stood as still as the stillest horse, and for quite as long a time ; and naturally I hesitated to say, "Nice boy, nice fellow," to help him by. There were more glacier streams to cross. These were floored with huge boulders instead of sand and quicksand. The horses stumbled and plunged powerfully. One misstep here would have meant death; the rapids immediately below the crossing would have beaten us to pieces upon the rocks. Then came more perpendicular climbing ; but at last, at five o clock, with our bodies aching with fatigue and our senses finally dulled, through sheer surfeit, to the beauty of the journey, we reached "Wortman s" road house. This is twenty miles from Valdez ; and when we were lifted from our horses we could not stand alone, to say nothing of attempting to walk. But "Workman s is the paradise of road houses. In it, and floating over it, is an atmosphere of warmth, comfort and good cheer that is a rest for body and heart. The beds are comfortable and the meals excellent. But it was the welcome that cheered the spirit of genuine kind-heartedness. The road house stands in a large clearing, with barns and other buildings surrounding it. I never saw so many dogs as greeted us, except in Valdez or on the Yukon. They crowded about us, barking and shrieking a welcome. They were all big mala- mutes. After a good dinner we went to bed at eight o clock. The sun was shining brightly, but we darkened our rooms as much as possible, and in- The Way of the Desert 97 stantly fell into the sleep of utter exhaustion. From "Alaska." THE WAY OF THE DESERT BY IDAH MEACHAM STBOBRIDGE UNDER the palrns and pepper trees that grow by Pacific waters I sit, and say, "This is home;" and I keep saying it over and over again, as a child repeats a lesson that is hard to learn. But repeating the words of a lesson a hundred times and more is not learning it. Therefore, I do not know my lesson yet. I have driven my tent pegs here among California roses, and under a Cal ifornia sky. I have stretched the ropes tight and have anchored them down to stay. Yet this is not home. If you would ask me "Why?" remem ber that the tent-canvas was weathered in a Desert wind, and the ropes bleached by a Desert sun. Then the tent stood there for long, in that land, very long. And tent pegs pull hard when driven long in one place. So though, there are lilies and roses about me and the wind brings the salt smell of the sea, yet would I have the Desert alkali in my nostrils, and smell the smoke from a grease- wood camp-fire. Into a gray Desert (a land of gray sage and gray sand; of lizards, and little horned toads that are gray; where the coyote drifts by you like a frag ment from gray fog-banks blown by the wind), half a century ago, they came the prospectors seeking the Desert s treasure- trove, where the Des- 98 Pathway to Western Literature ert had none hidden away. Some are yet seeking following the mirage still. Once long ago my horse and I went away into the mirage land of these old miners; and there I heard them voice the stories of their hopes the dreams that they believe will, some day, surely come true. By camp-fire smoke, or in the dim light of sod cabins, I have sat in that silence the Desert teaches you, and have listened as they talked, and believed as I listened. Yes, even believed ; as you, too, will believe if you hear from their own lips the fables that seem so true during the hour you are under the story-teller s charm, with no sound breaking in save the crooning of the Desert wind, or the cry of a lone coyote. It may be that the twilight hour that lies at the end of some day that is now far in the future will find you there at the grease-wood camp-fire of one of these old men. Then you will know these things as I have known them. Go up into the mountains and you will find the old prospectors who came into the country in the days of their youth, and stay on now through the unrewarding, quiet years. To the last chapter of your own life the memories of them and their stories will be with you, to link you yet closer to the old days when you found the trail that led you to the heart of the Desert. Then live in the big, still plains that tend to a big and a serene life, learning the best the Desert may teach you. These things you learn : That we are what we think and feel, not what others think and feel us to be ; that mankind is a brotherhood, each needing the other, and not one The Way of the Desert 99 can be spared from the unit ; brothers are we, born of a common parentage ; and there is small differ ence between man and man, except in so far as they are good or bad. Therefore I repeat to you that you, too, may some day learn the Desert s lure the Desert s charm. Same time your destiny may lead you there; and lying awake in your blankets at night under the purple-black sky that is crowded with palpitating stars, with the warm Desert wind blowing softly over you, caressing your face and smoothing your hair as no human hands ever could, and bringing with it the hushed night-sounds that only the land of the grease-wood and the sage knows ! then all alone there with only God and the Desert you will come to understand the old prospector and his ways; the Red Man who was there before him ; and all who, by reason of years of dwelling there, have made it their own. But not now ; not till you and the Desert are lovers. So I say to you: "Go I go to the gray land and search till you find its heart !" If you go, and live there long enough, you will learn to love it. And if you love it and go away, you will never for one instant forget it in after years. It will be with you in memory ever afterward a something so cherished that it has no counterpart elsewhere in all the world. And always though you go to the end of the earth you will hear the still voice call ing and calling! From "In Miner s Mirage Land." 100 Pathivay to Western Literature HEIMWEH BY LOWELL OTUS REESE NOW the mountain breeze is blowing round a little cabin hiding Down among the cedar windfalls of the far Sier ra hills; And the music of the torrent on the wind of morn ing riding, Through the balsam-laden air in sweet harmonic measure thrills ; Oh, the mellow, mellow murmur! I can hear the Naiads singing Mid the bending boughs of alder where the hid den waters flow; And the echo of their music in an ecstacy is ringing Night and morning round the windows of a cab in that I know. Sweet, sweet, waiting to greet, Over and over the tongues repeat, Deep in the woodland gloam, "Cool, cool is the hidden pool When are you coming home?" Tell me what it is that deep within the bosom low is crying, When across the distant mountain comes the whisper of the pine ; When you wake at night and listen to the mystic voices sighing From the far-off slopes all heavy with the scent of columbine; Heimweh 101 Tell rue from what ancient era conies the restless spirit stirring In my breast when summer beckons and the haunted breezes blow, Till I hear the stealthy footsteps and the wild wings nervous whirring In the leafy forest temples round a cabin that I know. Oh, the magic of the mountains when the voice of Nature calling, With a flood of homesick longing all the yearn ing spirit fills ! When you spend the long night s dreaming of the early glory falling In a flood of gold and purple on the greenness of the hills : Who shall turn my heart against her? Who shall keep my feet from straying To the far-off rocky valley where the hidden waters flow Where all summer long I listen the enchanted breezes playing In the pine and cedar waving round a cabin that I know ! Hark, hark! Out in the dark, Whippoonvill s cry and the fox s "bark, Under a starry dome; Near, clear, comes to my ear "When are you coming home?" 102 Pathivay to Western Literature SAN FRANCISCO S OLD CHINATOWN BY FRANK NOERIS TpHEY looked swiftly around them, and the I bustling, breezy water-front faded from their recollections. They were in a world of narrow streets, of galleries and overhanging balconies. Craziest structures, riddled and honey-combed with stairways and passages, shut out the sky, though here and there rose a building of extraordinary richness and most elaborate ornamentation. Color was everywhere. A thousand little notes of green and yellow, of vermilion and sky blue, assaulted the eye. Here it was a doorway, here a vivid glint of cloth or hanging, here a huge scarlet sign lettered with gold, and here a kaleidoscopic effect in the garments of a passer-by. Directly opposite and two stories above their heads, a sort of huge "log gia," one blaze of gilding and crude vermilion, opened in the gray cement of a crumbling facade, like a sudden burst of flame. Gigantic pot-bellied lanterns of red and gold swung from its ceiling, while along the railing stood a row of pots brass, ruddy bronze and blue porcelain from which were growing red, saffron, purple, pink and golden tulips without number. The air was vibrant with unfamiliar noises. From one of the balconies near at hand, though unseen, a gong, a pipe and some kind of stringed instrument wailed and thundered in unison. There was a vast shuffling of padded soles and a continuous interchange of singsong monosyllables, high-pitched and staccato, while from every hand rose the strange aromas of the San Francisco s Old Chinatown 103 East sandalwood, punk, incense, oil, and the srnell of mysterious cooking. "Chinatown!" exclaimed Travis. "I hadn t the faintest idea we had come up so far. Coudy Rivers, do you know what time it is?" She pointed a white kid finger through the doorway of a drug store, where, amid lacquer boxes and bronze urns of herbs and dried seeds, a round Seth Thomas marked half-past four. And your lunch ? cried Coudy. Great heav ens! I never thought." "It s too late to get any at home. Never mind; I 11 go somewhere and have a cup of tea. "Why not get a package of Chinese tea, now that you re down here, and take it home with you?" 1 Or drink it here." "Where?" "In one of the restaurants. There wouldn t be a soul there at this hour. I know they serve tea any time. Coudy, let s try it. Wouldn t it be fun?" Coudy smote his thigh. "Pun!" he vociferated. It is it would be heavenly! Wait a moment. I ll tell you what we will do. Tea won t be enough. We ll go down to Kearney street, or to the market, and get some crackers to go with it." They hurried back to the California market, a few blocks distant, and bought some crackers and a wedge of new cheese. "First catch your restaurant," said Travis, as they turned into Dupont street with its thronging coolies and swarming gayly clad children. But they had not far to seek. 104 Pathway to Western Literature Here you are!" suddenly exclaimed Coudy, halting in front of a wholesale tea-house bearing a sign in Chinese and English. "Come on, Travis !" They ascended two flights of a broad, brass- bound staircase leading up from the ground floor and gained the restaurant on the top story of the building. As Travis, had foretold, it was deserted. The restaurant ran the whole depth of the build ing, and was finished off at either extremity with a gilded balcony, one overlooking Dupont street and the other the old Plaza. Enormous screens of gilded ebony, intricately carved and set with col ored glass panes, divided the room into three, and one of these divisions, in the rear part, from which they could step out upon the balcony that com manded the view of the Plaza, they elected as their own. It was charming. At their backs they had the huge, fantastic screen, brave and fine with its coat of gold. In front, through the glass-paned valves of a pair of folding doors, they could see the roofs of the houses beyond the Plaza, and beyond these the blue of the bay with its anchored ships, and even beyond this the faint purple of the Oakland shore. On either side of these doors, in deep alcoves, were divans with mattings and headrests for opium smokers. The walls were painted blue and hung with vertical Cantonese legends in red and silver, while all around the sides of the room small ebony tables alternated with ebony stools, each inlaid with a slab of mottled marble. A chandelier, all a- glitter with tinsel, swung from the center of the ceiling over a huge round table of mahogany. San Francisco s Old Chinatown 105 Below them, out there around the old Plaza, the city drummed through its work, with a lazy, sooth ing rumble. Nearer at hand, Chinatown sent up the vague murmur of the life of the Orient. In the direction of the Mexican quarter, the b ell of the cathedral knolled at intervals. The sky was without a cloud and the afternoon w r as warm. Coudy brought Travis out upon the balcony to show her the points of interest in and around the Plaza. There s the Stevenson memorial ship in the center, see; and right there where the flagstaff is, General Baker made the funeral oration over the body of Terry. Right opposite where that pawn shop is, is where the overland stages used to start in 49. And every other building that fronts on the Plaza, even this one we re in now, used to be a gambling house in bonanza times ; and see, over yonder is the Morgue and the City Prison." Beyond these the city tumbled raggedly down to meet the bay in a confused, vague mass of roofs, cornices, cupolas and chimneys, blurred and indis tinct. Then came the bay. Beyond was the Contra Costa shore, a vast streak of purple against the sky. The eye followed its skyline westward till it climbed, climbed, climbed up a long slope that sud denly leaped heavenward with the crest of Tamal- pais, purple and still, looking always to the sun set like a great watching Sphinx. Then, farther on, the slope seemed to break like the Breaking of an advancing billow, and go tumbling, crumbling downward to meet the Golden Gate the narrow inlet of green tide-water with its flanking Presidio. But farther than this the eye was stayed, farther 106 Patlnvay to Western Literature than this there was nothing, nothing but a vast il limitable plain of green the open Pacific. But at this hour the color cf the scene was its greatest charm. It glowed with all the somber radiance of a cathedral. As the afternoon waned, the west burned down to a dull red glow that overlaid the blue of the bay with a sheen of ruddy gold. The foothills of the opposite shore, Diablo, and at last even Tamalpais, resolved themselves to the velvet gray of the sky. The sky and land and the city s huddled roofs were one. Only the sheen of dull gold remained, piercing the single vast mass of pur ple like the blade of a golden sword. There s a ship ! said Travis, in a low tone. A four-master was dropping quietly through the Golden Gate, swimming on that sheen of gold, a mere shadow. In a few moments her bows were shut from sight by the old fort at the Gate. Then her stern vanished, then the main-mast. She was gone. By midnight she would be out of sight of land, rolling on the swell of the lonely ocean un der the moon s white eye. They turned back into the room, and a great, fat Chinaman brought them tea on Coudy s order. But, besides tea, he brought dried almonds, pickled watermelon rinds, candied quince and " China nuts." Travis cut the cheese into cubes with Coudy s penknife, and arranged the cubes in geometric fig ures upon the crackers. "I wonder if this green, pasty stuff is good," she asked. They found that it was, but so sweet that it made their tea taste bitter. The watermelon rinds were flat to their Western palates, but the dried Adventures of the Forty-miners 107 almonds were a great success. Then Coudy prompt ly got the hiccoughs from drinking his tea too fast, and fretted up and down the room like a chicken with the pip till Travis grew weak and faint with laughter. "Oh, well/ he exclaimed, aggrievedly laugh, that s right! I don t laugh. It isn t such fun when you ve got em yourself hulp. Come along, and don t be so absurd. It is get ting late. I wonder/ said Travis, as they skirted the Plaza going down to Kearney street, "I won der if we are talked out. I never remember to have had a better time than I ve had to-day," she said as Coudy put her on the cable car. "Good bye, Coudy; haven t we had the jolliest day that ever was ? "Couldn t have been better," he answered. "Good-bye, Travis ! ; From "Blix." ADVENTURES OF THE FORTY-NINERS BY WILLIAM LEWIS MANLY WE found the little mule stopped by a still high er precipice or perpendicular rise of fully ten feet. Our hearts sank within us and we said that we should return to our friends as we went away, with our knapsacks on our backs, and the hope grew very small. The little mule was nipping some straw blades of grass and as we came in sight she looked around to us and then up the steep rocks before her with such a knowing, intelligent look of confidence that it gave us new courage. It was a strange, wild 108 Pathway to Western Literature place. The north wall of the canon leaned far over the channel, overhanging considerably, while the south wall sloped back about the same, making the walls nearly parallel, and like a huge crevice de scending into the mountain from above in a sloping direction. We decided to try to get the confident little mule over this obstruction. Gathering all the loose rocks we could, we piled them up against the south wall, beginning some distance below, putting up all those in the bed of the stream and throwing down others from narrow shelves above, we built a sort of in clined plane along the walls, gradually rising till we were nearly as high as the crest of the fall. Here was a narrow shelf scarcely four inches wide, and a space of from twelve to fifteen feet to cross to reach the level of the crest. It was all I could do to cross this space, and there was no foundation to enable us to widen it so as to make a path for an animal. It was a forlorn hope, but we made the most of it. We unpacked the mule, and getting all our ropes together, made a leading line of it. Then we loosened and threw down all the projecting points of rocks we could above the narrow shelf, and every piece that was likely to come loose in the shelf itself. We fastened the leading line to her and with one above and one below, we thought we could help her to keep her balance, and if she did not make a mis step on that narrow way, she might get over safely. Without a moment s hesitation, the brave animal tried the pass. Carefully and steadily she went along, selecting a place before putting down a foot, and when she came to the narrow ledge leaned gently on the rope, never making a sudden start or Adventures of the Forty-miners 109 jump, but cautiously as a cat, moved slowly along. There was now no turning back for her. She must cross this narrow place over which I, had to creep on hand and knees, or be dashed down fifty feet to certain death. "When the worst place was reached she stopped and hesitated, looking back as well as she could. I was ahead with the rope, and called encouragingly to her and talked to her a little. Rogers wanted to get all ready, and " holler" at her as loud as he could and frighten her across, but I thought the best way was to talk to her gently and let her move steadily. I tell you, friends, it was a trying moment. It seemed to be weighed down with all the trials and hardships of 1 many months. It seemed to be the time when helpless women and innocent children hung on the trembling balance between life and death. Our own lives we could have saved by going back, and sometimes it seemed as if we would per haps save ourselves the additional sorrow of finding them all dead to do so at once. I was so nearly in despair that I could not help bursting into tears, and I was ashamed of the weakness. Finally Rog ers said, "Come, Lewis," and I gently pulled the rope, calling the little animal to make a trial. She smelled all around and looked over every inch of the strong ledge, then took one careful step after another over the dangerous place. Looking back I saw Rogers with a very large stone in his hand, ready to "holler" and perhaps kill the poor beast if she stepped. But she crept along, trusting to the rope to balance, till she was half-way across, then another step or two, when, calculating the distance closely, she made a spring and landed on a smooth OF THE UNIVERSITY 110 Pathway to Western Literature bit of sloping rock below, that led up to the highest crest of the precipice, and safely climbed to the top, safe and sound above the falls. The mule had no shoes, and it was wonderful how her little hoofs clung to the smooth rock. We felt relieved. We would push on and carry food to the people; we would get them through some way ; there could be no more hopeless moment than the one just passed, and we would save them all. Out of Death Valley we surely were. To Rogers and I the case seemed hopeful, for we had confi dence in the road and believed all would have power to weather difficulties, but the poor women it is hard to say what complaints and sorrows were not theirs. They seemed to think they stood at death s door, and would as soon enter as to take up a farther march over the black, desolate mountains and dry plains before them, which they considered only a dreary vestibule to the dark door after all. They even had an idea that the road was longer than we told them, and they never could live to march so far over the sandy, rocky roads. The first day nearly satisfied them that it was no use to try. Rogers and I counted up the camps we ought to reach each day, and in this way we could pretty nearly convince them of the time that would be con sumed in the trip. We encouraged them in every way we could ; told them we had better get along a little every day and make ourselves a little nearer the promised land, and the very exercise would soon make them stronger and able to make a full day s march. Adventures of the Forty-Niners 111 The route was first along the foot of the high peak, over bare rocks, and we soon turned south somewhat so as to enter the canon leading down to the falls. The bottom of this was thick with broken rock, and the oxen limped and picked out soft places about as bad as the women did. A pair of moccasins would not last long in such rocks and we hoped to get out of them very soon. Rogers and I hurried along, assisting Arcane and his party as much as we could, while Bennett stayed behind and assisted the women as much as possible, taking their arms, and by. this means they also reached camp an hour behind the rest. A kettle of hot, steaming soup, and blankets all spread out on which to rest, was the work Rogers and I had done to prepare for them, and they sank down on the beds completely exhausted. The chil dren cried some, but were soon pacified, and were contented to lie still. A good supper of hot soup made them feel much better all around. The first thing Bennett and Arcane did was to look aiound to see the situation at the falls, and see if the obstacle was enough to stop our progress, or if we must turn back and look for a better way. They were in some doubt about it, but concluded to try and get the animals over rather than to take the time to seek another pass, which might take a week of time. We men all went down to the foot of the precipice, and threw out all the large rocks, then piled up all the sand we could scrape together with the shovel, till we had quite a pile of material that would tend to break a fall. "We arranged every thing possible for a forced passage in the morning, and the animals found a few willows to browse and 112 Pathway to Western Literature a few bunches of grass here and there, which gave them a little food, while the spring supplied them with enough water to keep them from suffering from thirst. Early in the morning, we took our soup hastily and with ropes lowered our luggage over the small precipice, then the children, and finally all the ropes were combined to make a single strong one about thirty feet long. They urged one of the oxen up to the edge of the falls, put the rope around his horns, and threw down the end to me, whom they had stationed below. I was told to pull hard when he started so that he might not light on his head and break his neck. We felt this was a desperate undertaking, and we fully expected to lose some of our animals, but our case was critical and we must take some chances. Bennett stood on one side of the ox and Arcane on the other, while big Rogers was placed in the rear to give a Tennessee boost when the word was given. Now for it, said Ben nett, and as I braced out on the rope those above gave a push and the ox came over sprawling, but landed safely, cut only a little by some angular stones in the sand pile. "Good enough," said some one, and I threw the rope back for another ox. "We ll get em all over safely," said Arcane, "if Lewis, down there, will keep them from getting their necks broken. Lewis pulled hard every time, and not a neck was broken. The sand pile was re newed every time, and made as high and soft as possible, and very soon all our animals were below the falls. The little mule gave a jump when they pushed her and landed squarely on her feet all right. With the exception of one or two slight cuts, Bow Santa Clans Came to Simpson s Bar 113 which bled some, the oxen were all right and we be gan loading them at once. Bennett and Arcane assisted their wives down along the little narrow ledge which we used in get ting up, keeping their faces toward the rocky wall, and feeling carefully for every footstep. Thus they worked along and landed safely by the time we had the animals ready for a march. We had passed without disaster the obstacle we most feared, and started down the rough canon, hope revived, and we felt we should get through. From "Death Valley in 49. " HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON S BAR BY BRET HABTE IT was one o clock, and yet he had only gained Rattlesnake Creek. For in that time Jovita had rehearsed to him all her imperfections and practiced all her vices. Thrice had she stumbled; twice had she thrown her Roman nose up in a straight line with the reins, and, resisting bit and spurs, struck out madly across the country. Twice had she reared, and, rearing, fallen backward ; and twice had the agile Dick, unharmed, regained his seat before she found her vicious legs again. And a mile beyond them, at the foot of a long hill, was Rattlesnake Creek. Dick, knowing that here was the crucial test of his ability to perform his enterprise, set his teeth grimly, put his knees well into her flanks, and changed his defensive tactics to brisk aggression. Bullied and maddened, Jovita began 114 Pathway to Western Literature the ascent of the hill. Here the artful Richard pre tended to hold her in with ostentatious objurgation and well-feigned cries of alarm. It is unnecessary to add that Jovita instantly ran away. Nor need I state the time made in the descent; it is written in the chronicles of Simpson s Bar. Enough that in another moment, as it seemed to Dick, she was splashing on the overflowed banks of Rattlesnake Creek. As Dick expected, the momentum she had acquired carried her beyond the point of balking, and, holding her well together for a mighty leap, they dashed into the middle of the swiftly flowing current. A few moments of kicking, wading and swimming, and Dick drew a long breath on the op posite bank. The road from Rattlesnake Creek to Red Moun tain was tolerably level. Either the plunge in Rat tlesnake Creek had dampened her baleful fire, or the art which led to it had shown her the superior wickedness of her rider, for Jovita no longer wasted her surplus energy in wanton conceits. Once she bucked, but it was from force of habit; once she shied, but it was from a new, freshly painted meet ing-house at the crossing of the county road. Hol lows, ditches, gravelly deposits, patches of freshly springing grasses, flew from beneath her rattling hoofs. She began to smell unpleasantly, once or twice she coughed slightly, but there was no abate ment of her strength or speed. By two o clock he had passed Red Mountain and began the descent to the plains. Ten minutes later the driver of the fast Pioneer coach was overtaken and passed by a "man on a Pinto hoss" an event sufficiently nota ble for remark. At half-past two Dick rose in his How Santa Clans Came to Simpson s Bar 115 stirrups with a great shout. Stars were glittering through the rifted clouds and, beyond him, out of the plain rose two spires, a flagstaff, and a strag gling line of black objects. Dick jingled his spurs and swung his riata, Jovita bounded forward, and in another moment they swept into Tuttleville, and drew up before the wooden piazza of * The Hotel of All Nations." What transpired that night at Tuttleville is not strictly a part of this record. Briefly, I may state, however, that after Jovita had been handed over to a sleepy hostler, whom she at once kicked into un pleasant unconsciousness, Dick sallied forth with the barkeeper for a tour of the sleeping town. It was three o clock before this pleasantry was over, and with a small water-proof bag of India rubber strapped on his shoulders Dick returned to the hotel. And then he sprang to the saddle and dashed down the lonely street and out into the lone lier plain, where presently the lights, the black line of houses, the spires and the flagstaff sank into the earth behind him again and were lost in the dis tance. The storm had cleared away, the air was brisk and cold, the outlines of adjacent landmarks were distinct, but it was half-past four before Dick reached the meeting-house and the crossing of the road. To avoid the rising grade, he had taken a longer and more circuitous road, in whose viscid mud Jovita sank fetlock deep at every bound. It was a poor preparation for a steady ascent of five miles more; but Jovita, gathering her legs under her, took it with her usual blind, unreasoning fury, and a half hour later reached the long level that led 116 Pathivay to Western Literature to Rattlesnake Creek. Another half hour would bring him to the creek. He threw the reins lightly over the neck of the mare, chirruped to her and be gan to sing. Suddenly Jovita shied with a bound that would have unseated a less practiced rider. Hanging to her rein was a figure that had leaped from the bank, and at the same time from the road before her arose a shadowy horse and rider. * * Throw up your hands ! commanded the sec ond apparition, with an oath. Dick felt the mare tremble, quiver, and appar ently sink under him. He knew what it meant and was prepared. "Stand aside, Jack Simpson. I know you, you thief! Let me pass on " He did not finish the sentence. Jovita rose straight in the air with a terrific bound, throwing the figure from her bit with a single shake of her vicious head, and charged with deadly malevolence down on the impediment before her. An oath, a pistol shot, and horse and highwayman rolled over in the road, and the next moment Jovita was a hundred yards away. But the good right arm of her rider, shattered by a bullet, dropped helplessly at his side. Without slacking his speed he shifted the reins to his left hand. But a few moments later he was obliged to halt and tighten the saddle-girths that had slipped in the onset. This, in his crippled con dition, took some time. He had no fear of pursuit, but looking up he saw that the eastern stars were already paling, and that the distant peaks had lost their ghostly whiteness, and now stood out blackly How Santa Clans Came to Simpson s Bar 117 against a lighter sky. Day was upon him. Then completely absorbed in a single idea, he forgot the pain of his wound, and, mounting again, dashed on toward Rattlesnake Creek. But now Jovita s breath came by broken gasps, Dick reeled in the saddle, and brighter and brighter grew the sky. Ride, Richard ; run Jovita ; linger, day ! For the last few rods there was a roaring in his ears. Was it exhaustion from loss of blood, or what? He was dazed and giddy as he swept down the hill and did not recognize his surroundings. Had he taken the wrong road, or was this Rattle snake Creek?* It was. But the brawling creek he had swam a few hours before had risen, more than doubled its volume, and now rolled a swift and restless river between him and Rattlesnake Hill. For the first time that night Richard s heart sank within him. The river, the mountain, the quickening east, swam before his eyes. He shut them to recover his self- control. In that brief interval, by some fantastic mental process, the little room at Simpson s Bar and the figures of the sleeping father and son rose upon him. He opened his eyes wildly, cast off his coat, pistol, boots and saddle, bound his precious pack tightly to his shoulders, grasped the bare flanks of Jovita with his bared knees, and with a shout dashed into the yellow water. A cry rose from the opposite bank as the head of a man and horse struggled for a few moments against the bat tling current, and then were swept away amid up rooted trees and whirling driftwood. 118 Pathway to Western Literature The Old Man started and awoke. The fire on the hearth was dead, the candle in the outer room flick ering in its socket, and somebody was rapping on the door. He opened it, but fell back with a cry before the dripping, half-naked figure that reeled before the doorpost. "Dick?" "Hush. Is he awake yet?" "No! but, Dick." "Dry up, you old fool. Get me some whisky, quick. The Old Man flew and returned with an empty bottle. Dick would have sworn that his strength was not equal to the occasion. He staggered, caught at the handle of the door, and motioned to the Old Man. "Thar s suthin in my pack fer Johnny. Take it off. I can t." The Old Man unstrapped the pack, and laid it before the exhausted man. "Open it, quick." He did so with trembling fingers. It contained only a few poor toys cheap and barbaric enough, goodness knows, but bright with paint and tinsel. One of them was broken ; another, I fear, was irre trievably ruined by water, and on the third ah me, there was a cruel spot. "It don t look like much, that s a fact," said Dick ruefully. "But it s the best we could do. Take em, Old Man., and put em in his stocking, and tell him tell him, you know hold me, Old Man. The Old Man caught at the sinking figure. "Tell him," said Dick, with a weak little laugh "tell him Sandy Glaus has come." The Pearls of Loreta 119 And even so, bedraggled, ragged, unshaved and unshorn, with one arm hanging helplessly at his side, Santa Claus came to Simpson s Bar and fell fainting on the first threshold. The Christmas dawn came slowly after, touching the remoter peaks with the rosy warmth of ineffable love. And it looked so tenderly on Simpson s Bar that the whole mountain, as if caught in a generous action, blushed to the skies. From " Tales of the Argo nauts. [Copyright, 1872, by James R. Osgood & Co. Copyright, 1896, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Copyright, 1900, by Bret Harte. By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers of Bret Harte s work.] THE PEARLS OF LORETA BY GERTRUDE ATHERTOX THE fog lay thick on the bay at dawn next morning. The white waves hid the blue, muf fled the roar of the surf. Now and again a whale threw a volume of spray high in the air, a geyser from a phantom sea. Above the white sands strag gled the white town, ghostly, prophetic. De la Vega, a dark sombrero pulled over his eyes, a dark serape enveloping his tall figure, rode, unattended and watchful, out of the town. Not until he reached the narrow road through the brush forest beyond did he give his horse rein. The indo lence of the Californian was no longer in his car- [Copyright by The Macmillan Company, 1902.] 120 Pathivay to Western Literature riage; it looked alert and muscular; recklessness accentuated the sternness of his face. As he rode, the fog receded slowly. He left the chaparral and rode by green marshes cut with sloughs and stained with vivid patches of orange. The frogs in the tules chanted their hoarse matins. Through brush-covered plains once more, with sparsely wooded hills in the distance, and again the tules, the marsh, the patches of orange. He rode through a field of mustard; the pale yel low petals brushed his dark face, the delicate green leaves won his eyes from the hot glare of the as cending sun, the slender stalks, rebounding, smote his horse s flanks. He climbed hills to avoid the wide marshes, and descended into willow groves and fields of daisies. Before noon he was in the San Juan Mountains, thick with sturdy oaks, bend ing their heads before the madrono, that belle of the forest, with her robes of scarlet and her crown of bronze. The yellow lilies clung to her skirts, and the buckeye flung his flowers at her feet. The last redwoods were there, piercing the blue air with their thin, inflexible arms, gray as a dusty tiand of friars. Out by the willows, whereunder crept the sluggish river, then between the hills curving about the valley of San Juan Bautista. At no time is California so beautiful as in the month of June. De la Vega s wild spirit and sav age purpose were dormant for the moment as he rode down the valley toward the mission. The hills were like gold, like mammoth fawns veiled with violet mist, like rich, tan velvet. Afar, bare blue steeps were pink in their chasms, brown on their spurs. The dark yellow fields were as if thick with The Pearls of Loreta 121 gold-dust; the pale mustard was a waving yellow sea. Not a tree marred the smooth hills. The earth sent forth a perfume of its own. Below the plateau from which rose the white walls of the mis sion was a wide field of bright green corn rising against the blue sky. The padres in their brown hooded robes came out upon the long corridor of the mission and welcomed the traveler. Their lands had gone from them, their mission was crumbling, but the spirit of hos pitality lingered there still. They laid meat and fruit and drink on a table beneath the arches, and sat about him and asked him eagerly for the news of the day. Was it true that the United States of America were at war with Mexico, or about to be? True that their beloved flag might fall, and the stars and stripes of an insolent invader rise alJove the fort of Monterey? De la Vega recounted the meager and conflicting rumors which had reached California, but, not be ing a prophet, could not tell them that they would be the first to see the red-white-and-blue fluttering on the mountain before them. He refused to rest more than an hour, but mounted the fresh horse the padres gave him and went his way, riding hard and relentlessly, like all Californians. He sped onward, through the long, hot day, leav ing the hills for the marshes and a long stretch of ugly country, traversing the beautiful San Antonio Valley in the night, reaching the Mission of San Miguel at dawn, resting there for a few hours. That night he slept at a hospitable ranch-house in the park-like valley of Paso des Robles, a grim, silent figure amongst gay-hearted people who de- 122 Pathivay to Western Literature lighted to welcome him. The early morning found him among the chrome hills ; and at the Mission of San Luis Obispo the good padres gave him break fast. The little valley, round as a well, its bare hills red and brown, gray and pink, violet and black from fire, sloping steeply from a dizzy height, impressed him with a sense of being pris oned in an enchanted vale where no message of the outer world could come, and he hastened on his way. Absorbed as he was, he felt the beauty he fled past. A line of golden hills lay against sharp blue peaks. A towering mass of gray rocks had been cut and lashed by wind and water, earthquake and fire, into the semblance of a massive castle, still warlike in its ruin. He slept for a few hours that night in the Mission of Santa Ynes, and was high in the Santa Barbara Mountains at the next noon. For brief whiles he forgot his journey s purpose as his horse climbed slowly up the steep trails, knock ing the loose stones down a thousand feet and more upon a roof of tree-tops which looked like stunted brush. Those gigantic masses of immense stones, each wearing a semblance to the face of man or beast ; those awful chasms and stupendous heights, densely wooded, bare, and many-hued, rising above, beyond, peak upon peak, cutting through the visible atmosphere was there no end? He turned in his saddle and looked over low peaks and canons, riv ers and abysms, black peaks smiting the fiery blue, far, far, to the dim azure mountains on the horizon. Mother of God!" he thought; "no wonder Cal ifornia still shakes! I would I could have stood upon a star and beheld the awful throes of this The Pearls of Lorcta 123 country s birth." And then his horse reared be tween the sharp spurs and galloped on. He avoided the Mission of Santa Barbara, rest ing at a rancho outside the town. In the morning, supplied as usual with a fresh horse, he fled on ward, with the ocean at his right, its splendid roar in his ears. The cliffs towered high above him ; he saw no man s face for hours together; but his thoughts companioned him, savage and sinister shapes whirling about the figure of a woman. On, on, sleeping at ranchos or missions, meeting hos pitality everywhere, avoiding Los Angeles, keeping close to the ponderous ocean, he left civilization be hind him at last, and with an Indian guide entered upon that desert of mountain-tops, Baja, Cali fornia. Rapid traveling was not possible here. There were no valleys worthy the name. The sharp peaks, multiplying mile after mile, were like the teeth of gigantic rakes, black and bare. A wilderness of mountain-tops, desolate as eternity, arid, parched, baked by the awful heat, the silence never broken by the cry of a bird, a hut rarely breaking the bar ren monotony, only an infrequent spring to save from death. It was almost impossible to get food or fresh horses. Many a night De la Vega and his stoical guide slept beneath a cactus, or in the mock ing bed of a creek. The mustangs he managed to lasso were almost unridable, and would have bucked to death any but a California. Sometimes he lived on cactus fruit and the dried meat he had brought with him; occasionally he shot a rabbit. Again he had but the flesh of the rattlesnake 124 Pathway to Western Literature roasted over coals. But honey-dew was on the leaves. He avoided the beaten trail, and cut his way through naked bushes spiked with thorns, and through groves of cacti miles in length. When the thick fog rolled up from the ocean he had to sit inactive on the rocks, or lose his way. A furious storm dashed him against a bowlder, breaking his mustang s leg; then a torrent, rising like a tidal wave, thundered down the gulch, and, catching him on its crest, flung him upon a tree of thorns. When dawn came he found his guide dead. He cursed his luck, and went on. Lassoing another mustang, he pushed on, having a general idea of the direction he should take. It was a week before he reached Loreta, a week of loneliness, hunger, thirst and torrid monotony. A week, too, of thought and bitterness of spirit. In spite of his love, which never cooled, and his cour age, which never quailed, Nature, in her guise of foul and crooked hag, mocked at earthly happi ness, at human hope, at youth and passion. If he had not spent his life in the saddle, he would have been worn out when he finally reached Loreta, late one night. As it was, he slept in a hut until the following afternoon. Then he took a long swim in the bay, and, later, sauntered through the town. The forlorn little city was hardly more than a collection of Indians huts about a church in a sandy waste. No longer the capital, even the bar racks were toppling. When De la Vega entered the mission, not a white man but the padre and his as sistant was in it; the building was thronged with The Overland Flyer 125 Indian worshipers. The mission, although the first built in California, was in a fair state of pres ervation. The Stations in their battered frames were mellow and distinct. The gold still gleamed in the vestments of the padre. For a few moments De la Vega dared not raise his eyes to the Lady of Loreta, standing aloft in the dull blaze of adamantine candles. When he did, he rose suddenly from his knees and left the mission. The pearls were there. It took him but a short time to gain the confi dence of the priest and the little population. He offered no explanation for his coming, beyond the curiosity of a traveler. The padre gave him a room in the mission, and spent every hour he could spare with the brilliant stranger. At night he thanked God for the sudden oasis in his life s deso lation. The Indians soon grew accustomed to the lonely figure wandering about the sand plains, or kneeling for hours together before the alter in the church. And whom their padre trusted was to them as sacred and impersonal as the wooden saints of their religion. From "The Splendid Idle Forties. " THE OVERLAND FLYER BY CHARLES KEELEE TO-TOO! to-too! Ka-ding, ka-dong! Down the mole comes the flyer A-zipping along, Smoke clouds panting and hissing of steam, Rattling of rails and a sudden scream ! 126 Pathway to Western Literature The iron dragon snorts up to the station, The proudest beast in the wide creation; Fed on fire it puffs and blows, Cyclops-eyed like a fiend it glows. We kiss our hands to the friends by the Bay, On the dragon s tail we are whisked away, And faster we whiz by the glistening shore Towns spin past as we ride with a roar. Now the iron throat is gasping astrain, As the beast up the mountain is dragging his train. where are you taking us, monster of steel ? Out in the darkness the pine-trees reel ! Over the desert we swing and fly, Towns and prairies are flashing by; When, lo ! to your castle you plunge in the night, The great walls tower in ghostly light. Does a princess live in that tall black tower ? Are all of the people here under your power ? 1 never was certain that dragons were true Till I got on your tail and rode with you ! From "Elfin Songs of Sunland." [All copyright privileges are retained by the author.] A BREEZE FROM THE WOODS BY W. C. BARTLETT ONE learns to distinguish the sounds of this multitudinous life in the woods, after a few days, with great facility. The bark of the coyote r A Breeze from the Woods 127 becomes as familiar as that of a house dog. But there is the solitary chirp of a bird at midnight, never heard after daylight, of which beyond this we know nothing. "We know better from whence come the cries, as of a lost child at night, far up the mountain. The magpies and the jays hop round the tent for crumbs ; and a coon helped him self from the sugar box one day in our absence. He was welcome, though a question more nice than wise was raised as to whether, on that occasion, his hands and nose were clean. There is danger of knowing too much. It is better not to know a mul titude of small things which are like nettles to the soul. "What strangely morbid people are those who can suggest more unpleasant things in half an hour than one ought to hear in a lifetime ! Did I care, be fore the question was raised, whether the coon s nose was clean or otherwise? Now there is a lurking suspicion that it was not. If you offer your friend wine, is it necessary to tell him that barefooted peasants trampled out the grapes? Is honeycomb any the sweeter for a confession that a bee was also ground to pulp between the teeth? We covet re tentive memories. But more trash is laid up than most people know what to do with. There is great peace and blessedness in the art of forgetfulness. The memory of one sweet, patient soul is better than a record of a thousand selfish lives. It was a fine conceit, and womanly withal, which wove a basket out of plantain rods and clover, and brought it into camp filled with wild strawberries. Thanks, too, that the faintest tints of carnation are beginning to touch cheeks that were so pallid a fortnight ago. Every spring bursting from the 128 Pathway to Western Literature hillside is a fountain of youth, although none have yet smoothed out certain crow tracks. The madro no, the most brilliant of the forest trees, sheds its outer bark every season ; when the outer rind curls up and falls off, the renewed tree has a shaft pol ished like jasper or emerald. When humanity be gins to wilt, what a pity that the cuticle does not peel as a sign of rejuvenation ! There is a sense of relief in getting lost now and then in the impenetrable fastnesses of the woods; and a shade of novelty in the thought that no foot fall has been heard in some of these dells and jun gles for a thousand years. It is not so easy a mat ter to get lost after all. The bark of every forest tree will show which is the north side, and a bright cambric needle dropped gently upon a dipper of water is a compass of unerring accuracy. A scrap of old newspaper serves as a connecting link with the world beyond. The pyramids were probably the first newspapers a clumsy but rather perma nent edition. But let us hope that the musician is born who will yet come to the woods and take down all the bird songs. What a splendid baritone the horned owl has ! Who has written the music of the orioles and thrushes? Who goes to these bird operas at four o clock in the morning? There is room for one fresh, original music book, the whole of which can be written at a few sittings upon a log just where the forests are shaded off into copses and islands of verdure beyond. From "A Breeze from the Woods. " Southern California Before the Boom 129 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BEFORE THE BOOM BY THEODORE VAX DYKE FROM 1870 to 1875 Southern California was passing out of the control of the large land owners, nearly all of whom were raising cattle, horses and sheep to the exclusion of everything else, and into the control of the general farmer and fruit-grower. These were mainly small owners of what had been public land. Some of the great ranchos, or Mexican grants, which embraced the greater, part of what was then considered good land, had been opened by the owners to settlement. But most of the large owners were unwilling to in jure their stock-range by admitting scattering farmers ; so that the great majority of the new set tlers were upon the outlying tracts of public land around the edges of the large ranchos, and in the small pockets and valleys of the surrounding hills. In 1875 their number was considerable; but their work was a combination of laziness, imitation of Mexican methods, and general shiftlessness, the bad effects of which were increased by ignorance of the peculiarities of California. Almost every attempt of this class to make a dol lar from the soil was thwarted by these causes. Nevertheless there was an attraction about the soft climate of winter and the dry, cool sea-breeze of summer, in the long line of sunny days with nights made for soundest sleep, and in the absence of storms, high winds and other climatic discomforts, that made people stay, however unsuccessful, and 130 Pathway to Western Literature steadily brought more to stay with them. It was a grand play-country, and one could get along with less than in any other part of the United States and still be respectable and fat. But everyAvhere there was a broad smile when some enthusiastic new comer said that it would some day be the richest part of the United States outside the great cities. Descending one day in the fall of 1875 from a hunt among the foothills of one of the great moun tain ranges of Southern California, my companion and I came into a little valley or pocket where one of the long slopes of a great valley broke into the hills. It contained some sixty acres of dark soil along the bed of a little creek, with some reddish land sloping toward the hill on one side. The bot tom-land looked as if with judicious coaxing it might be induced to raise a bean or possibly a cab bage; but nothing could seem more hopeless than any attempt to raise anything on the land that sloped toward the hills. The most conspicuous thing about the place, or ranche, as all such places were then called, was a group of some two hundred beehives set upon low stands on a bit of rising ground at the base of the hill. Around some of them a few bees were lazily crawling, but the greater number of hives were silent. Near by was the honey-house, also deserted, except where a few bees were exploring the keyhole and the chinks in the sides, lured by the smell of honey that still lingered within. Near by a pile of poles half hidden in decayed straw be trayed some symptoms of having once been in tended for a stable. A little farther on we came to the " ranche house. " It was of the regulation pat- Southern California Before the Boom 131 tern of the granger s house of that time a mere shell of rough lumber mounted upon stilts, full in the sun, with its only window on the side from which in summer the breeze is certain never to come. Under a huge live oak behind the house hung a box with a door and back of- wire screen, through which was dimly visible a long strip of desiccated bacon rind with the butt-ends of de parted slices standing along its inner surface, yel low and gray with time a melancholy stub-book of past prosperity. All round the house were frag ments of honey-boxes, masses of dead bees and moth cocoons, broken glass, empty tin cans, rab bit skins and empty tobacco sacks, while the outside of the house was adorned with nails full hung with an assortment of almost everything from a plow- clevis to a weather-beaten wild-cat skin. A lank dog drew himself with considerable ef fort from under the house at our approach, gave a perfunctory bark, and hastily retreated to the shade he had unwisely left. As we rounded the corner of the house the sound of dragging feet came from within, then a stream of tobacco juice cleared the soapbox that served for a door-stoop, and in another second a bushy head, ragged whisk ers and frowsy mustache came slowly into view round the door post. "Morning," drawled the owner of the head, propping himself with care against the door-post, and smiling as in my friend he recognized an old acquaintance. "Come in," he added, as he shuffled himself in side, hooked one foot within one of the legs of a three-legged stool and gave it a lazy jerk into the 132 Pathway to Western Literature middle of the floor, while with the other foot he kicked an empty nail-keg toward my companion. Take a seat, he continued, as, with a minimum of exertion that he had evidently studied out with long practice, he half slid and half tumbled upon a rough cot in one corner. The solar heat of the autumn day upon the thin roof was increased by a fire in an open fireplace, where a flapjack suitable for a cannon wad was sputtering in a frying-pan. We ll have some dinner directly, said the own er of the frying-pan with a dubious glance at the half of a rabbit that lay on the table awaiting its turn in the frying-pan. "Can t stop, thank you," said my companion, who had taken a hasty review of the larder. How are the bees doing ? "Fine! I ain t lost over two-thirds of mine. Some of my neighbors have lost about all of theirs. Last winter the rain was too light and the feed short, and they robbed the bees too close. I didn t have to rob mine. They were so hungry they rob bed each other and saved me the trouble, said the granger. "You raise good fruit here, I suppose?" I re marked, quite innocently. "The bluejays and linnets think so; I never had a chance to sample any of it myself. "That land along the creek looks like good gar den land," said my friend; "you raise good vege tables there, of course." "I ve laid down lots of them. I never raised any yet." "But you certainly raise your own potatoes?" Southern California Before the Boom 133 "No; the squirrels raise them for me." "And don t you have any garden at all?" "Had one. one year, but the chickens got away with it." "I don t see any chickens around here now." "Of course not. The wild cats got away with them by the time they had finished the garden." "Did you ever try the raisin-grape here?" "Planted some once, but the rabbits eat off the buds as fast as they came out. * Well, you get even on the rabbits, don t you ? * said my friend with a wink at me that showed that he was drawing out the man for amusement. "The rabbits don t owe my anything," replied the man. "I would have been busted long ago without them. But they are getting so scarce now that I have to go three or four hundred yards from the house to get one. It s a cold day when I have to split a rabbit to make two meals out of. The outlook for grub is getting really serious," with an anxious look at the half of a rabbit. "And didn t any of the vines grow at all?" asked my friend. "Well, a few did, but the deer closed them out in the fall." "And can t you get even on the deer? That s the way I do." "Too much resemblance to work, tramping over these hills." "But wine grapes ought to do well, and deer don t bother them much." "Quails!" replied the man with a sigh. "I should think this would make a good hog ranche," continued my friend. 10 134 Pathivay to Western Literature "Splendid. I ve got several dozen; they don t require any care here at all ; I haven t had to look after mine for three years. But I know they are safe; a grizzly bear couldn t catch them in the chaparral, and no man would ever try it." "Why didn t you fence them in?" I asked. What ! and buy feed for em ? Stranger, if it s a fair question, may I inquire where you were raised?" "You ought to raise corn on that land over there," said my friend. See those crows sitting in the sycamores ? Tried it once. They are waiting for me to try it again. I m waiting for them to die of disappointment." "Why don t you try alfalfa? Crows don t pull that up." "Had just that brilliant idea myself once. It only cost me a hundred dollars, though; that s the cheapest experience I ve had here." Why, what was the matter ? "Gophers," sighed the man. "Have you tried grain?" * Did you ever strike a darned fool here yet that didn t? I put in forty acres once. The header- man, threshing-machine-man and the warehouse man in town all did well on it. And how did you come out ? "Only lost some three hundred dollars." "Why, that wasn t so bad," I remarked. Oh, no ; it might have been a heap worse ; I got out cheap. One of my neighbors lost his ranche by his crop." "I suppose, then, that hay or something you could harvest with your own work would b e bet- Southern California Before the Boom 135 ter," said I, as soon as I had discovered the point of the last answer. "That s exactly what I thought; so I sowed it to barley for hay the next year. There was hardly any rain, and I had to pull it up by the roots to get any hay." Why didn t you let your horse harvest it him self 1 said my friend, seeing that I was floored by the last answer. "Before it got big enough I had to give him away to keep from buying feed for him. The sheepmen used up all the grass within ten miles." * How long have you been here ? "Something like six thousand." "I asked how long 3-011 had been here." ""Well, I tell you some six thousand. Don t you know yet how to measure time in this country ? * Oh, yes, I take. But what have you done with it all?" ""Well, there s nearly five hundred dollars of it in that orchard," said the rancher, pointing to a few rows of dead sticks in various stages of decay. "What is the matter with them?" "Cattle broke them all down rubbing against them. You may notice that good rubbing posts are scarce in this country." "Why didn t you fence them in?" Did, but a fire came up the canon one day and took it." "Your oranges don t seem very thrifty," con tinued my friend, pointing to some sorrowful-look ing trees, of which one-half were brown and the rest a yellowish green. 136 Pathway to Western Literature "I let them all go; it s too much trouble to man age an irritating ditch." "A what?" I asked. "He means an irrigating ditch," suggested my companion. "No, I mean exactly what I said," said the granger "an irritating ditch the irritatingest thing on earth. When you get ready to use it you find that a gopher has made a hole in the dam and let out all the water. You get the hole fixed and the dam filled again, and then you find a dozen gopher holes in the ditch. Each one of them will let out all the water, and you can t find the worst ones until you have turned in the water. Then by the time you get the ditch fixed another gopher has made a hole in the dam, and when you get that stopped there are some more gopher holes in the ditch. By the time you have it fixed it s dinner time, and by the time you are done smoking and get rested and ready for work it s so near night that you think it s better to wait till next day. If the gophers haven t got away with it again by that time you are in luck, and even if they haven t, the sides of the ditch are so dry that half the water is lost by seepage and evaporation, and by the time you have coaxed it around a dozen trees you wish you had never been born, especially when you re flect that you have got to go over the whole pro gram again in about three days more or the ground will bake as hard as a petrified brick. "Then what do you live on, if you don t raise anything?" asked my friend. Credit. Haven t you been here long enough to learn that trick?" Southern California Before the Boom 137 "I exhausted mine some time ago." What are you doing, then ? asked the granger with more interest than he had yet shown. "Poising." "Poising? What s that?" Did you ever see a hawk poising hanging still in the air watching for something to drop on? That s my business at present. "Well, as long as you can keep afloat on wind I would advise you not to drop on anything in this country. "I suppose you might be induced to sell?" "Well yes I might. I have made enough out of it, and would be willing to let some one else have a show. There is nothing small about me. "And then what would you do?" "Go to work for somebody that had a ranche. In two years I would own it." "Yes, and he would turn around and work for you and get it back in another two years." "Not much. I would be too smart to run an other ranche in this country. I would unload it on some tenderfoot." "Then you would return to the East, I suppose," I remarked. "Not a bit of it," replied the granger with an air of intense disgust. I like Southern* California too well for my own good. She is a tricky damsel, first-rate to flirt with, but of no account as a busi ness partner. But I love her in spite of her tricks, and not even the archangel s trump can ever raise my bones from her soil." Emerging from the canyon in which lay the "ranche" of the bachelor granger, our way lay for 138 Pathway to Western Literature miles over a dreary stretch of gray sand, half cov ered with a thin and sorry-looking gray brush about knee-high. Scarcely a lobe even of cactus re lieved the monotonous gray of the sand and brush. Scarcely a sign of life relieved the hot glare of the vast expanse of desert save an occasional hare sit ting in the exasperating shade of some little IOAV bush just thick enough to stop all the breeze and just thin enough to let through the last beam of the midday sun. Each hare looked weary and mad, yet wore withal a look of mild resignation akin to that of the granger we had just left. Nowhere within sight was there for him any means of sup port, and yet it was evident that, like the granger, he did not wish to leave the country. It was from these two fixtures that I had my first conception of living on climate. The man who for an instant would have dreamed of anyone living on this desert would have been deemed insane, and at that time probably would have been so. I could have bought thousands of acres of it for a song, but neither my companion nor I would have paid the land office fees to pre empt the whole of it. And the oldest residents of the whole country Avere the most pronounced of all in their opinion that it was utterly worthless for any purpose and for all time. Many a reader will take most of the ab"ove for a very weak attempt to be funny. But it is written in sober earnest, and does not describe one-half of the difficulties that then beset every man who de parted from raising livestock and tried to coax a dollar or even worry a living out of the soil; ex cept in a few places around Los Angeles, where The Lure of the Trail 139 some money was made by sending a few oranges to the limited market of San Francisco. So universal were the troubles of the common farmer and fruit grower that most of them were chronic grumblers, taking a positive satisfaction in relating their ex perience. Everywhere one could hear people tell more harrowing tales than the one above ; and they would tell it with genuine gusto, and apparently with more satisfaction before a stranger than when alone. Many an hour s amusement the writer has had from sea coast to mountain top, drawing out the unfortunate by questions which he soon learned to frame. Yet with all their troubles they were all like the bachelor granger and the hare. They were all mad and sad, but none of them wanted to leave the country. Although nearly every place in the land was for sale, it was not to get money with which to leave the country, but to repeat the same folly somewhere on another place that seemed to have better conditions. As long as production was subject to so many drawbacks there was no prospect of a boom, and nobody thought of any. But in the next ten years the land underwent a change which was probably the most rapid and radical that the world has ever seen. From * Millionaires of a Day. THE LURE OF THE TRAIL BY STEWART EDWABD WHITE THE trail s call depends not at all on your com mon sense. You know you are a fool for answering it; and yet you go. The comforts of 14:0 Pathway to Western Literature civilization, to put the case on its lowest plane, are not lightly to be renounced; the ease of having your physical labor done for you ; the joy of culti vated minds, of theaters, of books, of participation in the world s progress ; these you leave behind you. And in exchange you enter a life where there is much long, hard work of the hands work that is really hard and long, so that no man paid to labor would consider it for a moment; you undertake to eat simply, to endure much, to lie on the rack of anxiety ; you voluntarily place yourself where cold, wet, hunger, thirst, heat, monotony, danger and many discomforts will wait upon you daily. A thousand times in the course of a woods life even the stoutest hearted will tell himself softly very softly if he is really stout-hearted, so that others may not be annoyed that if ever the fates permit him to extricate himself he will never venture again. These times come when long continuance has worn on the spirit. You beat all day to windward against the tide toward what should be but an hour s sail; the sea is high and the spray cold; there are sunken rocks, and food there is none; chill, gray evening draws dangerously near, and there is a foot of water in the bilge. You have swallowed your tongue twenty times on the alkali ; and the sun is melting hot, and the dust dry and pervasive ; and there is no water, and for all your effort the relative distances seem to remain the same for days. You have carried a pack until your every muscle is strung white-hot; the woods are breathless; the black flies swarm persistently and bite until your The Lure of the Trail Ul face is covered with blood. You have struggled through clogging snow until each time you raise your snowshoe you feel as though some one had stabbed a little sharp knife into your groin; it has come to be night; the mercury is away below zero, and with aching fingers you are to prepare a camp which is only an anticipation of many more such camps in the ensuing days. For a week it has rained, so that you, pushing through the dripping- brush, are soaked and sodden and comfortless, and the bushes have become horrible to your shrinking goose-flesh. Or you are just plain tired out, not from a single day s fatigue, but from the gradual exhaustion of a long hike. Then in your secret soul you utter these sentiments : "You are a fool. This is not fun. There is no real reason why you should do this. If you ever get out of here you will stick right home where common sense flourishes, my son ! Then after a time you do get out, and are thank ful. But in three months you will have proved in your own experience the following axiom I should call it the widest truth the wilderness has to teach : ."In memory the pleasures of a camping trip strengthen with time, and the disagreeables weaken. I don t care how hard an experience you have had, nor how little of the pleasant has been min gled with it, in three months your general impres sion of that trip will be good. You will look Hack on the hard times with a certain fondness of recol lection. I remember one trip I took in the early spring following a long drive on the Pine River. It rained 142 Pathway to Western Literature steadily for six days. We were soaked to the skin all the time, ate standing up in the driving down pour, and slept wet. So cold was it that each morning our blankets were so full of frost that they crackled stiffly when we turned out. Dis passionately I can appraise that as about the worst I ever got into. Yet as an impression the Pine River trip seems to me a most enjoyable one. So after you have been home for a little while the call begins to make itself heard. At first it is very gentle. But little by little a restlessness seizes hold of you. You do not know exactly what is the matter ; you are aware merely that your customary life has lost savor, that you are doing things more or less perfunctorily, and that you are a little more irritable than your naturally evil disposition. And gradually it is borne in on you exactly what is the matter. Then say you to yourself : "My son, you know better. You are no tender foot. You have had too long an experience to ad mit of any glamour of indefiniteness about this thing. No use bluffing. You know exactly how hard you will have to work, and how much tribu lation you are going to get into, and how hungry and \vet and cold and tired and generally frazzled out you are going to be. You ve been there enough times, so it s pretty clearly impressed on you. You go into this thing with your eyes open. You know what you re in for. You re pretty well off right here, and you d be a fool to go." "That s right," says yourself to you. "You re dead right about it, old man. Do you know where we can get another mule-pack?" From "The Mountains. Ben Franklin 143 BEN FBANKLIN BY JAMES C. ADAMS IT is with pleasure that I dwell upon this part of my story, and I would fain distinguish it with living words. In all the after-course of niy career, I could look back upon it with peculiar satisfac tion ; and rarely, in the following years, did I pat the shaggy coat of my noble Ben but I recurred to my fatiguing and solitary vigils in the Mariposa canon, my combat with the monster grizzly, my entry in her den, and seizure of her offspring. The whole adventure is impressed upon my memory as if it had occurred but yesterday. No sooner was the dam dead than I turned to wards the den. and determined to enter it without delay. Approaching its mouth, accordingly, I knelt, and tried to peer in ; but all was dark, silent and ominous. AYhat dangers might lurk in that mysterious gloom it was impossible to tell; nor was it without a tremor that I prepared to explore its depths. I trembled for a moment at the thought of another old bear in the den: but on second thought I assured myself of the folly of such an idea ; for an occurrence of this kind would have been against all experience. But in such a situa tion a man imagines many things, and fears much at which he afterward laughs; and therefore, though there was really no difficulty to anticipate. I carefully loaded my rifle and pistol, and carried my arms as if the next instant I was to be called upon to fight for life. Being thus prepared, I took from my pocket a small torch made of pine splin- 144 Pathway to Western Literature ters, lighted it, and placing my rifle in the mouth of the den, with the torch in my left and the pistol in my right hand, I dropped upon my knees and began to crawl in. The entrance consisted of a rough hole, three feet wide and four feet high. It extended inward nearly horizontally, and almost without a turn, for six feet, where there was a chamber six or eight feet in diameter and five feet high, giving me room to rise upon my knees, but not to stand up and its entire floor was thickly carpeted with leaves and grass. On the first look, I could see no animals, and felt grievously disappointed ; but, as I crawled around, there was a rustling in the leaves; and, bending down with my torch, I discovered two beautiful little cubs, which could not have been over a week old, as their eyes, which open in eight or ten days, were still closed. I took the little sprawlers, one after the other, by the nape of the neck, lifted them up to the light and found them very lively. They were both males; a cir cumstance which gave me reason to presume there might be a third cub, for it is frequent that a litter consists of three, and I looked carefully; but no other was to be found. I concluded, therefore, that if there had been a third, the dam had devoured it a thing she often, and, if a cub dies, or be de formed, always does. Satisfying myself that there were no others, I took the two, and, placing them in my bosom, between my buckskin and woolen shirt, once more emerged into daylight. The possession of the prizes delighted me so much that I almost danced my way down through the bushes and over the uneven ground to the spot Ben Franklin 145 where my mule had been left; but, upon arriving there, it gave me great concern to find that she was gone. At first, I thought surely she had been stolen; but, as my bag of dried venison remained undisturbed upon the tree, and much more as the tracks of a panther were to be seen in the neigh borhood, I became convinced that she had been at tacked % my disturber of the previous night and had broken away. Indeed, upon further examina tion, I found her track, leading off through the chaparral ; and, following it over a hill and through another canon, at length found her grazing in a grassy valley. She seemed much frightened at first upon seeing me, but when I called her "Betz," she stopped, turned around, looked, and then came up, apparently glad to meet me again. Her haunches bore several deep and fresh scratches, which were still more convincing evidences to my mind that the panther had sprung upon her, but that she had broken loose and escaped. Mounting the mule, I returned to the dead bear, and, cutting her up, packed a portion of her meat ; the remainder I left in the mouth of the den; and, turning my face out of the ravine, I proceeded in excellent spirits, bearing the cubs still in my bosom, toward the camp of my companions. Upon reach ing there, shortly after dark, I showed Solon what I had accomplished; and, placing the cubs before him, chose one for my own and presented him with the other. He thought that this was more than his share ; but I insisted upon his receiving it, and h,? did so with a thankful heart. He asked me the story of the capture, and I told it, from the mo ment of my leaving camp to my return. He won- 146 Patkivay to Western Literature dered much at my patient watching in the juniper bushes, and said he would not have done it, but still he wished he had been with me and thus we went on talking, till the dying embers admonished us of the lateness of the hour. Before retiring, Solon christened his cub General Jackson; I re marked that General Jackson was a great man in his way, but I Avould.call my bear Ben Franklin a greater name. Such was the manner that, in one and the same day, I captured and christened my noble Ben. The condition of my poor Ben, as he lay panting on the sand of the San Joaquin plains, unable to follow me any further, and looking up affection ately, but despairingly, from the midst of his pain, in my face, grieved me to the heart, and gave me great uneasiness. He was my favorite; I could well have spared any other animal rather than Ben; and I feared he would die. I reproached myself for having brought no water along, but as the fault could not be helped by reproaches, I hastily split some pieces of board from my wagon, and erecting a frame and throwing a large blanket over it, so as to make shade, left Ben and Rambler there, and then I drove on with the intention of procuring water and returning more speedily than Drury, who had no interests at stake, would b"e dis posed to do. In the course of four or five miles I met Drury with his bag of water; and hastily handing him the reins, with directions to drive on, I mounted the horse and galloped back to where Ben lay suffering. It was dark when I reached him, and to all appearances he had not moved from Ben Franklin 147 the position in which I left him. He had life enough, however, to express his gratitude, and drank several quarts of water with avidity. I then endeavored to coax him along, and he took a few steps ; but neither flattery nor blows could in duce him to move far. Seeing that it was impossible to get him along, I again let him lie, and rode ahead for the wagon, which I found at the side of a spring. The mules and horses were turned out to graze, and Drury was lying asleep at the fire, which he had hastily kindled. I roused him and ordered him to assist in hitching up the wagon again, to go back for Ben. He obeyed, and we soon unloaded the heav iest of our articles, and, leaving them at the spring, drove back. As the country, however, was new to us and the night dark, we by some means or other missed the way, and could see no signs of what we sought. We looked about all night till daylight, but there was no Ben in sight. I at last sent Drury in one direction and myself took another, by which means we succeeded in a few hours in find ing the trail, and finally discovered the bear lying under his blanket. "We gave him water again, but still he could not walk, and we had to place him in the wagon which could not be done without some difficulty, as by that time he would weigh in the neighborhood of four hundred pounds. AYhen at last we did get him in, partly by our own strength and partly by his assistance, we drove on to the spring and camped. On account of the bear s condition, we were com pelled to remain two days at this spring, during which time I doctored him. My treatment met 148 Pathway to Western Literature with success, and we soon got him on his legs again. In the meanwhile, as his feet continued sore, I made moccasins, as I had done on the Humboldt plains, and poured bear s oil in them which was an excellent salve for the blisters. The moccasins were bound tightly to the feet, and a muzzle was put over the nose, to prevent him from tearing them off. They worked well and on the third day after reaching the spring we hitched up again and drove on to the edge of Tulare Lake. From The Adventures of James Capen Adams." THE MABIPOSA LILY BY INA COOLBRITH INSECT or blossom? Fragile, fairy thing, 1 Poised upon slender tip, and quivering To flight ! a flower of the fields of air ; A jeweled moth ; a butterfly, with rare And tender tints upon his downy wing A moment resting in our happy sight ; A flower held captive by a thread so slight Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer Are light as the wind, with every wind astir, Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite, O dainty nursling of the field and sky, What fairer thing looks up to heaven s blue And drinks the noontide sun, the dawning s dew? Thou winged bloom! thou blossom butterfly! From " Songs From the Golden Gate." Thirst of the Donner Party 149 THIRST OF THE DONNEE PAETY BY C. T. MCGLASHAN O^ the sixth day of September they reached a meadow in a valley called " Twenty Wells," as there were that number of wells of various sizes, from six inches to several feet in diameter. The water in these wells rose even with the surface of the ground, and when it was drawn out the wells soon refilled. The water was cold and pure, and peculiarly welcome after the saline plains and alkaline pools they had just passed. Wells similar to these were found during the entire journey of the following day, and the country through which they were passing abounded in luxuriant grass. Reaching the confines of the Salt Lake Desert, which lies southwest of the lake, they laid in, as they supposed, an ample supply of water and grass. This desert has been represented by Bridger and Vasquez as being only about fifty miles wide. Instead, for a distance of seventy-five miles there was neither water nor grass, but everywhere a dreary, desolate, alkaline waste. Verily, it was "A region of drought, where no river glides, Nor rippling brook with osiered sides; Where sedgy pool, nor bubbling fount, Nor tree, nor cloud, nor misty mount Appears to refresh the aching eye, But the barren earth and the burning sky, And the blank horizon round and round Spread, void of living sight or sound." When the company had been on the desert two nights and one day, Mr. Reed volunteered to go f or- 11 150 Pathway to Western Literature ward, and, if possible, to discover water. His hired teamsters were attending to his teams and wagons during his absence. At a distance of perhaps twenty miles he found the desired water, and hastened to return to the train. Meantime there was intense suffering in the party. Cattle were giving out and lying down helplessly on the burn ing sand, or, frenzied with thirst, were straying away into the desert. Having made preparations for only fifty miles of desert, several persons came near perishing of thirst, and cattle were utterly powerless to draw the heavy wagons. Reed was gone some twenty hours. During this time his teamsters had done the wisest thing possible, un hitched the oxen and started to drive them ahead until water was reached. It was their intention, of course, to return and get the three wagons and the family, which they had necessarily abandoned on the desert. Reed passed his teamsters during the night, and hastened to the relief of his deserted family. One of his teamster s horses gave out be fore morning and lay down, and while the man s companions were attempting to raise him, the oxen, rendered unmanageable by their great thirst, dis appeared in the desert. There were eighteen of these oxen. It is probable they scented water, and with the instincts of their nature started out to search for it. They never were found, and Reed and his family, consisting of nine persons, were left destitute in the midst of the desert, eight hun dred miles from California. Near morning, en tirely ignorant of the calamity which had befallen him in the loss of his cattle, he reached his family. All day long they looked and waited in vain for Thirst of the Donner Party 151 the returning teamsters. All the rest of the com pany had driven ahead, and the majority had reached water. Toward night the situation grew desperate. The scanty supply of water left with the family was almost gone, and another day on the desert would mean death to all he held dear. Their only way left was to set out on foot. He took his youngest child in his arms, and the family started to walk the twenty miles. During this dreadful night some of the younger children be came so exhausted that, regardless of scoldings or encouragements, they lay down on the bleak sands. Even rest, however, seemed denied the little suf ferers, for a chilling wind began sweeping over the desert, and despite their weariness and anguish, they were forced to move forward. At one time during the night the horror of the situation was changed to intense fright. Through the darkness came a swift-rushing animal, which Reed soon rec ognized as one of his young steers. It was crazed and frenzied with thirst, and for some moments seemed bent upon dashing into the frightened group. Finally, however, it plunged madly away into the night, and was seen no more. Reed sus pected the calamity which had prevented the return of the teamsters, but at that moment, the immi nent peril surrounding his wife and children ban ished all thoughts of worrying about anything but their present situation. God knows what would have become of them if they had not, soon after daylight, discovered the wagon of Jacob Donner. They were received kindly by his family, and con veyed to where the other members of the party were camped. For six or eight days the entire 152 Pathway to Western Literature company remained at this spot. Every effort was made to find Reed s lost cattle. Almost every man ing this search. The desert mirage disclosed againstt; directions. This task was attended with both diffi culty and danger; for when the sun shone, the atmosphere appeared to distort and magnify ob jects so that at the distance of a mile every stone or bush would appear the size of an ox. Several of the men came near dying for want of water dur ing this search. The desert mirage disclosed against the horizon, clear, distinct and perfectly outlined rocks, mountain peaks and tempting lakelets. Each jagged cliff, or pointed rock, or sharply-curved hill top, hung suspended in air as perfect and complete as if photographed on the sky. Deceived, deluded by these mirages, in spite of their better judgment, several members of the company were led far out into the pathless depths of the desert. The outlook for Reed was gloomy enough. One cow and one ox were the only stock he had remain ing. The company were getting exceedingly im patient over the long delay, yet be it said to their honor, they encamped on the western verge of the desert until every hope of finding Reed s cattle was abandoned. Finally, F. W. Graves and Patrick Breen each lent an ox to Mr. Reed, and by yoking up his remaining cow and ox, he had two yoke of cattle. 1 Cacheing, or concealing such of his property on the desert, as could not be placed in one wagon, he hitched the two yoke of cattle to this wagon and proceeded on the journey. From " His tory of the Donner Party. " Starvation of the Donner Party 153 STARVATION OF THE DONNER PARTY BY C. T. MCGLASHAN IN the very complete account of this trip, which is kindly furnished by Mary Graves, are many interesting particulars concerning the suffering of these days. "Our only chance for camp-fire for the night," she says, "was to hunt a dead tree of some description, and set fire to it. The hemlock being the best and generally much the largest tim ber, it was our custom to select the driest we could find without leaving our course. When the fire would reach the top of the tree, the falling limbs would fall around us and bury themselves in the snow, but we heeded them not. Sometimes the falling, blazing limbs would brush our clothes, but they never hit us ; that would have been too lucky a hit. We would sit or lie on the snow, and rest our weary frames. We would sleep, only to dream of something nice to eat, and awake again to disap pointment. Such was our sad fate! Even the reindeer s wretched lot was not worse! His din ner and his bed were snow, and supper he had not. * Our fare was the same ! We would strike fire by means of the flint-lock gun which we had with us. This had to be carried by turns, as it was considered the only hope left us in case we might find game which we could kill. We traveled over a ridge of mountains, and then descended a deep canon, where one could scarcely see the bot tom. Down, down we would go, or rather slide, for it is very slavish work going down hill, and in many cases we were compelled to slide on our shoes 154 Pathway to Western Literature as sleds. On reaching the bottom we would plunge into the snow, so that it was difficult getting out, with the shoes tied to our feet, our packs lashed to our backs, and ourselves head and ears under the snow. But we managed to get out some way, and one by one reached the bottom of the canon. When this was accomplished we had to ascend a hill as steep as the one we had descended. We would drive the toes of our shoes into the loose snow, to make a sort of step, and one by one, as if ascending stair-steps, we climbed up. It took us an entire day to reach the top of the mountain. Each time we attained the summit of a mountain, we hoped we should be able to see something like a valley, but each time came disappointment, for far ahead was always another and higher mountain. We found some springs, or, as we called them, wells, from five to twenty feet under ground, as you might say, for they were under the snow on which we walked. The water was so warm that it melted the snow, and from some of these springs were large streams of running water. We crossed num bers of these streams on bridges of snow, which would sometimes form upon a blade of grass hang ing over the water ; and from as small a foundation would grow a bridge from ten to twenty-five feet high, and from a foot and a half to three feet across the top. It would make you dizzy to look down at the water and it was with much difficulty we could place our clumsy ox-bow snow-shoes one ahead of the other without falling. Our feet had been frozen and thawed so many times that they were bleeding and sore. When we stopped at night we would take off our shoes, which by this Starvation of the Donner Party 155 time were so badly rotted Hy constant wetting in snow, that there was very little left of them. In the morning we would push our shoes on, bruising and numbing the feet so badly that they would ache and ache with walking and the cold, until night would come again. Oh ! the pain ! it seemed to make the pangs of hunger more excruciating." Thus the party traveled on day after day, until absolute starvation again stared them in the face. The snow had gradually grown less deep, until it finally disappeared or lay only in patches. Their strength was well-nigh exhausted, when one day Mary Graves says: "Some one called out, Here are tracks! Some one asked, What kind of tracks human?" Yes, human! Can anyone imagine the joy these footprints gave us? We ran as fast as our strength would carry us. Turning a chaparral point, they came in full view of an Indian rancheria. The uncivilized savages were amazed. Never had they seen such forlorn, wretched, pitiable human beings as the tattered, disheveled, skeleton creatures who stood stretching out their arms for assistance. At first they all ran and hid, but soon they returned to the aid of these dying wretches. It is said that the Indian women and children cried, and wailed with grief at the affecting spectacle of starved men and wo men. Such food as they had was speedily offered. It was tiread made of acorns. This was eagerly eaten. It was at least a substitute for food. Every person in the rancheria, from the toddling papooses to the aged chief, endeavored to aid them. After what had recently happened, could any- 156 Pathway to Western Literature thing be more touching than these acts of kind ness of the Indians ? After briefly resting, they pressed forward. The Indians accompanied them and even led them, and constantly supplied them with food. With food? No, it was not such food as their weakened, debili tated systems craved. The acorn bread was not sufficient to sustain lives already so attenuated by repeated starvations. All that the starved experi ence in the way of pain and torture before they die had been experienced by these people at least four different times. To their horror, they now dis covered that despite the acorn bread they must die of hunger and exhaustion a fifth and last time. So sick and weak did they become that they were compelled to lie down and rest every hundred yards. Finally, after being with the Indians seven days, they lay down, and felt that they never should have strength to take another step. Before them, in all its beauty and loveliness, spread the broad valley of the Sacramento. Behind them were the ever-pleading faces of their starving dear ones. Yet neither hope nor affection could give them further strength. They were dying in full vie\v of the long-desired haven of re ^.t. From The His tory of the Donner Party/ A Song of Autumn 157 A SONG OF AUTUMN BY HENRY MEADE BLAXD "T lS old autumn, the musician, A Who, with pipe and tabor, weaves The sweet music lovers sigh for In the falling of the leaves. I have heard his distant anthem Go a-sighing through the trees T jike the far-off shouts of children, Or the hum of swarming bees. When he plays the leaflets flutter On the boughs that hold them fast; Or they scurry through the forest Or they spin before the blast. And they frolic and they gambol. And they cling to autumn s gown As the children to the Piper s In the famous Hamelin Town. Then they rustle and they hurry To a canyon dark and deep ; And the Piper, dear old autumn, Pipes till he is fast asleep. From " Poems. 158 Pathway to Western Literature SAN GABRIEL VALLEY BY THEODORE VAN DYKE BUT to see at its best the loveliest part of South ern California, as improved, one must descend into its great valley of San Gabriel. The Sierra Madre Mountains that form its northern wall rise with a sudden sweep much higher above the valley than most of the great mountains of our country rise above the land at their feet, lifting one at once into a different climate and to a country where primeval wildness still reigns supreme. Few parts of the United States are less known and less trav ersed than these great hills; yet they look down upon the very garden of all California. Away up there the mountain trout flashes undisturbed in the hissing brook, and the call of the mountain quail rings from the shady glen where the grizzly bear yet dozes away the day, secure as in the olden time. From the bristling points where the lilac and man- zanita light up the dark hue of the surrounding chaparral the deer yet looks down upon the plain from which the antelope has long since been driven ; while on the lofty ridges that lie in such clear out line against the distant sky the mountain sheep still lingers, safe in its inaccessible home. But a few years ago this valley of San Gabriel was a long open stretch of wavy slopes and low rolling hills, in winter robed in velvety green and spangled with myriads of flowers all strange to Eastern eyes, in summer brown with sun-dried grass, or silvery gray where light rippled over the wild oats. Here and there stood groves of huge San Gabriel Valley 159 live oaks, beneath whose broad time-bowed heads thousands of cattle stamped away the noons of summer. Around the old mission, whose bells have rung over the valley for a century, a few houses were grouped; but beyond this there was scarcely a sign of man s work except the far-off speck of a herdsman looming in the mirage, or the white walls of the old Spanish ranch house glimmering afar through the hazy sunshine in which the silent land lay always sleeping. The old bells of the mission still clang in brazen discord as before, and the midnight yelp of the coyote may yet be heard as he comes in from the outlying hills to inspect the new breeds of chickens that civilization has brought in; a few scattered live oaks still nod to each other in memory of the past, and along the low hills far off in the south the light still plays upon the waving wild oats ; but nearly all else has changed as no other part of the world has ever changed. Nearly all is now covered with a luxuriant growth of vegetation the most di verse, yet all of it foreign to the soil. Side by side are the products of two zones, reaching the highest stages of perfection, yet none of them natives of this coast. Immense vineyards of the tenderest grapes of Southern Spain, or Italy, yielding five or six tons to the acre, lie by the side of fields of wheat, Avhose heads and berry far excel in size and full ness the finest ever seen in the famed fields of Min nesota or Dakota. Here the barley gives often a return that no northern land can equal, and by its side the orange tree outdoes its race in the farthest South, and keeps its fruit in perfection when those of other lands have failed. 160 Pathway to Western Literature Gay cottages now line the roads where the hare so recently cantered along the dusty cattle trail; and villages lie brightly green with a wealth of fol iage where the roaring wings of myriads of quail shook the air above impenetrable jungles of cactus. Houses furnished in all the styles of modern deco rative art rise in all directions, embowered in roses, geraniums, heliotropes and. lilies that bloom the long year round and reach a size that makes them hard to recognize as old friends. Among them rise the Banana, the palm, the aloe, the rubber tree, and the pampas grass with its tall, feathery plumes. Perhaps the camphor tree and a dozen other foreign woods are scattered around them, while the lawns shine with grasses unknown in other parts of the United States. The broad head and drooping arms of the Mexican pepper tree fill along the road the sunny openings that the stately shaft of the Australian eucalyptus has failed to shade ; and on every hand, instead of homely fences, are hedges of Monterey cypress, lime, pomegranate, arbor vitae, or acacia. Here and there one sees the guava, the Japanese persimmon, Japanese plum, or some similar exotic, cultivated, like the olive and quince and lemon, for pleasure more than profit; but grapes and oranges are the principal products. Yet there are groves of English walnuts almost rivaling in size the great orange orchards; and orchards of prunes, nectarines, apricots, plums, pears, peaches and apples that are little behind in size or productiveness. The deep green of the al falfa may here and there contrast with the lighter green of the grape, but vineyards of enormous The Poet s Wealth 161 size, some a mile square, make all beside them look small. From Southern California." w THE POET S WEALTH BY RICHABD REALF HO says the poet s lot is hard? "Who says it is with misery rife ? Who pities the deluded bard That dreams away his life ? Go thou and give thy sympathy Unto the crowd of common men ; The poet needs it not, for he Hath joys beyond our ken. Yea, he hath many a broad domain Which thou, man, hath never seen. "Where never comes the pelting rain Or stormy winter keen. There ever balmy is the air, And ever smiling are the skies, For beauty ever blossoms there Beauty that never dies. There sportive fancy loves to roam And cull the sweets from every flower, "While meditation builds her home Beneath some forest bower; There, too, the poet converse holds With spirits of the long ago, And dim futurity unfolds Secrets for him to know. [From "Poems by Richard Realf." Copyright by Funk & Wagnalls, New York and London.] 162 Pathway to Western Literature Then say not that in wretchedness The poet spends his weary days, Say not that hunger and distress Are guerdon for his lays; But rather say that lack of gold Unto the bard is greatest bliss, And say, he is not earth-controlled Whilst owning wealth like this. From " Poems. ; ASCENT OF MT. RAINIER BY ADA WOODRUFF AXDERSON HP HE summer day breaks early in the Puget I Sound country. It was not yet four by Strat- ton s watch when he stepped from his tent and stood analyzing the weather, but all the sky over head was changing to yellow, and directly, while he looked, to streaks of flame. The heights, tower ing a thousand feet on the opposite side of the gorge, were burnished copper, and Rainier, walling the top of the canon, warmed to amethyst and rose. Its crest, at an altitude of nearly fifteen thousand feet, was hardly seven miles distant. But the great forest that hemmed in the small open where the camp was pitched still gloomed in shadow, and the air was sharp with the near breath of the glacier and snowfield. Stratton saw that Mose had left his blanket, gone already to bring up the horses, and the close report of a gun told that Kingsley was off in search of the early bird. Then Samantha came from the other tent and stir- [Prom "The Heart of the Red Firs," by Ada Woodruff Anderson. Copyright, 1908, by Little, Brown & Co.] Ascent of Mt. Rainier 163 red the smouldering fire. She added a dry hem lock bough, watching the roused flames fasten on the resinous wood. "Good morning. Psyche," he said. She lifted her glance, nodding. She had a mouth like a Cupid s bow and the short upper lip twitched with enforced gravity before the shaft sped. "Ef you hed er wife, I low she d get er new name bout every day, an mebbe twicet. Land, it ud keep her busy remernberin who she was. An hour later the little cavalcade formed in line, with Kingsley leading on his big white horse, fol lowed by Samantha, whose clear piping voice rose in alternate upbraiding or admonition, for she roi? the indifferent Ginger. Mose, mounted on Yelm, Jim s piebald pony, crowded the cayuse with the two pack animals ; then came Louise and the teach er, while Stratton closed the rear. The trail became more and more precipitous, switch-backing across the face of a spur, taking the edge of a cliff, breaking into sharp pitches to a rushing ford. Trunks, logs, netlike boughs, shelv ing rock crowded close. The head of the Nisqually and its glacier were not far off. Then they turned up its beautiful tributary, the Paradise. Over the stream Eagle Peak, the first of the Tatoosh Moun tains, lifted a tremendous front, and boulders hurled from it, blocked the limpid current, creat ing innumerable cascades. The air was flooded with drifting spray, and the wet, luxuriant earth, reflecting the sun, filled the gorge with playing color. Then finally they trailed out of the heavy timber into the parks of Paradise. A succession of em- 164 Pathway to Western Literature erald slopes opened before them, broken by clumps of amabilis fir and mountain hemlock; where a higher top rose out of a shapely mass it became a cathedral spire. Sometimes the way wound through an area of blooming heliotrope or asters; banks of gorgeous snapdragon or naming Indian paintbrush gave color, like landscape gardening, to whole hill sides. Then behind them, pinnacle on pinnacle, closed the Tatoosh range; a last sharp ascent and they were on that small and lofty plateau, at an al titude of five thousand feet, since called The Camp of Clouds, with the splendor of the great summit almost overhead. The tents were pitched ; horses picketed. It was hardly mid-afternoon. "By this time tomorrow," said Kingsley, "if this weather stays with us, we shall have made and I hope passed Gibraltar. 7 Stratton, lounging on a blanket, looked up to the black cliff, which, rising sheer fifteen hundred feet, stood like a mighty fortress against the whiteness of the dome. "I hope so," he answered, "but, Captain, I never saw anything look so tremendous ly like work." Louise rested on a grassy knob, her hands clasped loosely on her knee, inspiration in her lifted face. She hardly heard her husband s remark, or the other s man reply, but Alice started from her place beside her. "Phil," she said, "take rne with you. You can t understand what it means to me, to be so near, to see the summit shining there, and go no farther. I m very strong, Phil, and clear-headed. I m not afraid of things. I oh, you don t under stand, but the mountains seem to beckon." Ascent of Mt. Rainier 165 Kingsley walked a restless turn. "I do under stand," he said. "I feel it myself. But we don t know what we are going through, and we can t be sure of the weather an hour ahead; clouds are manufactured right here at a moment s notice. But wait, don t tease, and we ll compromise. I m going off now to reconnoiter. I believe the most feasible start is from that ridge across this valley of the Paradise, but I want to be sure. There ll be no time to waste in doubling back for fresh starts to-morrow. And Mose has been up that way; he says, with care we can use the horses as far as the old snow. A glacier cuts in there, probably the source of the Cowlitz, and he thinks we should be able to reach it in a couple of hours. I 11 take you that far to the glacier." At this Mose started from his recumbent position on the earth. He threw out his arms in protest. * No, no, Mees, he said, t It ees bes you doan go dare. Sacre, no." "I m not afraid," she answered, smiling, "and if I m a trouble, I ll turn back. I promise." "You doan be some tro ble, Mees," he said, quickly. "No, no, it ees dat Tyee Sahgalee ees goin be mad. Mebbe he ees mek dis mountain burn an break an fall down. Monjee, monjee, Mees, you can t ride quick nough away." She laughed, shaking her head. "I don t believe that, Mose," she said, "and you won t, after we have been there. Tyee Sahgalee don t care how many of us go creeping up there any more than we care aHout the ants and spiders that crawl to the cabin door." The horses were brought and presently they were 12 166 Pathway to Western Literature trailing up the pathless slopes in the wake of the piebald pony; fording countless streams, leaping them, sinking in pitfalls through treacherous banks of bloom. When, switch-backing up a loftly rise, Alice ventured to look down, all the colored breadth of Paradise Park unfolded like a map, and the dome gathered majesty at every turn. They gained a shoulder, rounded a curve, and before them stretched the levels of a plateau carpeted with snow. Then, as they moved across this field, moun tain on mountain opened, shading to blue distance. Through a gap, out of a woolly cloud, shone the opal crown of Adams, and presently, far off St. Helens rose like a floating berg on an uptossed sea. They dismounted at the foot of a knob flanked by loose rock. The red stain of old snow was under their feet, and beyond the spur shone the clean, blue-green edge of the glacier. "We are higher than the treeline, now," said Philip, "and above the clouds." She drew a breath of delight, lifting her glance to the near dome. "And it looks as though we could reach the summit in fifteen or twenty min utes. Oh, Phil, come, let s go." Kingsley laughed. "We haven t climbed nine thousand feet; the hardest third of the ascent is above us. Don t you remember, the only two men who ever made that summit were half a day in just passing Gibraltar? We may find it no longer pass able." While his look rested on the grim fortress a thin cloud rose like smoke from its base. It covered the cliff swiftly and trailed across the dome. "Out of Ascent of Mt. Rainier 167 nothing, without notice," and he shook his head; "that s what I ve heard." He turned. Stratton was busy searching for a safe hitching-place for his horse; he never stood well. But Mose had stepped nearer Kingsley. The boy s shoulders were inclined forward, and his eyes, in that instant, were those of a crouching animal about to spring. 4 * Well, Mose," he said carelessly, "your Tyec Sahgalee is hiding his face. I suppose you think we ve come far enough. But we ll show him." He moved on with Alice up the knob, and Strat ton joined them. But presently Mose stalked by, leading the way to the glacier. His face had the gray look of fear, but his lips were set in the thin line that gave him an older, sinister touch, the shadow of cruelty. He moved swiftly and surely. He did not once look back. He gave no direction or warning. They followed, slipping and stumbling through the moraine, and gaining the ragged brow of the knob found themselves suddenly on the brink of a mighty precipice. Far, far down, the infant Cowlitz sprang into life and struggled out between stu pendous columns and needles. Locked in the oppo site pinnacled cliffs shone the sheer, blue-seamed front of the glacier, and the throes that gave the river birth resounded through the gorge. Stratton uncoiled the spare lariat he carried, and taking an end, with Philip closing, and the girl be tween, drew slowly along the rim. Mose, curving far ahead, came out on the slippery incline of the glacier. Finally he stopped under a great up heaval of ice and, resting against a block, waited, 168 Pathway to Western Literature with his back turned to them and his face lifted to the clouding dome. Behind them another cloud formed over the Tatoosh Mountains, driving fast to meet the ad vancing column from Gibraltar; and, in a little while, when they had come out on the ice and made slow headway up the tilting surface from the abyss, mist lifted swiftly, flooding, giving immen sity to the darkening gorge. Kingsley walked a trifle in advance of Alice, with Stratton abreast of him. Suddenly Mose s tracks, on a recent light snowfall which had offered foothold, swerved, and both men stopped. They were on the brink of a narrow, deep, incredibly deep, crevasse. Alice moved back, shivering. She looked, a mute question trembling on her lips, at Mose. But he continued to stand, oblivious, with his eyes fixed, expectantly, on the clouding dome. "See here," called Philip, "see here; next time you let us know. Then his glance returned to the crevasse. "Reminds me of a tremendous white watermelon," he said, "with just one thin, clean slice gone." 1 Yes ? questioned Stratton, smiling. It strikes me differently. I thought right away of some curi ous metal, with just enough taken, by some nice process, to shape a gigantic blade." "A blade, yes," said Alice, "for the hand of Tyee Sahgalee." Stratton s eyes met hers amusedly. He won dered if she was capable of superstition. "Even then," he said, "it is only a surface impression, lost the moment you look down. It s an ice-cre vasse; nothing else." He turned to Kingsley, who Ascent of Mt. Rainier 169 was already studying the glacier ahead. "Of course this will not delay us tomorrow, Captain, but it is time, now, to turn back." "In a moment. There s a streak on there that bothers me. Looks like a more serious break. I want to see it at closer range. Wait here; I won t be fifteen minutes. He moved back impetuously, and, giving himself short headway, took the crevasse in a leap. Show ers of loosened ice clinked down from the rim. Most of the particles struck the sides that closed in twenty feet below, and rebounding dropped again and sent back faint echoes from the last level of the abyss. Stratton stood watching Philip up the glacier, but presently Alice drew away from the crevasse and turned to look back down the gorge. The sun no longer shone. All that brilliant vista of opal peak and amethyst spur, shading to blue dis tance, was curtained in closing sheets of mist. There a great crag loomed an instant and was gone. Here an uptossed pile of ice blocks flashed a sudden prismatic light and grew dim. Then they them selves were wrapped in a noiseless, drenching cloud. At the same moment she was startled by Strat ton s brief note of surprise and felt behind her a sudden jar. She turned. Mose was hurled sprawl ing at her feet, and, clutching her skirt, was up in stantly, panting, with quivering nostril, eyes ablaze. Then, in the recoil, Stratton reeled on the brink of the crevasse, recovered, stumbled on break ing crust, and went down. She stood for an interminable moment, waiting, listening, numbed body and mind. Then she was 170 Pathway to Western Literature conscious that Mose was going, and she went after him a few steps, calling his name. But his reced ing shape drifted faster and faster, a fading shad ow in the mist. She turned back, lifting her voice in a great cry to Philip. And she was answered from the ab yss. She dropped to her knees and crept close to look down. Stratton was there, where the pale, green walls narrowed. He rested wedge-like, caught at the armpits. He looked up and saw her. "Be care ful," he said, "I am all right." Instantly the executive in her arose. I have the lariat," she said. "Fasten it to the ice where Mose stood," he called. "I can work along that far." He remembered that the rope was new and strong, one he himself had selected as a reserve in picketing his own spirited horse. The question was whether the ice would take his weight. He worked carefully, laboriously, along by shoulder and elbow, his body swinging from the waist, start ing a rain of ice at every move. At last, where the wall crumbled, leaving a ledge, he was able to draw himself to his knees. He cut foothold with his knife, and other niches higher up for his hands, and pulled himself erect on the slippery shelf. Beyond him the chasm widened between sheer walls, and it was in this shaft that the lowered rope hung. It swung for a moment, like a failing pendulum, and each oscillation, though he stood alert, missed his reach a little more. The girl, peer ing into the abyss, understood, and again disap peared. The line was drawn up, and presently it dropped almost at his shoulder. He caught the Ascent of Mt. Rainier 171 end and, looking up, met her eyes over the rim. "That s better," he said. "Wait one moment," she called and was gone once more. She did not return this time, but her voice came to him, "Now, now, all ready." The lariat tightened. It creaked, ground on the edge of the chasm; ice chips fell ceaselessly. He swung out. He was a big fellow, heavy. Would the support hold ? Would Mose, his fury cooled, be neu tral? Why, yes, surely the boy was even setting himself to ease the strain. He could feel an un mistakable give and pull above on the rope, as he climbed, hand over hand. He gained the top. He reached a palm around a slight pinnacle, for a final grasp on the line, and pulled himself slowly out on the surface of the glacier. He was a strong man physically, a man of steady nerve, one accustomed to take risks with Nature, as in those times a man of the Northwest must, but what he saw in that b rief pause .sent a shiver through him. He closed his eyes like one brought suddenly into intense light. The rope was fastened, as he had directed, to a thick column in the upheaval, but it stretched di agonally to the projection on the brink of the cre vasse. And it was Alice, not Mose, who steadied it, throwing her weight on it, twisting it on her hands, digging her heels in a shallow cleft, strain ing back to ease the pressure on the knob. Sup pose the support had given way; suppose he had dragged her this brave girl, all life, charm, love liness down to destruction. It was horrible to think of. Horrible ! He pulled himself together and got to his feet. 172 Pathway to Western Literature He did not speak to her then ; he could not. But he put his hand to his mouth and lifted his voice in a great hail. Kingsley responded, but his "Hello," came faintly, through billows of mist. The calls were repeated. * We cannot wait, Strat- ton said. "We must follow that rascal s tracks down, while they last, to the horses. "What made Mose do it?" she asked. "Oh, what made him ? "Why, just Indian, I suppose; or say he was an instrument, self-appointed, of his Tyee Sahgalee. But he shall be punished. They made the rocky knob and finally, out of ob scurity, she caught Colonel s familiar neigh. The call shrilled again, inquiring, peremptory. But when they came to the end of the moraine, where they had left the horses, they found them gone. The neigh was repeated once more, coming back faintly, from far across the snowfield. * Mr. Strat- ton," she cried, "what has happened? Where is Mose going?" "Over the mountains to the Palouse plains, I haven t a doubt," and the blade flashed again in his eyes. "It s the first thing a half-breed does, and they always drive stolen horses over there; it is impossible to find them among those big, feeding bands of the Yakimas. He will stampede the rest in the valley, and Yelm Jim will probably meet him somewhere below the springs and help him take them through the Pass." She stood for a moment with her head high, lips set, looking with storming eyes into the mist. Then, "There isn t any time to waste," she said. "We Ascent of Mt. Rainier 173 must take him this side of the springs." And she began to trail the horses on across the snow. It was twilight and they were descending the final pitch into the park when Kingsley at last overtook them. The camp-fire, which Samantha had kindled with infinite difficulty on the plateau, burned like a beacon in the gloom. "You should have seen that second crevasse, he said. It was tremendous. No way over, no way around; I tramped both directions to see. We ve simply got to choose another route to-morrow. But what be came of the horses?" Mose took them. It was Alice who answered. "He took Colonel. But I shall find him. I ve got to find him if I have to walk every step of the way over the mountains and through the Palouse. You know how much Paul thinks of his horse, Philip. Oh, I can never face him; I can never tell him the truth." Camp was broken hurriedly, each of the men tak ing the necessary shoulder pack, and leaving the bulk of the outfit to be sent for when they should find horses. They pushed quickly down from the snow, which became rain in the woods. And Alice led the way. She studied the trail continually, sep arating the tracks of the ponies, where they struck the path down the valley, from the deeper, water- filled impressions of the American horses. She set Stratton a pace, and kept it almost to the ford of the Paradise. Then suddenly she stopped an in stant, listening, and ran on along the bank to an old log foot-crossing. There on the end of the bridge, sheltered by a trailing cedar, were her bridle and 174 Pathway to Western Literature saddle, and picketed on a grassy knoll under some alders she saw the black. "Oh," she said, and took his head in her arms, "you beauty! You heart s desire! But I knew I knew Mose couldn t take you ; I knew it. Stratton stood for a moment watching her. "So," he said, "so the rascal was white enough to leave your horse. He brought him this far with the others to avoid pursuit last night. Alice looked off a thoughtful moment, through the dripping trees. "I knew his white conscience would get to upbraiding him," she said. "But I can t help feeling glad he chose Coloned for the compromise. Stratton laughed. "I hope it will upbraid him some more, he said, * and induce him to leave my horse. Suddenly he stopped, and the black also halted, tossing his mane, and shrilling his ready, challeng ing neigh. There, moving out of the stream, up the opposite bank, was a riderless horse. It was Sir Donald. Stratton whistled a soft, imperative note. The chestnut wheeled. The man repeated the call, and the horse trotted gently back into the channel. He halted once more on a gravel bar, his head high, ears alert, then came on across to his master. "So," said Stratton, slowly. So, Donald, you showed the rascal your little trick. You see, Miss Hunter, it was as I thought. Mose chose the best horse. But he never mounted him. In his hurry he laid his hand on the bit, and Sir Donald never allows that ; he was trained that way. With this he vaulted into the saddle and led the Ascent of Mt. Rainier 175 way over from bar to bar. He returned bringing the black, and while the others made the crossing Alice waited, seating herself on a rock in the sun, and lifting her face to the upper canon. Presently the clouds parted like a rent veil on the mountain. Once more Gibraltar menaced and the summit shone in splendor. "After all," she said, when Stratton rejoined her, "I can t blame Mose for that belief. I felt it myself, for a moment, there on the glacier. It was the steps of the Great White Throne. You can t understand. He bent and offered his hand to mount her on her horse, her sister having kept the black, and she sprang lightly up. "Then," she said, while he ad justed the stirrup, "you see no excuse for Mose?" "Xo," and his face hardened. "No, I only see the half-breed threw me into that crevasse. He took me off guard. And he left us miles from any where, on that unknown mountain, in a storm, without horses. His motives do not count." Sir Donald started, trailing after the black. The little company filed slowly down to the mineral springs. And there, in the open, unpicketed, ready for the long trail, they found the other horses quietly feeding in company with Ginger and the pack animals. While Samantha made a fire and prepared the coffee the two men caught and picketed the herd, reserving the few horses necessary for a hurried trip back to the plateau for the outfit. And it was Alice, who, going for a drink from her favorite well, discovered Mose. He was lying semi-conscious on the wet earth, and over his black brows, branded 176 Pathway to Western Literature with the tip of an iron shoe, Sir Donald had set his mark. The teacher dipped her handkerchief in the basin and bathed the hurt. She went to ask Stratton s flask of him, and mixed the boy a draught, and, a little later, when the young man followed her to the spring, he found Mose able to recognize him. He stood silent a moment watching him with hard eyes, and the boy met the look steadily ; his muscles stif fened as they had that day at school, when he braced himself to Laramie s blow. Stratton s lip curled in disgust. After all, he could not punish the fellow, down, helpless like that. He swung on his heel. "Wait," said Alice, "it was just as you thought. The scheme to steal the horses was Yelm Jim s; he was to meet him at the branch to the Pass and help drive them over the mountains to the Palouse plains. But he meant to leave Colonel; he only brought him as far as the Paradise to avoid being overtaken. And that trouble at the crevasse was unpremediated. He was terribly frightened by the gathering storm. He believed it was a judgment coming on us all, and he took the opportunity to use you for a propitiation. Afterwards, in the night, he crept back up the valley far enough to see the camp-fire, and you, safe and keeping watch on the plateau. 9 There was another brief silence. Stratton stood, still hard, uncompromising, frowning down at the boy. Be merciful, she said. Think ; you were not hurt; you have Sir Donald, unharmed. Be generous. Some time who knows ? you yourself may ask it." Ascent of Mt. Rainier 111 "No, "he flashed. "No. I live my life ; I do as I please. I ask nothing of anyone. And in the end I take what I deserve. That is my creed. The boy must be punished." He turned away, but she followed. In her earn estness she laid her hand on his sleeve. "He has been punished," she said. "Look. He will carry Sir Donald s brand all his life. He s just a boy, Mr. Stratton. He left home angry, outraged, and Yelrn Jim took the opportunity to make him his tool. But he has good in him, I know. Remember, too, he saved my life. And I need him; I ll be re sponsible for him." Her eyes were raised to Stratton eloquent with appeal; the hand on his arm trembled. "You need him ; he saved your life. He paused and the hard ness went out of his face. And you saved mine you saved mine; I do not forget that. And per haps you were right just now; sometimes I may ask that mercy. I may ask it of you." Her hand fell from his sleeve ; she drew back a step. "I will be ready," she said slowly, "if you are good to Mose." She looked back at the boy. He was watching her. His lip quivered and his eyes filled with unaccustomed tears. "I ll be re sponsible for him," she repeated. "I m going to make him white." From "The Heart of the Red Firs." 178 Pathivay to Western Literature TO THE PIONEERS THAT EEMAIN BY A. J. WATERHOUSE i HAVE no word to speak their praise, Theirs was the deed ; the guerdon ours, The wilderness and weary days Were theirs alone; for us the flowers. They sowed the seed that we might reap ; Ours is the fruitage of their years. And now, behold, they drop to sleep, And we have naught for them save tears. The flag, whose luster none may mar, The brightest thing that loves the air, See you our California s star Amidst the rest ? They set it there. What wonder that it droops to-day, The while another folds his hands, And silent, floats away, away, From golden sands to golden sands. So they go out. A little while And none shall answer to the call. Still shall the great world weep or smile, But they shall be all silent all. Still shall the life tides ebb and flow And mark the rhythm of the years, And they no more shall heed or know, Forgotten cares and hopes and fears. HE UNIVER3ITY V GF ^^UFOR*" The Love Master 179 When they are gone; when o er one s clay Our tears of long farewell shall fall, We ll pay our tribute then and say: He was the last, the last of all. Ah, they were stalwart men," we ll sigh, "The future s promise on each brow." So shall we whisper then, but I I pay that tribute here and now. From * Some Homely Little Songs. THE LOVE MASTER BY JACK LONDON WHEEDON SCOTT had set himself to the task of redeeming White Fang or rather, of redeeming mankind from the wrong it had done "White Fang. It was a matter of principle and conscience. He felt that the ill done White Fang was a debt incurred by man and that it must be paid. So he went out of his way to be especially kind to the Fighting Wolf. Each day he made it a point to pet and caress White Fang, and to do it at length. At first suspicious and hostile, White Fang grew to like this petting. But there was one thing that he never outgrew his growling. Growl he would, from the moment the petting began till it ended. But it was a growl with a new note in it. A strang er could not hear this note, and to such a stranger the growling of White Fang was an exhibition of primordial savagery, nerve-racking and blood-curd- [ Copy right by The Macmillan Company, 1906.] 180 Pathway to Western Literature ling. But White Fang s throat had become harsh- fibred from the making of ferocious sounds through the many years since his first little rasp of anger in the lair of his cubhood, and he could not soften the sounds of his throat now to express the gentle ness he felt. Nevertheless, "Wheedon Scott s ear and sympathy were fine enough to catch the new note all but drowned in the fierceness the note that was the faintest hint of a croon of content and that none but he could hear. As the days went by, the evolution of like into love was accelerated. White Fang himself began to grow aware of it, though in his consciousness he knew not what love was. It manifested itself to him as a void in his being- a hungry, aching, yearning void that clamored to be filled. It was a pain and an unrest; and it received easement only by the touch of the new god s presence. At such times love was joy to him a wild, keen-thrilling satisfaction. But when away from his god, the pain and the unrest returned; the void in him sprung up and pressed against him with its empti ness, and the hunger gnawed and gnawed unceas ingly. White Fang was in the process of finding him self. In spite of the maturity of his years and of the savage rigidity of the mould that had formed him, his nature was undergoing an expansion. There was a burgeoning within him of strange feelings and unwonted impulses. His old code of conduct was changing. In the past he had liked comfort and surcease from pain, disliked discom fort and pain, and he had adjusted his actions ac cordingly. But now it was different. Because of The Love Master 181 this new feeling within him, he ofttimes elected pain and discomfort for the sake of his god. Thus, in the early morning, instead of roaming and forag ing, or lying in a sheltered nook, he would wait for hours on the cheerless cabin-stoop for a sight of his god s face. At night when the god returned home. White Fang would leave the warm sleeping place he had burrowed in the snow in order to receive the friendly snap of the fingers and friendly word of greeting. Meat, even meat itself, he would fore go to be with his god, to receive a caress from him or to accompany him down into the town. Like had been replaced by love. And love was the plummet dropped down into the deeps of him where like had never gone. And, responsive, out of his deeps had come the new thing love. That which was given unto him did he return. This was a god indeed, a love-god, a warm and radiant god, in whose light White Fang s nature expanded as a flower expands under the sun. But "White Fang was not demonstrative. He was too old, too firmly moulded, to become adept at ex pressing himself in new ways. He was too self- possessed, too strongly poised in his own isolation. Too long had he cultivated reticence, aloofness, and moroseness. He had never barked in his life, and he could not now learn to bark a welcome when his god approached. He was never in the way, never extravagant nor foolish in the expression of his love. He never ran to meet his god. He waited at a distance ; but he always waited, was always there. His love partook of the nature of worship, dumb, inarticulate, a silent adoration. Only by the steady regard of his eyes did he express his love, and by 13 182 Pathway to Western Literature the unceasing following with his eyes of his god s every movement. Also, at times, when his god looked at him and spoke to him, he Jftetrayed an awkward self-consciousness, caused by the struggle of his love and his physical inability to express it. He learned to adjust himself in many ways to his new mode of life. It was borne in upon him that he must let his master s dogs alone. Yet his dominant nature asserted itself, and he had first to thrash them into an acknowledgment of his su periority and leadership. This accomplished, he had little trouble with them. They gave trail to him when he came and went or walked among them, and when he asserted his will they obeyed. In the same way, he came to tolerate Matt as a possession of his master. His master rarely fed him. Matt did that ; it was his business ; yet White Fang divined that it was his master s food he ate and that it was his master who thus fed him vicari ously. Matt it was who tried to put him into the harness and make him haul sled with the other dogs, but Matt failed. It was not until Wheedon Scott put the harness on White Fang and worked him, that he understood. He took it as his master s will that Matt should drive him, and work him just as he drove and worked his master s other dogs. Different from the Mackenzie toboggans were the Klondike sleds with runners under them, and dif ferent was the method of driving the dogs. There was no fan-formation of the team. And here, in the Klondike, the leader was indeed the leader. The wisest as well as the strongest dog was the leader, and the team obeyed him and feared him. That White Fang should quickly gain the post was The Love Master 183 inevitable. He could not be satisfied with less, as [Matt learned after much trouble and inconvenience. White Fang picked out the post for himself, and Matt backed his judgment with strong language after the experiment had been tried. But, though he worked in the sled in the day, White Fang did not forego the guarding of his master s property in the night. Thus he was on duty all the time, ever vigilant and faithful, the most valuable of all the dogs. "Makin free to spit out what s in me," Matt said one day, "I beg to state that you was a wise guy, all right, when you paid the price you did for that dog. You clean swindled Beauty Smith on top of pushin his face in with your fist. * A recrudescence of anger glinted in Wheedon Scott s gray eyes, and he muttered savagely, "The beast!" In the late spring a great trouble came to White Fang. Without warning the love-master disap peared. There had been warning, but White Fang was unversed in such things and did not under stand the packing of a grip. He remembered after ward that the packing had preceded the master s disappearance ; but at the time he suspected noth ing. That night he waited for his master to return. At midnight the chill winds that blew drove him to shelter at the rear of the cabin. There he drowsed, only half asleep, his ears keyed for the first sound of the familiar step. But, at two in the morning, his anxiety drove him out to the cold front stoop, where he crouched and waited. But no master came. In the morning the door opened and Matt stepped outside. White Fang 184 Pathway to Western Literature gazed at him wistfully. There was no common speech by which he might learn what he wanted to know. The days came and went, but never the master. White Fang, who had never known sick ness in his life, became sick. He became so sick that Matt was obliged to bring him inside the cabin. Also, in writing to his employer, Matt devoted a postscript to White Fang. Wheedon Scott reading the letter, down in Circle City, came upon the following : That wolf won t work. Won t eat. Ain t got no spunk left. All the dogs is licking him. Wants to know what has become of you, and I don t know how to tell him. Mebbe he is going to die. It was as Matt had said. White Fang had ceased eating; lost heart, and allowed every dog of the team to thrash him. In the cabin he lay on the floor near the stove, without interest in food, in Matt, nor in life. Matt might talk gently to him, might swear at him, it was all the same ; he never did more than turn his dull eyes upon the man, then drop his head back to its customary position on his forepaws. And then, one night, Matt, reading to himself with moving lips and mumbled sounds, was startled by a low whine from White Fang. He had got up on his feet, his ears cocked toward the door, and he was listening intently. A moment later, Matt heard a footstep. The door opened, and Wheedon Scott stepped in. The two men shook hands. Then Scott looked around the room. 1 Where s the wolf?" he asked. Then he discovered him standing where he had been lying, near the stove. He had not rushed for- The Love Master 185 ward after the manner of other dogs. He stood watching and waiting. 1 Holy smoke!" Matt exclaimed. Look at him wag his tail! 1 Wheedon Scott strode half across the room toward him, at the same time calling him. "White Fang came to him, not with a great bound, yet quickly. He was awkward from self-consciousness, but as he drew near his eyes took on a strange expression. Something, an incommunicable vastness of feeling, rose up into his eyes and shone forth. "He never looked at me that way all the time you was gone/ Matt commented. Wheedon Scott did not hear. He was squatting down on his heels, face to face with White Fang, and petting him rubbing at the roots of his ears, making long, caressing strokes down the neck to the shoulders, tapping the spine gently with the balls of his fingers. And White Fang was growl ing responsively, the crooning note of the growl more pronounced than ever. But that was not all. What of his joy, the great love in him, ever surging and struggling to express itself, succeeded in finding a new mode of expres sion. He suddenly thrust his head forward and nudged his way in between his master s arm and body. And here, confined, hidden from view, all ex cept his ears, no longer growling, he continued to nudge and snuggle. The two men looked at each other. Scott s eyes were shining. * Gosh ! said Matt in an awe-stricken voice. A moment later, when he had recovered himself, 186 Pathway to Western Literature he said, "I always insisted that wolf was a dog. Look at m!" With the return of the love-master, White Pang s recovery was rapid. Two nights and a day he spent in the cabin. Then he sallied forth. The sled-dogs had forgotten his prowess. They remem bered only the latest, which was his sickness and weakness. At the sight of him as he came out of the cabin, they sprang upon him. "Talk about your rough houses," Matt mur mured gleefully, standing in the doorway and look ing on. White Pang did not need any encouragement. The return of the love-master was enough. Life was flowing through him again, splendid and in- domitable. He fought from sheer joy, finding it an expression of much that he felt and that other wise was without speech. There could be but one ending. The team dispersed in ignominious defeat, and it was not until after dark that the dogs came sneaking back, one by one, by meekness and humil ity signifying their fealty to White Pang. Having learned to snuggle, White Pang was guilty of it often. It was the final word. He could not go beyond it. The one thing of which he had always been particularly jealous was his head. He had always disliked to have it touched. It was the wild in him, the fear of hurt and of the trap, that had given rise to the panicky impulses to avoid contacts. It was the mandate of his instinct that his head must be free. And now, with the love- master, his snuggling was the deliberate act of put ting himself into a position of hopeless helpless ness. It was an expression of perfect confidence, The Love Master 187 of absolute self-surrender, as though he said: "I put myself into thy hands. Work thou thy will with me." One night, not long after the return, Scott and Matt sat at a game of cribbage preliminary to go ing to bed. "Fifteen-two, fifteen-four an a pair makes six," Matt was pegging up, when there was an outcry and sound of snarling without. They looked at each other as they started to rise to their feet. "The wolf s nailed somebody," Matt said. A wild scream of fear and anguish hastened them. "Bring a light !" Scott shouted, as he sprang out side. Matt followed with the lamp, and by its light they saw a man lying on his back in the snow. His arms were folded, one above the other, across his face and throat. Thus he was trying to shield himself from White Fang s teeth. And there was need for it. "White Fang was in a rage, wickedly making his attack on the most vulnerable spot. From shoulder to wrist of the crossed arms, the coat sleeve, blue flannel shirt and undershirt were ripped in rags, while the arms themselves were ter ribly slashed and streaming blood. All this the two men saw in the first instant. The next instant Wheedon Scott had White Fang by the throat and was dragging him clear. White Fang struggled and snarled, but made no attempt to bite, while he quickly quieted down at a sharp word from his master. Matt helped the man to his feet. As he arose he lowered his crossed arms, exposing the bestial face of Beauty Smith. The dog-musher let go of him 188 Pathway to Western Literature precipitately, with action similar to that of a man who had picked up live fire. Beauty Smith blinked in the lamplight and looked about him. He caught sight of White Fang and terror rushed into his face. At the same moment Matt noticed two objects lying in the snow. He held the lamp close to them, indicating them with his toe for his employer s benefit a steel dog chain and a stout club. Wheedon Scott saw and nodded. Not a word was spoken. The dog-musher laid his hand on Beauty Smith s shoulder and faced him to the right about. No word needed to be spoken. Beauty Smith started. In the meantime the love-master was patting "White Fang and talking to him. "Tried to steal you, eh? And you wouldn t have it ! Well, well he made a mistake, didn t he ? " "Must a thought he had hold of seventeen devils," the dog-musher sniggered. White Fang, still wrought up and bristling, growled and growled, the hair slowly lying down, the crooning note remote and dim, but growing in his throat. From "White Fang." FATHEE SALVIERDERRA S FAITH BY HELEN HUNT JACKSON IT was longer than the Senora had thought it would be before Father Salvierderra arrived. The old man had grown feeble during the year that she had not seen him, and it w T as a very short day s journey that he could make now without too great Father Salvier derm s Faith 189 fatigue. It was not only his body that had failed. He had lost heart ; and the miles which would have been nothing to him had he walked in the compan ionship of hopeful and happy thoughts stretched out wearily as he brooded over sad memories and still sadder anticipations the down-fall of the Missions, the loss of their fair estate, and the grow ing power of the ungodly in the land. The final decision of the United States Government in re gard to the Mission lands had been a severe blow to him. He had devoutly believed that ultimate restoration of these great estates to the church was inevitable. In the long vigils which he always kept when at home at the Franciscan Monastery in Santa Barbara, kneeling on the stone pavement in the church, and praying ceaselessly from midnight till dawn, he had often had visions vouchsafed him of a new dispensation, in which the Mission estab lishments should be reinstated in all their old splendor and prosperity, and their Indian converts again numbered by tens of thousands. Long after every one knew that this was impos sible, he would narrate these visions with the faith of an old Bible seer, and declare that they must come true and that it was a sin to despond. But as year after year he journeyed up and down the country, seeing, at Mission after Mission, the build ings crumbled into ruin, the lands all taken, sold, resold, and settled by greedy speculators, the In dian converts disappearing, driven back to their original wildernesses, the last trace of the noble work of his order being rapidly swept away, his courage faltered, his faith died out. Changes in the manners and customs of his order itself, also. 190 Pathway to Western Literature were giving him deep pain. He was a Franciscan of the same type as Francis of Assisi. To wear a shoe in place of a sandal, to take money in a purse for a journey, above all to lay aside the gray gown and cowl for any sort of secular garment, seemed* to him wicked. To own comfortable clothes while there were others suffering for want of them and there were always such seemed to him a sin for Avhich one might, not undeservedly, be smitten with sudden and terrible punishment. In vain the Brothers again and again supplied him with a warm cloak ; he gave it away to the first beggar he met; and as for food, the refactory would have been bare, and the whole brotherhood starving, if supplies had not been carefully hidden and locked, so that Father Salvierderra could not give them away. He was fast becoming that most tragic yet often sublime sight, a man who has survived, not only his own time, Hut the ideas and ideals of it. Earth holds no sharper loneliness ; the bitterness of exile, the anguish of friendlessness, at their utmost, are in it; and yet it is so much greater than they that even they seem small part of it. It was with thoughts such as these that Father Salvierderra drew near the home of the Senora Moreno late in the afternoon of one of those mid summer days of which Southern California has so many in spring. The almonds had bloomed and the blossoms had fallen ; the apricots also, and the peaches and pears; on all the orchards of these fruits had come a filmy tint of green, so light it was hardly a shadow on the gray. The willows were vivid light green, and the orange groves dark and glossy like laurel. The billowy hills on either Father Salvierderra s Faith 191 side the valley were covered with verdure and bloom myriads of low blossoming plants, so close to the earth that their tints lapped and over-lapped on each other, and on the green of the grass, as feath ers in fine plumage overlap each and blend into a changeful color. The countless curves, hollows, and crests of the coast-hills in Southern California heighten these chameleon effects of the spring verdure; they are like nothing in nature except the glitter of a bril liant lizard in the sun or the irridescent sheen of a peacock s neck. Father Salvierderra paused many times to gaze at the beautiful picture. Flowers were always dear to the Franciscans. Saint Francis himself permit ted all decorations which could be made of flowers. He classed them with his brothers and sisters, the sun, moon and stars all members of the sacred choir praising god. It was melancholy to see how, after each one of these pauses, each fresh drinking in of the beauty of the landscape and the balmy air, the old man re sumed his slow pace, with a long sigh and his eyes cast down. The fairer this beautiful land, the sad der to know it lost to the church alien hands reap ing its fulness, establishing new customs, new laws. All the way down the coast from Santa Barbara he had seen, at every stopping place, new tokens of the settling up of the country farms opening, towns growing; the Americans pouring in, at all points, to reap the advantages of their new posses sions. It was this which had made his journey heavy-hearted, and made him feel, in approaching the Senora s, as if he were coming to one of the last 192 Pathway to Western Literature sure strongholds of the Catholic faith left in the country. When he was within two miles of the house he struck off from the highway into a narrow path that he recollected led by a short cut through the hills, and saved nearly a third of the distance. It was more than a year since he had trod this path, and as he found it growing fainter and fainter, and more and more overgrown with the wild mustard, he said to himself, "I think no one can have passed through here this year." As he proceeded he found the mustard thicker and thicker. The wild mustard in Southern Cali fornia is like that spoken of in the New Testament, in the branches of which the birds of the air may rest. Coming up out of the earth, so slender a stem that dozens can find a starting point in an inch, it darts up, a slender straight shoot, five, ten, twenty feet, with hundreds of fine, feathery branches lock ing and interlocking with all the other hundreds around it, till it is an inextricable network, like lace. Then it brusts into bloom still finer, more feathery and lace-like. The stems are so infinitesimally small, and of so dark a green, that at a short dis tance they do not show, and the cloud of blossoms seem floating in the air ; at times it looks like golden dust with a clear blue sky behind it ; as it is often seen, it looks like a golden snowstorm. The plant is a tyrant and a nuisance the enemy of the farm er; it takes riotous possession of a whole field in a season ; once in, never out ; for one plant this year, a million next ; but it is impossible to wish that the land were freed from it. Its gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nugget gold is in the pocket. Father Salvierderm s Faith 193 Father Salvierderra soon found himself in a veritable thicket of these delicate branches, high above his head, and so interlaced that he could make headway only by slowly and patiently disen tangling them, as one would disentangle a skein of silk. It was a fantastic sort of dilemma, and not unpleasing. Except that the Father was in haste to reach his journey s end, he would have enjoyed threading his way through the golden meshes. Sud denly he heard faint notes of singing. He paused, listened. It was the voice of a woman. It was slowly drawing nearer, apparently from the direc tion in which he was going. At intervals it ceased abruptly, then began again, as if by a sudden Hut brief interruption, like that made by question and answer. Then, peering ahead through the mus tard blossoms, he saw them waving and bending, and heard sounds as if they were being broken. Evidently some one entering on the path from the opposite end had been caught in the fragrant thicket as he was. The notes grew clearer, though still low and sweet as the twilight notes of the thrush; the mustard branches waved more and more violently; light steps were now to be heard. Father Salvierderra stood still as one in a dream, his eyes straining forward into the golden mist of blossoms. "Ramona!" exclaimed the Father, his thin cheeks flushing with pleasure. The blessed child. And as he spoke, her face came in sight set in a swaying frame of the branches, as she parted them lightly to right and left with her hands, and half crept, half danced through the loophole thus made. Ramona s beauty was of the sort to be best en- 194 Pathway to Western Literature hanced By the waving gold which now framed her face. She had just enough of olive tint in her complexion to under-lie and enrich it without mak ing it swarthy. Her hair was like her Indian mother s, heavy and black, but her eyes were like her father s, steel blue. Only those who came very near to Ramona knew, however, that her eyes were blue, for the heavy, black eyebrows and long, black lashes so shaded and shadowed them that they looked black as night. At the same instant that Father Salvierderra first caught sight of her face Ramona also saw him, and crying out joyfully, "Ah, Father, I knew you would come by this path, and something told me you were near ! she sprang forward, and sank on her knees before him, bow ing her head for his blessing. In silence he laid his hand on her brow. It would not have been easy for him to speak to her at that first moment. She had looked to the devout old monk, as she sprang through the cloud of golden flowers, the sun falling on her bared head, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shining, more like an apparition of an angle or saint than like the flesh-and-blood maiden whom he had carried in his arms when she was a babe. From " Ramona. " "Two Bits" 195 "TWO BITS" BY SHAELOTT M. HALL WHERE the shimmering sands of the desert beat In waves to the foothills rugged line, And cat-claw and cactus and brown mesquite Elbow the cedar and mountain pine ; Under the dip of a wind-swept hill, Like a little gray hawk Ft. AYhipple clung; The fort was a pen of peeled pine logs, And forty troopers the army strong. At the very gates when the darkness fell, Prowling Mohave and Yavapai Signaled with shrill coyote yell, Or mocked the night owl s piercing cry ; Till once when the guard turned shuddering For a trace in the east of the welcome dawn, Spent, wounded, a courier reeled to his feet Apaches rising AYingate warn ! "And half the troop at the Date Creek Camp !" The captain muttered, "Those devils heard!" White-lipped he called for a volunteer To ride Two Bits and carry the word : "Alone it s a game of hide and seek; One man may win where ten would fail;" Himself the saddle and cinches set And headed Two Bits for the Verde trail. 196 Pathway to Western Literature Two Bits ! How his still eyes woke to the chase ! The bravest soul of them all was he ; Hero of many a hard-won race, With a hundred scars for his pedigree ; Wary of ambush and keen of trail, Old in wisdom of march and fray, And the grizzled veteran seemed to know The lives that hung on his hoofs that day. t A week Go* speed you and make it less ! Ride by night from the river on ; " Caps were swung in a silent cheer, A quick salute and the word was gone Sunrise, threading the Point of Rocks ; Dusk in the canons dark and grim Where, coiled like a flung thread round the cliffs, The trail crawls up to the frowning Rim. A pebble turned, a spark out-struck From steel-shod hoof on the treacherous flint Ears wait, eyes strain, in the rocks above, For the faintest whisper, the farthest glint; But shod with silence and robed with night They pass untracked, and mile by mile The hills divide for the flying fleet, And the stars lean low to guide the while. Never a plumed quail hid her nest With the stealthiest care a mother may, As crouched at dawn in the chaparral These two whom a heart b eat might betray; "Two Bits 9 197 So hiding and riding night by night ; Four days and the end of the riding near ; The fort just hid in the distant hills But hist ! A whisper, a breath of fear ! They wheel and turn too late! Ping! Ping! From their very feet a fiery jet ; A lurch, a plunge, and the brave old horse Leaped out with his broad breast torn and wet. Ping ! Thud ! on his neck the rider swayed ; ( Ten thousand deaths if he reeled and fell ! ) Behind, exultant, the painted horde Swooped down like a skirmish line from Hell. Not yet ! Not yet ! Those ringing hoofs Have scarred their triumph on many a course ; And the desperate, blood-trailed chase swept on, Apache sinews gainst wounded horse ; Hour crowding hour till the yells died back, Till the pat of the moccasined feet was gone, And dumb to heeding of foe or fear The rider dropped but the horse kept on. Stiff and stumbling and spent and sore, Plodding the rough miles doggedly, Till the daybreak bugles of Wingate rang And a faint neigh answered the reveille ; Wide swung the gate ; a wounded horse Red-dabbled pouches and riding gear A shout, a hurry, a quick-flung word And Boots and Saddles rang sharp and clear. 14 198 Pathway to Western Literature Like a stern commander the old horse turned As the troop filed out, and straight at the head He guided them back on that weary trail Till he fell by his fallen rider, dead ; But the man and the message saved ! and he Whose brave heart carried the double load With his last trust kept and his last race won They buried him there on the Wingate road. From "Out West Magazine." ["Two Bits," an old racer, was, in his day, the fastest and the longest-winded horse in Arizona. He belonged at the time to Lieut. Chas. Curtis (now Capt. Curtis, at the University of Wisconsin), who built the first stockade on the present site of Ft. Whipple, A. T. The episode is true, even to the old horse leading the soldiers back to his fallen rider. The man lived; but "Two Bits" died of his wounds, and is buried under a heap of stones beside the overland road a few miles west of Ft. Wingate, N. M. The ride was about 250 miles, Ed.] FERNS AND FERNERIES BY BELLE STJMNEE ANGIEE BEFORE planting your out-of-door retreat for ferns, if you may not go into the hills and study your plan from Nature at least put yourself in the right mental attitude by reading some of the beautiful stories of wild woods life such as are written by Burroughs, or Mabie, or Van Dyke, and I am sure your results will be far more satisfactory. Now as to how, and where, and what to plant. When it is considered that of the adiantum alone there are over eighty species and that of the three great divisions of the fern family there are hun- Ferns and Ferneries 199 dreds of forms known as decorative plants, it would seem that a choice might be difficult, but in Cali fornia for out-of-door planting the selection of ferns for a fernery may be summed up in this way: Avoid so-called hardy Northern ferns, be cause they do not like our dry air and have too long a period of sleep. On the contrary, seek for the fern of tropical or warm countries and help them adapt themselves to our conditions. Now all ferns like about the same treatment in a general sort of way leaf-mold, loam and silver sand. There it is in a nutshell, but, as you know from observing the habits of our native ferns, some seek shallow soil under the rocks, some like a little clay, some grow on the edge of the water, while others like to be well drained. In building a rock ery for ferns, a north side is all right, but there must be some light, as, while the direct rays burn, yet the fern must have warmth. Avoid sour or heavy soil. Plenty of good loam, then your rocks, selected, if possible, with an eye to their artistic and picturesque arrangement ; then, after building them together, scatter your mixture of loam and leaf-mold about in the crevices, and place your ferns. AVind is not desirable any more than sun, and, of course, frost must be provided against. The Japanese fern-balls, so much used on this coast, are of the Japanese climbing fern, and are gathered from the trees and wound about balls of moss. No one in this country has been really suc cessful in imitating the Japanese in making these balls. Sometimes the Japs get overeager to get their balls to market and do not let them lie dor mant long enough, and then the florist who im- 200 Pathivay to Western Literature ports them has many complaints registered atiout the poor foliage of the ball. They should properly be allowed to remain dormant from October to Jan- ary each year, and in this way can be used for three or four years successfully. When received here they are dormant, and require about six weeks of sprinkling to bring them to perfection. I have seen our native ferns used after the same manner by taking the roots, carefully washing from them all the sand, then binding on the ex terior of an "olla," or Mexican porous water-jar. Use a black thread to bind with, and do not be spar ing of the roots. The natural seepage of the water through the porous jar will soon start the delicate green and your cool drink will taste all the fresher and cooler for the suggestive surroundings. From "The Garden Book of California. THE WHEAT BY FRANK NORBIS AN hour after daylight the next morning the work was resumed. After breakfast Van- amee, riding one horse and leading the others, had returned to the line of ploughs together with the other drivers. Now he was busy harnessing the team. At the division blacksmith shop temporarily put up he had been obliged to wait while one of his lead horses was shod, and he had thus Been de layed quite five minutes. Nearly all the other teams were harnessed, the drivers on their seats, waiting for the foreman s signal. The Wheat 201 "All ready here? * inquired the foreman, driv ing up to Vanamee s team in his buggy. "All ready, sir," answered Vanamee, buckling the last strap. He climbed to his seat, shaking out the reins, and, turning about, looked back along the line, then all around him at the landscape inundated with the brilliant glow of the early morning. The day was fine. Since the first rain of the sea son there had been no other. Now the sky was without a cloud, pale blue, delicate luminous, scin tillating with morning. The great brown earth turned a huge flank to it, exhaling the moisture of the early dew. The atmosphere, washed clean of dust and mist, was translucent as crystal. Far off to the east the hills on the other side of Broderson Creek stood out against the pallid saffron of the horizon as flat and as sharply outlined as if pasted on the sky. The campanile of the ancient Mission of San Juan seemed as fine as frost work. All about between the horizons the carpet of the land unrolled itself to infinity. But now it was no longer parched with heat, cracked and warped by a merciless sun, powdered with dust. The rain had done its work ; not a clod that was not swollen with fertility, not a fissure that did not exhale the sense of fecundity. One could not take a dozen steps upon the ranches without the brusque sensa tion that under foot the land was alive roused at last from its sleep, palpitating with the desire of reproduction. The plows, thirty-five in number, each drawn by its team of ten, stretched in an interminable line, nearly a quarter of a mile in length, behind 202 Pathway to Western Literature and ahead of Vanamee. They were arranged, as it were, en echelon, not in file not one directly be hind the other, but each succeeding plow its own width farther in the field than the one in front of it. Each of these plows held five shears, so that when the entire company was in motion, one hun dred and seventy-five furrows were made at the same instant. At a distance the plows resembled a great column of field artillery. Each driver was in his place, his glance alternating between his horses and the foreman nearest at hand. Other foremen, in their buggies or buckboards, were at intervals along the line, like battery lieutenants. Annixter himself, on horseback, in boots and cam paign hat, a cigar in his teeth, overlooked the scene. The division superintendent, on the opposite side of the line, galloped past to a position at the head. For a long moment there was a silence. A sense of preparedness ran from end to end of the column. All things were ready, each man in his place. The day s work was about to begin. Suddenly from a distance at the head of the line came the shrill trilling of a whistle. At once the foreman nearest Yanamee repeated it, at the same time turning down the line and waving one arm. The signal was repeated, whistle answering whistle, till the sounds lost themselves in the distance. At once the line of plows lost its immobility, moving forward, getting slowly under way, the horses straining in the traces. A prolonged movement rippled from team to team, disengaging in its pass age a multitude of sounds the click of buckles, the creak of straining leather, the subdued clash of The Wheat 203 machinery, the cracking of whips, the deep breath ing of nearly four hundred horses, the abrupt com mands and cries of the drivers, and last of all the prolonged, soothing murmur of the thick, brown earth turning steadily from the multitude of ad vancing shears. The ploughing thus commenced continued. The sun rose higher. Steadily the hundred iron hands kneaded and furrowed and stroked the brown, humid earth, the hundred iron teeth bit deep into the Titan s flesh. Perched on his seat, the moist living reins slipping and tugging in his hands, Vanamee, in the midst of this steady confusion of constantly varying sensation, sight interrupted by sound, sound mingling with sight, on this swaying, vibrating seat, quivering with the prolonged thrill of the earth, lapsed to a sort of pleasing numbness, in a sense hypnotized by the weaving maze of things in which he found himself involved. To keep his team at an even, regular gait, maintaining the precise interval, to run his furrows as closely as possible to those already made by the plow in front this for the moment was the entire sum of his duties. The ploughing, now in full swing, enveloped him in a vague, slow-moving whirl of things. Under neath him was the jarring, jolting, trembling ma chine; not a clod was turned, not an obstacle en countered, that he did not receive the swift im pression of it through all his body ; the very friction of the damp soil, sliding incessantly from the shiny surface of the shears, seemed to reproduce itself in his finger tips and along the back of his head. He heard the horse hoofs by the myriads crushing 204 Pathway to Western Literature down easily, deeply into the loam; the prolonged clinking of trace-chains ; the working of the smooth, brown flanks in the harness ; the clatter of wooden hames ; the champing of bits ; the click of iron shoes against the pebbles ; the brittle stubble of the sur face ground crackling and snapping as the fur rows turned ; the sonorous, steady breaths wrenched from the deep-laboring chests, strap-bound, shining with sweat, and all along the line the voices of the men talking to the horses. Everywhere there were visions of glossy brown backs, straining, heaving, swollen with muscle; harness streaked with specks of froth; broad, cup-shaped hoofs heavy with .brown loam; men s faces red with tan; blue over alls spotted with axle grease; muscled hands, the knuckles whitened in their grip on the reins, and through it all the ammoniacal smell of the horses, the bitter reek of perspiration of beasts and men, the aroma of warm leather, the scent of dead stub ble and, stronger and more penetrating than ev erything else, the heavy, enervating odor of the up turned, living earth. At intervals, from the tops of one of the rare, low swells of the land, Vanamee overlooked a wider horizon. On the other divisions of Quien Sabe the same work was in progress. Occasionally he could see another column of plows in an adjoin ing division sometimes so close at hand that the subdued murmur of its movements reached his ear ; sometimes so distant that it resolved itself into a long, brown streak upon the gray of the ground. Farther off to the west on the Osterman ranch other columns came and went, and once, from the crest of the highest swell on his division, Vanamee The Wheat 205 caught a distant glimpse of the Broderson ranch. There, too, moving specks indicated that the plow ing was under way. And farther away still, far off there beyond the fine line of the horizons over the curve of the globe, the shoulder of the earth, he knew were other ranches, and beyond these oth ers, and beyond these still others, the immensities multiplying to infinity. Everywhere throughout the great San Joaquin, unseen and unheard, a thousand plows up-stirred the lands, tens of thousands of shears clutched deep into the warm, moist earth. From time to time the gang in which Vanamee worked halted on the signal from foreman or over seer. The horses came to a standstill, the vague clamor of the work lapsed away. Then the minutes passed. The whole work hung suspended. All up and down the line one demanded what had hap pened. The division superintendent galloped past, perplexed and anxious. For the moment one of the plows was out of order, a bolt had slipped, a lever refused to work, or a machine had become immobilized in heavy ground, or a horse had lamed himself. Once, even, toward noon, an entire plow was taken out of line, so out of gear that a mes senger had to be sent to the division forge to sum mon the machinist. At half-past twelve Vanamee and the rest of the drivers ate their lunch in the field, the tin buckets having been distributed to them that morning after breakfast. But in the evening the routine of the previous day was repeated, and Vanamee, unhar nessing his team, riding one horse and leading the 206 Pathway to Western Literature others, returned to the division barns and bunk- house. **#**#*# The brown earth, smooth, unbroken, was a limit less, mud-colored ocean. The silence was profound. Then, at length, Annixter s searching eye made out a blur on the horizon to the northward; the blur concentrated itself to a speck; the speck grew by steady degrees to a spot, slowly moving, a note of dull color, barely darker than the land, but an inky black silhouette as it topped a low rise of ground and stood for a moment outlined against the pale blue of the sky. Annixter turned his horse from the road and rode across the ranch land to meet this new object of interest. There were horses in the column. At first glance it appeared as if there were nothing else a riderless squadron tramping steadily over the up-turned plowed land of the ranch. But it drew nearer. The horses were in lines, six-abreast, harnessed to machines. The noise increased; defined itself. There was a shout or two; occasionally a horse blew through his nostrils with a prolonged, vibrating snort. The click and click of metal work was incessant, the machines throwing off a continual rattle of wheels and cogs and clashing springs. The column ap proached nearer; was close at hand. The noises mingled to a subdued uproar, a bewildering con fusion; the impact of innumerable hoofs was a veritable rumble. Machine after machine appeared, and Annixter, drawing to one side, remained for nearly ten minutes watching and interested, while, like an array of chariots clattering, jostling, creaking, clashing an interminable procession, ma- The Wheat 207 chine succeeding machine, six-horse team succeed ing six-horse team bustling, hurried Magnus Derrick s thirty-three grain drills, each with its eight hoes, went clamoring past, like an advance of military, seeding the ten thousand acres of the great ranch. When the drills had passed, Annixter turned and rode back to the Lower road, over the land now thick with seed. Now there was nothing to do but wait, while the seed silently germinated; nothing to do but watch for the wheat to come up. ******** Now it was almost day. The east glowed opales cent. All about him Annixter saw the land inun dated with light. But there was a change. Over night something had occurred. In his perturba tion the change seemed to him, at first, elusive, almost fanciful, unreal. But now, as the light spread he looked again at the gigantic scroll of ranch lands unrolled before him from edge to edge of the horizon. The change was not fanciful. The change was real. The earth was no longer bare. The land was no longer barren no longer empty, no longer dull brown. All at once Annixter shouted aloud. There it was, the Wheat, the Wheat ! The little seed, long planted, germinating in the deep, dark furrows of the soil, straining, swelling, suddenly in one night had come upward to the light. The wheat had come up. It was there before him, around him, everywhere, illimitable, immeasurable. The winter brownness of the ground was overlaid with a little shimmer of green. The promise of the sowing was being fulfilled. The earth, the loyal 208 Pathway to Western Literature mother, who never failed, who never disappointed, was keeping her faith again. Once more the strength of nations was renewed. Once more the force of the world was revivified. ****** *^ The California summer lay blanketwise and smothering over all the land. The hills, bone-dry, \vere browned and parched. The grasses and wild- oats, sear and yellow, snapped like glass filaments under foot. The roads, the bordering fences, even the lower leaves and branches of the trees, were thick and gray with dust. All color had been burned from the landscape, except in the irrigated patches, that in the waste of brown and dull yel low glowed like oases. The wheat, close now to maturity, had turned from pale yellow to golden yellow and from that to brown. Like a gigantic carpet it spread itself over all the land. There was nothing else to be seen but the limitless sea of wheat as far as the eye could reach; dry, rustling, crisp and harsh in the rare breaths of hot winds out of the southeast and now the harvesting begins. The sprocket adjusted, the engineer called up the gang and the men took their places. The fire man stoked vigorously, the two sack-sewers re sumed their posts on the sacking platform, putting on the goggles that kept the chaff from their eyes. The separator-man and head-man gripped their levers. The harvester, shooting a column of thick smoke straight upward, vibrating to the top of the stack, hissed, clanked, and lurched forward. Instantly motion sprang to life in all its component parts; The Wheat 209 the header knives, cutting a thirty-six foot swath, gnashed like teeth; beltings slid and moved like smooth-flowing streams ; the separator whirred ; the agitator jarred and crashed; cylinders, augers, fans, seeders and elevators, drapers and chaff-car riers clattered, rumbled, buzzed and clanged. The steam hissed and rasped; the ground reverberated a hollow note, and the thousands upon thousands of wheat stalks, sliced and slashed in the clashing shears of the header, rattled like dry rushes in a hurricane, as they fell inward and were caught up by an endless belt, to disappear into the bowels of the vast brute that devoured them. Without an instant s pause, a thick rivulet of wheat rolled and dashed tumultuous into the sack. In half a minute sometimes in twenty seconds the sack was full, was passed over to the second sewer, the mouth reeved up and the sack dumped out upon the ground, to be picked up by the wagons and hauled to the railroad. All that shrieking, bellowing machinery, all that gigantic organism, all the months of labor, the plowing, the planting, the prayers for rain, the years of preparation, the heartaches, the anxiety, the foresight, all the whole business of the ranch, the work of the horses, of steam, of men and boys, looked to this spot the grain chute from the har vester into the sacks. Its volume was the index of failure or success, of riches or poverty. At this point the labor of the rancher ended. Here at the lip of the chute, he parted company with his grain, and from here the wheat streamed forth to feed the world. The yawning mouths of the sacks might well stand for the unnumbered mouths of the peo- 210 Pathway to Western Literature pie, all agape for food ; and here, into these sacks, at first so lean, so flaccid, attenuated like starved stomachs, rushed the living stream of food, insist ent, interminable, filling the empty, fattening the shriveled, making it sleek and heavy and solid. From "The Octopus." NIGHTTIME IN CALIFORNIA BY A. J. WATERHOUSE XTIGHTTIME in California. There s nothing I ^ like it found, Though to and fro you come and go and journey earth around. The skies are like a crystal sea, with islands made of stars; The moon s a fairy ship that sails among its shoals and bars ; And on that sea I sit and look, and wonder where it ends; If I shall sail its phantom wave, and where the journey tends, And if in vain I wonder; let s change the solemn theme, For the nights of California were made for man to dream. Nighttime in California. The cricket s note is heard, And now, perhaps, the twitter of a drowsy, dream ing bird. Nighttime in California 211 An oar is plashing yonder; the wakeful frogs re- piy- The breeze is chanting in the trees a ghostly lul laby. The moon has touched with silver the peaceful, sleeping world, And in the weary soul of man the flag of sorrow s furled. Tis a time for smiles and music; tis a time for love divine, For the nights of California are Heav n this side the line. Nighttime in California. Elsewhere men only guess At the glory of the evenings that are perfect nothing less; But here the nights, returning, are the wondrous gifts of God As if the days were maidens fair with golden slip pers shod. There is no cloud to hide the sky; the universe is ours, And the starlight likes to look and laugh in Cupid- haunted bowers. Oh, the restful, peaceful evenings! In them my soul delights, For God loved California when He gaves to her her nights. From "Some Homely Little Songs. " 212 Pathway to Western Literature A SON OF COPPER SIN BY HERMAN WHITAKER WITHIN his bulPs-hide tepee, old Iz-le-roy lay and fed his little fire, stick by stick. He was sick, very sick sick with the sickness which is made up of equal parts of hunger, old age, fever and despair. Just one week before his tribe had headed up for Winnipegoos, where the whitefish may be had for the taking and the moose winter in their yards. But a sick man may not travel the long trail, so Iz-le-roy had remained at White Man s Lake. And Batiste, his son, stayed also. Not that it was expected of him, for, according to forest law, the man who cannot hunt had better die; but Batiste had talked with the gentle priest of Ellice, and had chosen to depart from the cus tom of his fathers. And things had gone badly, very badly, since the tribe had marched. North, south, east and west, the round of the plains, and through the leaf less woods, the boy had hunted without as much as a jack-rabbit falling to his gun. For two days no food had passed their lips, and now he was gone forth to do that which Iz-le-roy had almost rather die than have him do ask aid of the settlers. "Yea, my son," the old warrior had faltered, "these be they that stole the prairies of our fath ers. Yet it may be that Big Laugh, best of an evil brood, will give us of his store of flour and bacon. " So, after placing a plentiful stock of wood close [By permission of Messrs. Harper & Brothers.] A Son of Copper Sin 213 to the old man s hand, Batiste had closed the tepee flap and laced it. At the end of an hour s fast walking, during which the northern sky grew dark with the threat of still more cruel weather, he sighted through the drift a spurting column of smoke. The smoke marked the cabin of John Sterling, and also his present occupation. AVithin, John sat and fired the stove, while Avis, his daughter, set out the breakfast dishes, and his wife turned the sizzling bacon in the pan. "I declare," exclaimed the woman, pausing, knife in hand, if that bread ain t froze solid!" "Cold last night," commented Sterling. "Put it in the oven, Mary." As she stooped to obey, the door quietly opened and Batiste slipped in. His moose moccasins made no noise, and he was standing close beside her when she straightened. She jumped and gasped : "Lor a mercy! How you do scare one! AVhy don t you knock ? Batiste stared. It was the custom of his tribe thus to enter a house a custom established before jails were built or locks invented. His eye there fore roamed questioningly from one to another un til Sterling asked : "\Yhat d want, young fellow?" Batiste pointed to the frying-pan. "Ba-kin!" he muttered. "The ba-kin of Big Laugh, I want. Iz-le-roy sick, plenty sick. Him want flour, him want ba-kin." The thought of his father s need flashed into his mind, and, realizing the impossibility of expressing himself in English, he broke into a voluble stream 15 214 Pathway to Western Literature of Cree, punctuating its rolling gutterals with en ergetic signs. While he was speaking, Avis ceased rattling her dishes. "He looks awfully hungry, dad," she whispered as Batiste finished. Now, though Sterling was a large-souled, gener ous man, and jovial as evidenced by his name of Big Laugh it happened that, during the past sum mer, a roving band of Sioux had camped hard by and begged him out of patience. That morning, too, the threatening weather had spoiled an in tended trip to Russel and touched his temper of which he had a goodly share. "Can t help it, girl," he snapped. "If we feed every hungry Injun that comes along, we ll soon be out of house and home. Can t do anything for you, boy." "Him want ba-kin," Batiste said. Well, you can just want. "Iz-le-roy sick, him want ba-kin," the boy pleaded. His persistence irritated Sterling, and, crowding down the better feeling which spoke for the lad, he sprang up, threw wide the door, and shouted : "Get, you son of copper sin ! Get, now ! Quick ! "Father!" pleaded the girl. But he took no heed, and held wide the door. Into Batiste s face flashed surprise, anger and resentment. Surprise, because he had not believed all the things Iz-le-roy had told him of the white men, but had preferred to think them all like Father Francis. But now ? His father was right. They were all cold and merciless, their hearts hard as their steel ax-beads, their tongues sharp as the A Son of Copper Sin 215 cutting edge. With head held high he marched through the door, away from the hot stove, the steaming coffee, and the delicious smell of frying bacon, out into the cold storm. "Oh, father!" remonstrated his wife as Sterling closed the door. "Look here, Mary," he answered testily. "We fed a whole tribe last summer, didn t we?" "But this lad don t belong to them," she pleaded. "All the worse," he rejoined. "Do an Injun a good turn an he never forgets. Give him his breakfast, an he totes his tribe along to dinner." "Well," sighed the good woman, "I m real sorry. For a few moments both were silent. And pre sently, as the man s kindly nature began to triumph over his irritation, he hitched uneasily in his chair. Already he felt ashamed. Casting a sheepish glance at his wife, he rose, walked to the door, and looked out. But a wall of whirling white blocked his vision Batiste was gone beyond recall. "Where s Avis?" he asked, returning to the stove. "A- vis!" called her mother. But there was no answer. For a moment man and wife stared each other in the eye ; then, moved by a common impulse, they walked into the kitchen. There, on the table, lay the half of a fresh-cut side of bacon ; the bread-box was open and a crusty loaf missing ; the girl s shawl was gone from its peg and her overshoes from their corner. "Good God!" gasped the settler. "The child s gone after him!" 16 216 Pathway to Western Literature They knew the risk. All the morning the storm had been brewing, and now it thundered by, a veritable blizzard. The blizzard ! King of storms ! It compels the settler to string a wire from house to stables, it sets men to circling in the snow, it catches little children coming home from school and buries them in its monstrous drifts. Without another word Sterling wound a scarf about his neck, grabbed his badger mitts, and rushed outside. When Avis softly closed the kitchen door she could just see Batiste rounding a bluff that lay a furlong west of her father s stables. She started after him ; but by the time she had covered half the distance a sea of white swept in between and blot ted him from view. She struggled on, and on, and still on, until, in spite of the seventy degrees of frost, the perspira tion burst from every pore and the scud melted on her glowing face. This was well enough so long as she kept moving; but when the time came that she must stop, she would freeze all the quicker for her present warmth. This, being born and bred of the prairie, Avis knew, and the knowledge kept her toiling, toiling on, until her tired legs and leaden feet compelled a pause in the shelter of a bluff. She was hungry, too. All this time she carried the bread and meat, and now, unconscious of a pair of slant eyes which glared from a willow thicket, she broke the loaf and began to eat. While she ate, the green lights in the eyes flared brighter, a long red tongue licked the drool from grinning jaws, and forth from his cov ert stole a lank, gray wolf. A Son of Copper Sin 217 Avis littered a startled cry. This was no coyote, to be chased with a stick, but a wolf of timber stock, a great beast, heavy, prick-eared, strong as a mastiff. His nose puckered in a wicked snarl as he slunk in half-circles across her front. He was undecided. So, while he circled, trying to make up his mind, drawing a little nearer at every turn, Avis fell back back towards the bluff, keep ing her white face always to the creeping beast. It was a small bluff, lacking a tree large enough to climb, but sufficient for her purpose. On its edge she paused, threw the bacon to the wolf, and then ran desperately. Once clear of the scrub, she ran on, plunging through drifts, stumbling, falling, to rise again and push her flight. Of direction she took no heed; her only thought was to place dis tance between herself and the red-mouthed brute. But when, weary and breathless, she paused for rest, out of the drab drift stole the lank, gray shadow. The brute crouched a few yards away, licking his sinful lips, winking his devil eyes. She still had the loaf. As she threw it, the wolf sprang and snapped it in mid-air. Then she ran, and ran, and ran, as the tired doe runs from the hounds. For what seemed to her an interminable time, though it was less than five minutes, she held on; then stopped, spent, unable to take another step. Look ing back, she saw nothing of the wolf; but just when she began to move slowly forward, thinking he had given up the chase, a grap shape loomed right ahead. Uttering a bitter cry, she turned once more, tot tered a few steps, and fainted. 218 Pathway to Western Literature As, wildly calling his daughter s name, Sterling rushed by his stables, the wind smote him with tre mendous power. Like a living thing it buffeted him about the ears, tore at his breath, poured over him an avalanche of snow. Still he pressed on and gained the bluff which Avis missed. As he paused to draw a free breath, his eye picked out a fresh-made track. Full of a sudden hope, he shouted. A voice answered, and as he rushed eagerly forward a dark figure came through the drift to meet him. It was Batiste. "What do you want?" he asked. Sterling was cruelly disappointed, but he ans wered quickly : You see my girl ? Yes, my girl, he repeated, noting the lad s look of wonder. "Young white squaw, you see um?" "Mooniah papoose?" queried Batiste. "Yes, yes! She follow you. Want give you bread, want give you bacon. All gone, all lost!" Sterling finished with a despairing gesture. "Squaw marche to me? Ba-kin for me?" ques tioned Batiste. "Yes, yes!" crief Sterling, in a flurry of impa tience. "I find urn," he said, softly. Briefly Batiste laid down his plan, eking out his scanty English with vivid signs. In snow, the white man rolls along like a clumsy buffalo, plant ing his feet far out to the right and left. And be cause his right leg steps a little further than the left, he always, when lost, .travels in a circle. Wherefore Batiste indicated that they should move along parallel lines, just shouting distance apart, so as to cover the largest possible ground. A Son of Copper Sin 219 "Young squaw marche slow. She there!" He pointed north and east with a gesture. "Yes, there!" Batiste paused until Sterling got his distance; then, keeping the wind slanting to his left cheek, he moved off north and east. Ever and anon he stopped to give forth a piercing yell. If Sterling answered, he moved on ; if not as happened twice he traveled in his direction until they were once more in touch. And so, shouting and yelling, they bore off north and east for a long half-hour. After that, Batiste began to throw his cries both east and west, for he judged that they must be closing on the girl. And suddenly, from the north, came a weird, tremulous answer. He started, and throwing up his head, emitted the wolf s long howl. Leaning forward, he waited his very soul in his ears until, shrill yet deep-chested and quivering with ferocity, came back the answering howl. No coyote gave forth that cry, and Batiste knew it. "Timber wolf!" he muttered. Turning due north, he gave the settler a warning yell, then sped like a hunted deer in the direction of the cry. He ran with the long, lithe lope which tires down even the swift elk, and in five minutes covered nearly a mile. Once more he gave forth the wolf howl. An answer came from close Hy, but as he sprang forward it ended with a frightened yelp. Through a break in the drift he spied a moving figure ; then a swirl swept in and blotted it from view. But he had seen the girl. A dozen leaps and he 220 Pathway to Western Literature was close upon her. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, she screamed and plunged headlong. When consciousness returned, Avis was lying in her own bed. Her mother bent over her ; Sterling stood near by. All around were the familiar things of life, but her mind still retained a vivid picture of her flight, and she sprang up screaming : "The wolf; oh, the wolf !" 1 Hush, dearie, her mother soothed. ( It wasn t a wolf, but just the Cree boy. Batiste had told how she screamed at the sight of his gray, snow-covered blanket, and the cry had carried even to her father. But when she recov ered sufficiently to tell her story, the father shud dered and the mother exclaimed : John, we owe that boy more than we can ever pay!" "We do! -? he fervently agreed. Just then the latch of the other door clicked, and a cold blast streamed into the bedroom. Jumping up, the mother cried : "Run, John; he s going !" "Here, young fellow! shouted the settler. Batiste paused in the doorway, his hand on the latch, his slight body silhouetted against the white of the storm. "Where you going, boy?" "To Iz-le-roy," he answered. "Him sick. Bezhou!" Sterling strode forward and caught him by the shoulder. "No, you don t," he said "not that way." Then, turning, he called into the bedroom: "Here, mother! Get out all your wraps while I October Clouds 221 hitch the ponies. And fix up our best bed for a sick man." From "The Probationer." w OCTOBER CLOUDS BY MABY B. WILLIAMS ITH fold on fold in quiet rest The gray clouds lie along the west In sweet repose they lie, While overhead they sail away Like phantom ships on a placid bay Like ships they sail on high. And in and out through rifts of blue, The gray ships tipped in silver hue, Now idly float along ; And tiny clouds in northern sky Like flocks of birds prepared to fly To southland, home of song. And herd on herd in glowing east, With here and there a straggling beast, er pastures blue they rove ; Their shining sides are flecked with gold. They number o er a thousand fold A countless herd they move. And in the south white domes arise, Cathedral spires pierce the skies, And hanging gardens fair, And palaces in grandeur stand In ether blue above the land My castles in the air. 222 Pathway to Western Literature But what are all these visions grand, Unless I see the Pilot s hand, That sails my cloud-ships by, Or folds them on the mountain crest, And keeps them there at perfect rest, Along the western sky ? HUMMEBS BY FLORENCE A. MERRIAM CALIFORNIA is the land of flowers and hum ming-birds. Humming-birds are there the winged companions of the flowers. In the valleys the airy bird hovers about the filmy golden mustard and the sweet-scented primroses; on the blooming hillsides in spring the air is filled with whirring wings and piping voices, as the fairy troops pass and repass at their mad gambols. At one moment the birds are circling methodically around the whorls of the blue sage; at the next hurtling through the air after a distant companion. The great wild gooseberry bushes with red fuchsia-like flowers are like beehives, swarming with noisy hummers. The whizzing and whirring lead one to the bushes from a distance, and on approaching one is met by the brown spindle-like birds, darting out from the blooming shrubs, gleams of gold, green and scarlet glancing from their gorgets. The large brown hummers probably stop in the valley only on their way north, but the little black- chinned ones make their home there, and the big spreading sycamores and the great live oaks are Hummers 223 their nesting grounds. In the big oak beside the ranch house I have seen two or three nests at once ; and a ring of live oaks in front of the house held a complement of nests. From the hammock under the oak beside the house one could watch the birds at their work. If the front door was left open, the hummers would sometimes fly inside; and as we stepped out they often darted away from the flow ers growing under the windows. California is the best of all places to study hum ming-birds. The only drawback is that there are always too many other birds to watch at the same time; but one sees enough to want to see more. I never saw a humming-bird courtship, unless per haps one performance I saw was part of the woo ing. I was sitting on Mountain Billy under the lit tle lover s sycamore when a buzzing and whirring sounded overhead. On a twig sat a wee green lady and before her was her lover ( ? ) , who, with the sound and regularity of a spindle in a machine, swung shuttling from side to side in an arc less than a yard long. He never turned around, or took his eyes off his lady s, but threw himself back at the end of his line b*y a quick spread of his tail. She sat with her eyes fixed upon him, and as he moved from side to side her long bill followed him in a very droll way. When through with his dance he looked at her intently, as if to see what effect his performance had had upon her. She made some remark, apparently not to his liking, for when he had answered he flew away. She called after him, but as he did not return she stretched herself and flew up on a twig above with an amusing air of re lief. 224 Pathway to Western Literature This is all I have ever seen of the courtship ; but when it comes to nest-building, I have often been an eyewitness to that. One little acquaintance made a nest of yellow down and put it among the green oak leaves, making me think that the laws of protective coloration had no weight with her, but before the eggs were laid she had neatly covered the yellow with flakes of green lichen. I found her one day sitting in the sun with the top of her head as white as though she had been diving into the flour barrel. Here was one of the wonderful cases of "mutual help" in nature. The flowers supply insects and honey to the humming-birds, and they, in turn, as they fly from blossom to blossom, prob ing the tubes with the long slender bills that have gradually come to fit the shape of the tubes, brush off the pollen of one blossom to carry it on to the next, so enabling the plants to perfect their flowers as they could not do without help. It is said that, in proportion to their numbers, humming-birds as sist as much as insects in the work of cross-fertiliza tion. Though this little hummer that I was watching let me come within a few feet of her, when a lizard ran under her bush she craned her neck and looked over her shoulder at him with surprising in terest. She doubtless recognized him as one of her egg-eating enemies, on which account she put her nest at the tip of a twig too slender to serve as a ladder. Another humming-bird who built across the way was still more trustful with people. I used to sit leaning against the trunk of her oak and watch the nest, which was near the tip of one of the long Hummers 225 swinging branches that drooped over the trail. When the tiny worker was at home, a yard-stick would almost measure the distance between us. As she sat on her nest she sometimes turned her head to look down at the dog lying beside me, and often hovered over us on going away. The nest was saddled on a twig and glued to a glossy, dark green oak leaf. Like the other nest, it was made of a yellow, spongy substance, prob ably down from the underside of sycamore leaves ; and like it, also, the outside was coated with lichen and wound with cobweb. The bird was a rapid worker, buzzing in with her material and then buzzing off after more. Once I saw the cobweb hanging from her needle-like bill, and thought she probably had been tearing down the beautiful sus pension bridges the spiders hang from tree to tree. It was very interesting to see her work. She would light on the rim of the nest, or else drop di rectly into the tiny cup, and place her material with the end of her long bill. It looked like try ing to sew at arm s length. She had to draw back her head in order not to reach beyond the nest. How much more convenient it would have been if her bill had been jointed ! It seemed better suited to probing flower tubes than making nests. But then, she made nests only in the spring, while she fed from flowers all the year round, and so could afford to stretch her neck a trifle one month for the sake of having a good, long fly-spear during the other eleven. The peculiar feature of her work was her quivering motion in moulding. When her ma terial was placed she moulded her nest like a pot ter, twirling around against the sides, sometimes 226 Pathway to Western Literature pressing so hard she ruffled up the feathers of her breast. She shaped her cup as if it were a piece of clay. To round the outside she would sit on the rim and lean over, smoothing the sides with her bill, often with the same peculiar tremulous mo tion. When working on the outside, at times she almost lost her balance, and fluttered to keep from falling. To turn around in the nest, she lifted herself by whirring her wings. When she found a bit of her green lichen aBout to fall, she took the loose end in her bill and drew it over the edge of the nest, fastening it securely inside. She looked very wise and motherly as she sat there at work, preparing a home for her brood. After building rapidly she would take a short rest on a twig in the sun, while she plumed her feathers. She made nest-making seem very pleasant work. One day, wanting to experiment, I put a handful of oak leaves on the nest. They covered the cup and hung down over the sides. When the small builder came, she hovered over it a few seconds be fore making up her mind how it got there and what she had better do about it. Then she calmly lit on top of it ! Part of it went off as she did so, but the rest she appropriated, fastening in the loose ends with the cobweb she had brought. She often gave a little squeaky call when on the nest as if talking to herself about her work. When going off for material she would dart away and then, as if it suddenly occurred to her that she did not know where she was going, would stop and stand perfectly still in the air, her vibrating wings sustaining her till she made up her mind, when she would shoot off at an angle. It seemed as if she Hummers 227 would be worn out before night, but her eyes were bright and she looked vigorous enough to build half a dozen houses. "There s odds in folks," our great-grandmothers used to say; and there certainly is in bird folks; even in the ways of the same one at different times. Now, this humming-bird was content to build right in front of my eyes, and the hummer down at the little lover s tree, with her first nest, was so indif ferent to Billy and me that I took no pains to keep at a distance or disguise the fact that I was watching her. But when her nest was destroyed she suddenly grew old in the ways of the world, and apparently repented having trusted us. In any case, I got a lesson on being too prying. The first nest had not been down long before I found that a second one was being built a few feet away by the same bird ? I imagined so. The nest was only just begun, and being especially interested to see how such buildings were started, I rode close up to watch the work. A roll of sycamore down was wound around a twig, and the bottom of the nest the floor attached to the underside of this beam ; with such a solid foundation, the walls could easily be supported. The small builder came when Billy and I were there. She did not welcome us as old friends, but sat down on her floor and looked at us and I never saw her there again. Worse than that, she took away her nest, presumably to put it down where she thought inquisitive reporters would not in trude. I was disappointed and grieved, having already planned on the strength of the first ex- 228 Pathway to Western Literature perience to have the mother hummer s picture taken when she was feeding her young on the nest. At first I thought this suspicion reflected upon the good sense of humming-birds, But after think ing it over concluded that it spoke better for hum ming-birds than for Billy and me. If this were, as I supposed, the same bird who had to brood her young with Billy gazing at the end of her bill, and if she had been present at the unlucky moment when he got the oak branches tangled in the pom mel of the saddle, although her branch was not among them, I can but admire her for moving when she found that the Philistines were again upon her, for her new house was hung at the tip of a branch Billy might easily have swept in passing. These nests had all been very low, only four or five feet above the ground; but one day I found young in one of the common tree-top nests. I could see it through the branches. Two little heads stuck up above the edge like two small Jacks-in-boxes. Billy made such a noise under the oak when the bird was feeding the youngsters that I took him away where he would not disturb the family, and tied him to an oak covered with poison ivy, for he was especially fond of eating it and the poison did not affect him. Before the old hummer flew off, she picked up a tiny white feather that she found in the nest, and wound it around a twig. On her return, in the midst of her feeding, she darted down and set the feather flying; Hut as it got away from her she caught it again. The performance was repeated the next time she came with food; but she did it all so solemnly I could not tell whether she were Hummers 229 playing or trying to get rid of something that annoyed her. She fed at the long intervals that are so trying to an observer, for if you are going to sit for hours with your eyes glued to a nest, it really is pleas ant to have something happen once in a while ! Though the mother bird did not go to the nest often, she sometimes flew by, and once the sound of her wings roused the young and they called out to her as she passed. When they were awake, it was amusing to see the little midgets stick out their long thread-like tongues, preen their pin- feathers and stretch their wings over the nest. One fine morning when I went to the oak I heard a faint squeak, and saw something fluttering up in the tree. When the mother came she buzzed about as though not liking the looks of things, for her children were out of the nest, and behold ! a horse and rider were under her tree. She tried to coax the unruly nestlings to follow her up into the up per stories, but they would not go. Although not ready to be led, one of the in fants soon felt that it would be nice to go alone. When a bird first leaves the nest it goes about very gingerly, but this little fellow soon began to feel his strength and the excitement of his freedom. He wiped his tongue on a branch, and then, to my as tonishment, his wings began to whirl as though he were getting up steam, and presently they lifted him from his twig, and he went whirring off as softly as a humming-bird moth, among the sprays. His nerves were evidently on edge, for he looked around at the sound of falling leaves, started when Billy sneezed, and turned from side to side very ap- 230 Pathway to Western Literature prehensively, in spite of his out-in-the-world, big- boy airs. He may have felt hampered by his un used wings, for, as he sat there waiting for his mother to come, he stroked them out with his bill to get them in better working order. That done, he leaned over, rounded his shoulders, and pecked at a leaf as if he were as grown-up as anybody. Of all the beautiful humming-birds nests I saw in California, three are particularly noteworthy be cause of their positions. One cup was set down on what looked like an inverted saucer, in the form of a dark green oak leaf wound with cobweb. That was in the oak beside the ranch house. Another one was on a branch of eucalyptus, set between two leaves like the knot in a bow of stiff ribbon. To my great satisfaction, the photographer was able to induce the bird to have a sitting while she brood ed her eggs. The third nest belonged, I imagined, to the bird who took up her floor because Billy and I looked at her. If she were, her fate was certainly hard, for her eggs were taken by some one, boy or beast. Her nest was most skillfully supported. It was fastened like the seat of a swing between two twigs no larger than knitting needles, at the end of a long, drooping branch. It was a unique pleasure to see the tiny bird sit in her swing and be blown by the wind. Sometimes she went circling around as though riding in a merry-go-round ; and at oth ers the wind blew so hard her round boat rose and fell like a little ship at sea. From "A-Birding on a Bronco. " The Foothills 231 THE FOOTHILLS BY STEWAET EDWARD WHITE A T once our spirits rose. We straightened in ** our saddles, we breathed deep, we joked. The country was scorched and sterile; the wagon trail, almost paralleling the mountains themselves on a long, easy slant toward the high country, was ankle deep in dust; the ravines were still dry of water. But it was not the Inferno, and that one fact sufficed. After a while we crossed high above a river which dashed white water against black rocks, and so were happy. The country went on changing. The change was always imperceptible, as in growth, or the stealthy advance of autumn through the woods. From mo ment to moment one could detect no alteration. Something intangible was taken away; something impalpable added. At the end of an hour we were in the oaks and sycamores ; at the end of two we were in the pines and low mountains of Bret Harte s Forty-Nine. The wagon trail felt ever farther and farther in to the hills. It had not been used as a stage route for years, but the freighting kept it deep with dust, that writhed and twisted and crawled lazily knee- high to our horses, like a living creature. We felt the swing and sweep of the route. The boldness of its stretches, the freedom of its reaches for the op posite slope, the w r ide curve of its horseshoes, all filled us with the breath of an expansion which as yet the broad, low country only suggested. Everything here was reminiscent of long ago. 17 232 Pathway to Western Literature The very names hinted stories of the Argonauts. Coarse Gold Gulch, Whiskey Creek Grub Gulch, Fine Gold Post Office in turn we passed. Occa sionally, with a fine round dash into the open, the trail drew one side to a stage station. The huge stables, the wide corrals, the low living houses, each shut in its dooryard of blazing riotous flow ers, were all familiar. Only lacked the old-fash ioned Concord coach, from which to descend Jack Hamlin or Judge StarHottle. As for M liss, she was there, sunbonnet and all. Down in the gulch bottoms were the old placer diggings. Elaborate little ditches for the deflection of water, long cradles for the separation of gold, decayed rockers, and shining in the sun the tons and tons of pay dirt which had been turned over pound by pound in the concentrating of its treas ure. Some of the old cabins still stood. It was all deserted now, save for the few who kept trail for the freighters or who tilled the restricted bottom lands of the flats. Road-runners racked away down the paths ; squirrels scurried over worn-out placers ; jays screamed and chattered in and out of the abandoned cabins. Strange and shy little creatures and birds, reassured by the silence of many years, had ventured to take to themselves the engines of man s industry. And the warm California sun embalmed it all in a peaceful forgetfulness. Now the trees grew bigger, and the hills more impressive. We should call them mountains in the East. Pines covered them to the top, straight, slender pines with voices. The little flats were planted with great oaks. When we rode through them, they shut out the hills, so that we might have The Foothills 233 imagined ourselves in a level, wooded country. There insisted the effect of limitless tree-grown plains, which the warm, drowsy sun, the park-like landscape, corroborated. And yet the contrast of the clear atmosphere and the sharp air equally in sisted on the mountains. It was a strange and de licious double effect, a contradiction of natural im pressions, a negation of our right to generalize from previous experience. Always the trail wound up and up. Never was it steep ; never did it command an outlook. Yet we felt that at last we were rising, were leaving the level of the Inferno, were nearing the threshold of the high country. Mountain peoples came to the edges of their clearings and gazed at us, responding solemnly to our salutations. They dwelt in cabins and held to agriculture and herding of the wild mountain cattle. From them we heard of the high country to which we were bound. They spoke of it as you or I would speak of interior Africa, as something inconceivably remote, to be visited only Hy the ad* venturous, an uninhabited realm of vast magni tude and unknown dangers. In the same way they spoke of the plains. Only the narrow pine-clad strip between the two and six thousand feet of elevation they felt to be their natural environ ment. In it they found the proper conditions for their existence. Out of it those conditions lacked. They were as much a localized product as are cer tain plants which occur only at certain altitudes. Also were they densely ignorant of trails and routes outside of their own little districts. All this, you will understand, was in what is 234 Pathway to Western Literature known as the low country. The landscape was still brown; the streams but trickles; sage brush clung to the ravines ; the valley quail whistled on the side hills. But one day we came suddenly into the big pines and rocks; and that very night we made our first camp in a meadow typical of the mountains we had dreamed about. From * The Mountains. "THE JOY OF THE HILLS " BY EDWIN MAEKHAM I RIDE on the mountain tops, I ride ; I have found my life and am satisfied. Onward I ride in the blowing oats, Checking the field-lark s rippling notes Lightly I sweep From steep to steep : Over my head through the branches high Come glimpses of a rushing sky ; The tall oats brush my horse s flanks ; Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks ; A bee booms out of the scented grass ; A jay laughs with me as I pass. I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget Life s hoard of regret All the terror and pain Of the chafing chain. Grind on, cities, grind ; I leave you a blur behind. . Desert Animals 235 I am lifted elate the skies expand: Here the world s heaped gold is a pile of sand. Let them weary and work in their narrow walls : I ride with the voices of waterfalls ! I swing on as one in a dream I swing Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing ! The world is gone like an empty word : My body s a bough in the wind, my heart a bird ! From "The Man AVith the Hoe and Other Poems." DESERT ANIMALS BY JOHN C. VAX DYKE THE Indian and the plant must have some water. They cannot go without it indefinitely. And just there the desert animals seem to fit their en vironment a little snugger than either plant or human. For, strange as it may appear, many of them get no water at all. There are sections of the desert, fifty or more miles square, where there is not a trace of water in river, creek, arroyo or pock et, where there is never a drop of falling dew ; and where the two or three showers of rain each year sink into the sand and are lost in half an hour after they have fallen. Yet that fifty-mile tract of sand and rock supports its animal, reptile and in sect life just the same as a similar tract in Illinois or Florida. How the animals endure, how even [From "The Desert." Copyright, 1901, by Charles Scrib- ner s Sons. By permission of the publishers.] 236 Pathway to Western Literature on the theory of getting used to it the jack-rabbit, the ground squirrel, the rat, and the gopher can live for months without even the moisture from green vegetation, is one of the mysteries. A mirror held to the nose of a desert rabbit will show a moist breath-mark on the glass. The moisture came out of the rabbit, is coming out of him every few sec onds of the day; and there is not a drop of mois ture going into him. Evidently the ancient axiom : "Out of nothing, nothing comes/ is all wrong. It is said in answer that the jack-rabbit gets moisture from roots, cactus lobes and the like. And the reply is that you find him where there are no roots but greasewood, and no cactus at all. Besides there is no evidence from an examination of his stomach that he ever eats anything but dried grass, bark and sage leaves. But if the matter is a trifle doubtful about the rabbit on account of his travel ing capacities, there is no doubt whatever about the ground squirrels, the rock squirrels, and the prairie dogs. None of them ever gets more than a hundred yards from his hole in his life, except possibly when migrating. And the circuit about each hole is usually bare of everything except dried grass. There is no moisture to be had. The prairie dog is not found on the desert, but in Wyoming and Mon tana there are villages of them on the grass prai ries, with no water, root, lobe or leaf within miles of them. The old theory of the prairie dog digging his hole down to water has no basis in fact. Pa tience, a strong arm and a spade will get to the bottom of his burrow in half an hour. All the desert animals know the meaning of a water famine, and even those that are pronounced Desert Animals 237 water drinkers know how to get on with the min imum supply. The mule-deer, whose cousin in the Adirondaeks goes down to water every night, lives in the desert mountains, month in and month out with nothing more watery to quench his thirst than a lobe of the prickly pear or a joint of cholla. But he is naturally fond of green vegetation, and in the early morning he usually leaves the valley and climbs the mountains where with goats and moun tain sheep he browses on the twigs of shrub and tree. The coyote likes water too, but he puts up with sucking a nest of quail eggs, eating some ines- quite beans, or at best absorbing the blood from some rabbit. The wild cat will go for weeks with out more moisture than the blood of birds or liz ards, and then, perhaps, after long thirst, he will come to a water pocket in the rocks to lap only a handful, doing it with an angry, snarling snap as though he disliked it and was doing it under com pulsion. The gray wolf is too much a traveler to depend upon any one locality. He will run fifty miles in a night and be back tiefore morning. "Whether he gets water or not is impossible to as certain. The badger, the coon and the bear are very sel dom seen in the more arid regions. They are not, strictly speaking, desert animals because unfitted to endure desert hardships. They are naturally great eaters and sleepers, loving cool weather and their own fatness; and to that the desert is sharply op posed. There is nothing fat in the land of sand and cactus. Animal life is lean and gaunt: if it sleeps at all it is with one eye open ; and as for heat 238 Pathway to Western Literature it cares very little about it. For the first law of the desert to which animal life of every kind pays allegiance is the law of endurance and abstinence. After that requirement is fulfilled special needs produce the peculiar qualities and habits of the in dividual. From "The Desert. " LEGEND OF THE CHINA LILY BY IDAH MEACHAM STROBEIDGE LONG ago so long that the world, and all in it, was new; even as all now is old, very old there dwelt in that oldest of all lands, China, a man great, and good, and with money and posses sions too plentiful to be counted. And he had wives two, three, or four, as a rich man may. But only the children of the first two wives have to do with this story. Each wife bore a son. And the first-born he that was the son of the first wife was the father s favorite. But the second son it was who loved the father best. This the sire did not know, for the boy hid his great love; yet ever obeying to the most minute particular each request asked of him. For goodness, and honor, and duty, and truth, for loyalty, and for love, this son was one man among ten thousand times ten thousand. But the father went about with an invisible fold of cloth bound across his eyes by an evil spirit, which blinded him to this noble son s worthiness. And the evil spirit removed the bandage whenever the father looked on the elder son, and put, instead, before his eyes a magic glass which made that son s Legend of the China Lily 239 vices seem as virtues, and his treachery as loyalty, and his lies as truth, and his deceitful bearing as love. So the father was ever deceived, and lived out the measure of long life, believing that good was evil and that that which was evil was good. Then, when the measure of his days was done, he died; and the people mourned. For he had been well beloved for his many virtues and honored for his greatness and his riches. Now, when his father died the elder son fell to lamenting; and he lamented loudly and long the first day, and lamented less loud the second day, and the third day lamented not at all. For his heart was bad; and in secret he rejoiced that his sire was dead, for now all these great possessions would be his own. Money, and hills where the tea plants grew, and houses in the village, and rice swamps, and riches of many kinds much of all were his own. All that his father had left was his. All but one small bit of waste land far up on the side of a great mountain. A barren tract up there in a hollow of the heights was deemed of no worth; for it had never grown tea-tree, nor rice, nor grass, nor flower, nor weed. So this was the father s bequest to the younger son. For the law was that to every son a man had, must be given a portion little or great of his lands when he died ; and to this son, to whom he wished to leave noth ing, he could give no less. To the elder and favorite went all else ; but to the younger, who was worthier than any other child of China, was given but this tract covered with fine bits of broken rock, where no green thing has ever 240 Pathivay to Western Literature grown and where the ground was dry and forbid ding. Yet against the unjust division this noble son re belled not ; but only mourned the father that was dead. Mourned sincerely mourned Avithout ceas ing and without comfort that the beloved and honorable being was gone beyond the reach of his gaze. Of the injustice done him of the smallness of his portion of the inheritance he thought little. His father was dead; his father whom he had so loved whom he still loved beyond all expression was gone from him. Nothing else mattered. And days went by. The elder one went abroad among his newly acquired possessions, saying: This is mine, now ; and this, and this also. And, because he was what he was, he forgot the dead man whose gift all these things had been. But his brother, whose heart was heavy with grief, and who counted not the value of his por tion, nor the lack, only longed to see his father s face once more. Then the new moon came and looked down upon them both the evil son and the son who was good. And the moon grew to the full lessened and waxed old. And in the old of the moon the younger son journeyed to the mountain where his poor in heritance lay; to the miserable and barren land which was awaiting him. His eyes looked with sadness upon it; not be cause of its barrenness, but that it was the last gift his father had bestowed upon him. His heart swelled with sorrow ; and tears which scorched and stung flowed down his cheeks as he Legend of the China Lily 241 flung himself on the ground in his grief. He lay there long, so long a time he had lost all count of the hours, mourning as only they can mourn who are true of heart. It was a great night, full of stars. A night when they burn like fire in the heavens. A band filmy and far stretched across the arc like the ragged, white smoke in the wake of a fast-speeding steamer. Meteors shot through the infinite blue-black depth, and the vastness of space could be felt, like the presence of a thing alive, in the vitalized atmos phere. Though he did not raise his head, he was aware that something most strange had happened. Though hearing no sound, yet he felt near him a presence. Then a voice spoke to him from out of the heav ens; and its vibrations fell upon his ear like the multitudinous cadence of birds in song. ""Why weep you?" the voice asked, and he re plied : "Because I loved my father and he is dead." Though he is gone hence, he loves you in meas ure now as you have ever loved him, he heard the voice say ; and it sounded like the ringing of silver bells. And now his heart bounded within him with a great thrill of joy that a father s love was at last his. Yet it was in fear and trembling that he asked, f alteringly : "Even as he loved my brother?" "Even as he loved your brother once; Hut he loves not your brother now," the voice of music answered him. "The evil bandage across his eyes has been removed, and the magic glass is broken. 242 Pathway to Western Literature He now sees into his children s hearts with the penetrating eye which belongs to the dead, and he knows the truth at last. Weep no more; your father sees you touches you loves you. And be cause of your faithfulness and loyalty through all trials, your reward shall be great. Here, where only sterility has been, shall henceforth be bounti ful yield. Never again will the earth here be dry and barren ; for your tears have wetted the ground so that for a thousand times, a thousand years, a generous moisture shall keep the plant-roots health ily growing. The prayers you have breathed here for the dead shall ward off all evil from the living from you and the family that will be yours. The warmth of your true heart, as it has lain beating and breaking here on the earth, shall call forth blossoms of unearthly beauty. "Dig into the soil, most dutiful of dutiful sons, and tell me what it is that you find." And in the starlight the young man began scrap ing with his fingers ; and digging, he found an un known bulb. "What is it?" asked the voice. "A strange, new kind of root," he answered; "I do not know its name," and he covered it over again with the earth and bits of broken rock. Then once more the voice of sweet music spoke : Out of the land from whence your father looks down on you here these roots came, sent by him in his remorseful love; and the flower which grows from the root and stalk is called the Flower of Filial Affection. Go and come again the third day at noon!" Then the young man went away. And when, at Legend of the China Lily 243 noontide of the second day, he came again, he was amazed, for green shoots had sprung up from among the stones that were now wetted with water which oozed from the ground. The voice he had heard before spoke at his elbow. " What see you?" And he answered: "I see the earth rich with plant-life where it was barren before." "Even as your father now sees the living ever green truth of your soul, where once his blinded eyes saw but barrenness ! Mourn no more ; go, now, and come again to-morrow, which will be the third day, at early morning light when the sun first shines here on the mountain." At early morning of the third day he came, as he was bidden ; and lo ! the air was weighted heavy with delicious perfume. It seemed to drop down from the heavens and fall, fold upon fold, on the earth in inexpressible, ineffable sweetness. All about him green plants were in bloom. From the root came the plant, and the plant bore a beau tiful flower. From filial love, rooted deep in the heart of a man, springs all that is noble and good ; and the reward of virtues in a good son shall be made manifest. The whole earth seemed to be cov ered over with blossoms of waxen purity wax- white blossoms were atiout him where he stood, like the flowers of heaven that we dream we see under the full moon. TThite as snow is white, with a center all yellow as gold ; . sweet as orange flowers, and altogether lovely. It was as though a feather from some pass ing angel s wing had fluttered down to fall in the mud and mire of a sty. 244 Pathivay to Western Literature A cup of ivory with a heart of gold. All the world seemed snowed under petals of fragrance ; and as he gazed in awe at the wondrous beauty of the scene, he shook with the intensity of his emotions. Moved to helpless weakness by the spirituality of what he saw, he fell upon his knees in worship of the great Power that had caused such exquisite loveliness to grow, and bowed his fore head on the ground. Then, out of the heavenly surroundings, spoke the voice. "My son," it said, tenderly, and oh! so sweetly; and now he recognized the loved accents, for it was his father s voice that was speaking that had been speaking since the hour he had first come to mourn on the mountain "Oh, my son son be loved once a burden you bore, bore it with un complaining lips. Life has set no greater task for a child than to be loyal and loving in the face of injustice and misunderstanding. So, for this, your reward shall be great. Because of your heart s loving loyalty these flowers shall henceforth be made sacred to your race, and shall grow only upon this land of yours, and in that way be only for your family. Nowhere else east or west, north or south shall they ever be made to grow in the earth to the perfection of blossoming; yet here on this tear-bedewed land shall they forever thrive, on this spot made sacred by your faithfulness. Yours shall they be only; yours, and your sons , and your sons sons , through all coming generations. "The bulbs shall grow for you and yours to sell for others to buy; and riches past all counting shall be yours. Greater riches will be yours than Legend of the China Lily 245 can ever come to him who is your brother. And now I go. Even as I love you I bless you; going hence to await you in that land from whence these white blossoms came. Farewell, beloved child; most honorable son, farewell!" And the one who was prostrate on the ground raised himself and though he had seen nothing knew that the presence had gone, and that he was alone. But in his heart was comfort and everlast ing peace. Only a legend. Only a story made by the fairies for children and these simple-minded folk, who saw its poetic charm as did I. Only a tale brought out of lily-land for those to hear who have the poet- hearts of little children. From "Land of Purple Shadows." THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 5O CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. LD 21-95w-7, 3 ; ^j; *.r YB 13472 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY