BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 O 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
RIFLE, ROD, AND GUN 
 
 IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 A SPORTING ROMANCE 
 
 THEODORE ^VAN DYKE _> \ 
 
 Author of "The Still Hunter" "Southern California," etc 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 
 FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT 
 
 1889 
 
COPYRIGHT, A. D. 1881, 
 BY JOHN C. VANDYKE. 
 
oft Libral* 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. Black Brant and Curlew I 
 
 II. First Glimpse of Inland Shooting 22 
 
 III. Coursing Hares 34 
 
 IV. The Valley Quail of California 45 
 
 V. Goose Cavalry Ducks and Quails 59 
 
 VI. A Glance at the Olden Time 72 
 
 VII. Among the Geese and Cranes 84 
 
 VIII. New Tactics 9& 
 
 IX. Easy Work at Duck Shooting 109 
 
 X. Bounding Beauty I21 
 
 XL The Mountain Trout 13* 
 
 XII. The Silver Trout at Home 140 
 
 XIII. The Great American Trout-Swine 151 
 
 XIV. In the Heart of Cucamunga 163 
 
 XV. Trout and Trouble J 74 
 
 XVI. JuneShooting T 79 
 
 XVII. A June Buck. T 9 T 
 
 XVII I. Corraling Antelope 206 
 
 XIX. Mountain Game 2I 
 
 XX. The Mountain Quail 22? 
 
 XXI. Deer Hunting 2 4 
 
 XXII. Deer in the Open Hills 2 55 
 
 XXIII. Tracking Deer on Bare Ground 266 
 
 XXIV. The Mutual Jokers 28 
 
 XXV. The Doctor's Last Hunt 2 9 T 
 
TO 
 
 Hittbreir Spirits 
 
 TO WHOM THE COUNT OF GAME AND THE 
 
 SIZZLE OF THE FRYING-PAN 
 
 ARE 
 
 THE LAST AND LOWEST 
 OF THE 
 
 PLEASURES OF FIELD AND STREAM. 
 
 <TI)iG Ijonk 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 
 
RIFLE, ROD AND GUN 
 
 IN 
 
 CALIFORNIA, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BLACK BRANT AND CURLEW. 
 
 WHAT lake is this that so peacefully sleeps in 
 its green girdle of hills on this February 
 morning, sweet and fair as the brightest day of June ? 
 Over its glassy face rolls bright and sparkling the 
 beaded water from the dripping oar, as our boat 
 glides along. Around us, the merganser and the loon 
 rise and disappear, and far away, water-fowl, white 
 and black, loom up in the mirage. On the slope 
 of land behind us lie some indications of what is to 
 become a city, and beyond, the country rolls backward 
 and upward into a table-land. As we recede farther 
 and farther from the shore, white mountain-tops 
 appear in the distance ; then we see the dark blue 
 below the snow-line ; then behind, to right and to 
 left, lower peaks of blue and gray rise in sight. 
 
 It is a wild and tumbling sea of land ; " a land 
 where it seems always afternoon ;" a land far beyond 
 the orbit of the tramp, the chromo man and the in- 
 surance agent ; where the spinster is not a burden 
 
2 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 and the voice of the lightning-rod man is not heard ; 
 where the beggar can afford to ride, and to breakfast at 
 ten ; a land where one is forgotten by some of his old 
 friends, and by others remembered the more kindly ; 
 where nothing is certain but death, and even that is a 
 remote contingency ; a land yet inviolate by Lim- 
 burger, the Bologna, or any other flavor of European 
 civilization; a land of m bees, birds, and rabbit-fed 
 bachelors. 
 
 This fair sheet of shining green water, so deep, so 
 long, so safely locked against all storms, is the harbor 
 of San Diego ; and the town that lies on yonder slope 
 
 is " the future seat of empire of this vast western " 
 
 half of San Diego County anyhow. 
 
 And who are these two young gentlemen in the boat 
 now gliding over the bay : the one bright and bloom- 
 ing of countenance, with dark hair and soft black 
 mustache, with a smile rippling around the corners 
 of a well-cut mouth, and a twinkle of good-humor in 
 his bright black eyes ; the other of more sober and 
 intellectual face, once decidedly handsome, but now 
 sunken and sallow ? The first is Dr. Belville, a young 
 physician from San Francisco, who has come down to 
 enjoy a few weeks of the winter shooting of Southern 
 California. The other is Charles Norton, a young 
 Bostonian, who has come to California to cure his 
 consumption, which, has not yet advanced so far as to 
 preclude good hopes of recovery. Norton and Bel- 
 ville met on the steamer from San Francisco, and 
 having arrived and got settled, Belville is now taking 
 his new acquaintance across the bay of San Diego, to 
 
BLACK BRANT AND CURLEW. 3 
 
 show him some of the coast shooting of this part of 
 the State. Belville has been from boyhood an ardent 
 sportsman, has made several hunting tours in Southern 
 California, and is familiar with its best game and fish 
 preserves. Norton, in his school-days, when he used 
 to spend part of his vacations at his uncle's farm, had 
 a decided weakness for distressing gray squirrels with 
 the flavor of cheap powder from the ancestral single- 
 barreled shot-gun, nearly as ancient and long as the 
 old clock on the landing in the stairway. But during 
 many years of business life, he had not even touched 
 a gun, and had everything to learn that a sportsman 
 should know. 
 
 On the steamer Belville had given Norton what so 
 few, even of old and experienced physicians, seem able 
 to give good advice about amusing himself out of 
 doors. " The worst of all enemies," he said, " with 
 which an invalid has to contend at a sanatarium, or 
 resort for the effect of climate, is ennui. Wherever 
 you may go, whether to San Diego, Colorado, Florida, 
 Mentone, Egypt, or Algiers, this fiend will follow you. 
 It is the same everywhere : a few days' sight-seeing, 
 a few days' riding about, and then the everlasting sit, 
 sit, sit, mope, mope, mope, relieved only by finding 
 fault with the climate for not producing an immediate 
 cure, and by almost hourly comparison of symptoms 
 and feelings with every other invalid you happen to 
 meet. Meanwhile, the face grows daily longer, the 
 ribs thinner, and the cough deeper. The " sights" lose 
 all their interest ; the scenery is a bore ; you lose your 
 appetite ; and hypochondria fastens itself upon you. 
 
4- RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 and hastens your down-hill speed. Such is the fate of 
 many whom mistaken kindness sends away from the 
 comforts of home and friends, only to die among 
 strangers in a far-off land. Of course, many come too 
 late to be helped by anything ; but a large number 
 also die through sheer ignorance of how to improve 
 climatic advantages." 
 
 " I have little doubt you are correct, though I had 
 not thought of it before," was Norton's reply. " But 
 what amusements are there in this fag-end of crea- 
 tion ?" 
 
 " The very best of all for an invalid-flight and easy 
 hunting, with plenty of game. The game is indeed 
 inferior to that of the East. No royal grouse with 
 hoarse resounding wing goes booming like a shaft of 
 darkness through the tangled brake. No long-billed 
 beauty goes upward through the s*apling grove with 
 the whistling pinion, swift, twisting flight, and aristo- 
 cratic colors that used to make me think that the 
 preacher of old when he said, * Vanity of vanities, all is 
 vanity,' had never inspected an autumn woodcock 
 over the rib of a good hammerless breech-loader 
 no " vanity " about that ! And dear little Bob 
 White ! excuse me, I can't go on. It is saddening to 
 think of the difference. 
 
 " Then there can't be much pleasure." 
 
 "Oh, yes. Though inferior, it is game never- 
 theless. And, moreover, what the sport lacks in the 
 nobility of the game is more than made up by 
 the great ease with which it may be followed. To 
 be able to travel in almost any direction with 
 
BLACK BRANT AND CURLEW. 5 
 
 a buggy or with the aid of a saddle-horse 
 an article very cheap here to stroll beneath soft, 
 clear skies, over green sod and flowery hillsides, 
 with no mud to flounder through, no briers or saw- 
 grass, with no chilled fingers, wet feet, or mosquito- 
 riddled face, and in two or three hours have all the 
 shooting that a man should desire, and that without 
 going quarter of a mile from your buggy or horse, 
 for one who has recovered from the foolish youthful 
 pride in being 'tough,' 'a tireless tramper,' and so 
 on, is hunting par excellence. And such is winter hunt- 
 ing here." 
 
 " I once liked hunting, but never was anything of 
 a shot. And I have not tried it for years," said 
 Norton. 
 
 " Once in the field, I will warrant you a quick re- 
 turn of the old love, and in flood-tide too. There is, 
 probably no part of the Union where a tyro can meet 
 with such speedy success as here. When we get to 
 San Diego, I will take you across the bay and introduce 
 you to some of the feathered gentry. One glimpse of 
 black brant will wake you from your long sleep like 
 an electric shock." 
 
 Belville then took Norton to his state-room and 
 showed him his new hammerless, self-cocking breech- 
 loader with all its shining accoutrements, fancy coat, 
 etc., and as Norton gazed upon them and heard their 
 owner explain their various excellences, and wax elo- 
 quent over the virtues of Dittmar powder, choke-bores, 
 and chilled shot, he began to feel strange emotions 
 springing up from some hitherto unknown corner of 
 
6 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 his soul. And when Belville took him to where his 
 dog, Prince, a sleek pointer of liver color and white, 
 was chained on the lower deck, and saw the dog lick 
 his chops, lash his tail, and stretch his claws on the 
 floor; and heard him, with sparkling eyes fixed on his 
 master, whine and yelp with joyful recollections as 
 Belville told how the veteran had pointed woodcock 
 in New Jersey swamps, sniffed the fragrance of the 
 ruffed grouse in Pennsylvania, skimmed the frosty 
 stubbles in Maryland; how many pinnated grouse had 
 fallen before him in Minnesota, and how many ducks 
 he had retrieved in an evening from the dense tules of 
 the Sacramento, Norton's faint emotions broke into a 
 decided tumult. 
 
 " I'll have to try some of that sport right away," 
 said he. " I'm sorry now I didn't bring a gun with 
 me." 
 
 "You can get pretty well fitted out in San Diego," 
 said Belville. " They have gun-stores, and indeed all 
 kinds of stores, far better than you would suppose. 
 And you can soon get from San Francisco anything 
 they cannot furnish you at San Diego." 
 
 It required but a short time, after Norton got well 
 rested at San Diego, to equip him with a fair breech- 
 loader and plenty of cartridges, a coat and hat of the 
 color of sea-weed, and a pair of rubber boots, From 
 one of the many hospitable and accommodating 
 sportsmen there Belville soon borrowed a boat, 
 twenty-five or thirty black-brant decoys, and a light 
 box, low and broad, and of sea-weed or mud color, to 
 be used as a blind. This was not a regular sink-box, 
 
BLACK BRANT AND CURLEW. 7 
 
 or floating battery, but a movable blind, light and 
 dry, easily shifted from place to place along the 
 wet and muddy shores. 
 
 With this outfit, our friends were now crossing the 
 bay, the box containing the decoys being towed be- 
 hind the boat. Under the vigorous strokes of Belville, 
 who was used to rowing, they soon crossed the bay, 
 and turned into Spanish Bight just as the tide began 
 to ebb. A few moments more brought them to a 
 narrow place near the upper end of the Bight, half 
 a mile or so from where the surf was booming 
 against the sand spit that formed the end of the 
 Bight. There they anchored the box at the outer 
 edge of the grass and sea- weed that fringed the shore, 
 and placed the decoys in the water some thirty yards 
 farther out. Collecting more sea-weed, they made 
 the fringe complete, so as to hide the box, and Nor- 
 ton took his seat in it, while Belville took the boat 
 away several hundred yards along the shore. Then 
 returning, he ordered Prince to lie down in some 
 weeds on shore, and the well-trained dog obeyed. 
 Then Belville got into the box, and he and Norton 
 laid themselves in it lengthwise and opposite to each 
 other, the bottom of the box resting on the mud. 
 
 After they were thus disposed, some ten minutes 
 passed away with no signs of game. Life enough 
 there was, but not of the kind they wanted. Around 
 them, the gull winged his unwearied flight; little fish- 
 hawks of almost pure white shot from on high into 
 the water ; divers, shags, and fish-ducks of various 
 kinds dove, swam, or " skittered " along in front ; the 
 
8 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 gray pelican with his long bill out-stretched, poised 
 in his dignified flight, dropped with a heavy chug 
 into the water, and coming up again bolted with true 
 American expedition the breakfast he had caught; 
 while bunches of small snipe went hissing by with 
 rapid wing. But they had not waited long, when 
 Belville suddenly said : 
 
 "Down close now ! Here comes a flock of curlew. 
 The tide is now low enough for the birds to fly." 
 
 Swiftly up the Bight came a flock of birds about 
 the size of small teal, and winding around the turns 
 in the shore, in a moment were almost over the 
 blind. With breasts of light buff, wings nearly the 
 same color underneath, and long bills outstretched, 
 the birds looked like gigantic woodcock whose bills 
 had been warped into crescents by the dryness of 
 the climate. Their clear " teet-a-leet, teet-a-leet" went 
 ringing across the Bight, as Belville raised his gun, 
 upon which they pitched and wheeled in all directions. 
 But one descended with a splash at the crack of the 
 first barrel of the gun, and as it struck the water the 
 second barrel rang out, and another bird came whirl- 
 ing down with his wings broken and sprawling. 
 
 Prince still lay in the grass, head up, awaiting his 
 master's order to fetch the birds. At the word he 
 bounded into the water and started first for the 
 wounded bird which he brought to the edge of the 
 box, his eye sparkling with satisfaction, and delivered 
 to his master without a feather ruffled. He then 
 brought in the other, shook the water from his dripping 
 coat, and went back to lie down at the command. 
 
BLACK BRANT AND CURLEW. 9 
 
 After they had waited a few minutes more, another 
 clear, penetrating " teet-a~leet, teet-a-leet" came ringing 
 from the distance, and a larger flock than before came 
 rapidly following the sound of the cry, now massing 
 like an armed host, now scattering like leaves before 
 the wind, then closing up again in solid column. As 
 they flew low, and close to the box, Belville whispered 
 to Norton to take the first shot. As Norton raised 
 himself a little to shoot, the penetrating cry of the 
 flock, still repeated, so startled him that he missed the 
 upward -darting and swerving birds, first with one 
 barrel and then with the other. But as they hurried 
 off in alarm, Belville pacified one with his first barrel, 
 and materially enhanced the speed of the rest with 
 the other. 
 
 Another flock came winding up the line of the 
 shore, just as Prince was bringing in Belville's bird ; 
 and seeing the dog, the birds swung out some fifty 
 yards from the box. Norton fired again, and from the 
 rear of the flock a bird settled with a cerebro-spinal 
 incongruity into the water. 
 
 " A good long shot, that !" exclaimed Belville. " If 
 you had held at the front line of the flock, you would 
 have got more, perhaps. However, one is good enough. 
 But here comes another bunch. With this ebbing tide 
 they are flying fast now." 
 
 Low along the water, and not twenty yards from the 
 box, this flock drifted by, their long, curved bills, dark 
 eyes, and brown backs shining in the sun, thirty or 
 forty of them, all advancing in even and .swift array. 
 Norton felt a strange sensation as along the smooth, 
 
10 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 trim barrels of his gun he saw the sickle-bill and 
 brown wings of the foremost bird ; and his heart beat 
 hard as he pulled the trigger, and saw through the 
 smoke the fast-sailer lower its jib, reef in its sails, and 
 anchor in the shallow water. 
 
 "Isn't this splendid !" he said, as he took down his 
 gun. 
 
 " I think them pretty good game, though they are 
 little hunted here," said Belville. 
 
 " Do they fly like this every day ?" 
 
 "At ebb tide they do. At low tide they are busy 
 feeding on the flats, and at high tide they are on land, 
 or up the inlets waiting for the ebb. There are thou- 
 sands of birds on this bay, and in the tide-waters of 
 California generally ; but they are hard to get at ex- 
 cept in this way. There is another kind larger than 
 these, but so much slower and tamer, that there is 
 really little fun in shooting them. At least, all I have 
 seen were so. They are of a dark cinnamon color, 
 with dark bronze wings, glossy as those of a wild 
 turkey. I think it is too early for them yet, as I never 
 have seen them much before April. I have seen 
 them in May at San Luis Rey, tame enough to shoot 
 with a pistol provided one was a good shot, of 
 course." 
 
 And what is this dim line of dark bodies fast loom- 
 ing over yonder sand spit to seaward, and which our 
 friends are too busy talking to see ? The line, rapidly 
 rising in the western blue now changes into two long 
 converging strings, and the V-shaped train bears 
 swiftly down. It is not strange that you cannot name 
 
BLACK BRANT AND CURLEW. \\ 
 
 them ; for rare is the man who has ever seen one east 
 of the Pacific coast. They are too small for geese; 
 their stroke of wing is too fast, and they cleave the air 
 too swiftly. Nor are they ordinary brant : their stroke 
 of wing is still too fast. Nor are they mallards ; for 
 they are much too large, are nearly black in color, 
 and grow blacker yet and more shiny as they ap- 
 proach. 
 
 Now they sweep by about one hundred yards out, 
 and change color fast. A white collar appears around 
 the glossy black neck, and the dark breast shades 
 swiftly into white. Like a procession of sable gentle- 
 men in black broadcloth, white neckties, and long 
 white aprons pinned around behind, they glide past 
 with a "wah-oouk, wah-oouk" that arouses Belville from 
 his carelessness, and he leaves to Norton's imagination 
 the conclusion of a joke he has been inflicting on him. 
 
 " So much for not watching! We must be careful 
 now, for when these chaps once start they come fast. 
 Keep close down, and don't move your gun or head 
 until they are near enough, and then be quick," said 
 Belville. 
 
 "Those were brant, I suppose," said Norton. 
 
 " Yes, the black brant, the finest of American water- 
 fowl. They are never found inland, and will not cross 
 even a point of land if they can fly around it. It is 
 said that this bay and False Bay, four miles above, are 
 the only places in California where they are found. 
 But it is a California weakness to like a monoply of 
 anything good, so it is permissible to doubt this 
 statement. But it is certainly a rare bird anywhere 
 
12 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 but here and the bays of Lower California. They are 
 coming in now from the sea as the tide goes down." 
 
 Another dark line was fast rising above the high 
 sand-bank that shut out the grumbling breakers to- 
 ward the west, and both men dropped low and were 
 silent. On came the birds, widening out their line and 
 growing darker and larger every second as they plied 
 their swift black wings. In a slow but even curve they 
 swept in toward the decoys, and the soft hiss of their 
 stiffened sailing wings was becoming audible, when 
 Norton, getting anxious, turned his head a little to get 
 a better look before rising to shoot. In a twinkling, 
 there came from a dozen of the advance-guard the 
 warning "wah-oouk! wah-oouk!" and instead of the 
 black broadcloth vests and swallow-tailed coats, the 
 expectant hunters saw only the snowy fluttering of 
 the white skirts of fifty nether garments fast sheering 
 a,way from them across the Bight. 
 
 " You see they are gamey enough," said Belville, 
 laughing. " You must be careful not to move until 
 ready to shoot." 
 
 "Are they very hard to shoot?" 
 
 " Not hard to hit, if they once get close enough ; for 
 although quicker far than any other kind of goose, 
 they are still slower than a duck. But they shed shot 
 as subscribers do editorial appeals to pay up, and 
 even when they get a good charge, often bear up under 
 it as patiently and bravely as a school-boy under his 
 headache after school time has passed. 
 
 "Down low now!" he added quickly, as another 
 line of black dots appeared in the west. " We'll let 
 
BLACK BRANT AND CURLEW. 13 
 
 these light, so as to give you a good shot. Don't 
 move till you hear them settle in the water." 
 
 Swiftly the dark ranks advanced down the Bight, 
 nearly a hundred strong. In two long, diverging lines, 
 with a heavy bunch at the apex, they glided past, low 
 down along the water and just out of shot, winnowing 
 the still warm air with the rapid but gentle stroke of 
 their glossy wings, their black necks, breasts, and 
 white underwear pictured in the glassy surface 
 below. 
 
 " Don't move an inch !" whispered Belville. " They 
 will come back." 
 
 For two or three hundred yards they sped straight 
 on, then curling upward and sideways, they turned with 
 long and graceful sweep, and with stiffened wings 
 came sliding swiftly down the air, straight toward the 
 decoys. But just as they were curving their wings to 
 settle, and the air began to hiss with their swiftness, 
 one among them cried " wah-oouk f and in an instant 
 the air throbbed again with the heavy beat of strong 
 pinions, and in a confused huddle of black and white 
 they dashed outward toward the sky. 
 
 Bang ! went two barrels almost at once, and the 
 aspirations of one ambitious colored gentleman cul- 
 minated and declined. Bang ! bang ! went two more 
 shots, and another concluded to join the minority. 
 The majority wheeled off down the Bight, and soon 
 looked like an away-going flight of revolving arrows 
 feathered with white and black. 
 
 There was not long to wait for the next shot, for 
 when these birds fly at all they generally fly thick 
 
14 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 and fast as the shades of night in this southern land, 
 and another flock soon loomed up in the west. 
 
 " Now possess thy soul in patience, until you hear 
 them light," cautioned Belville. 
 
 Both crouched low in the box, and in a few seconds 
 a silken rush was heard, then the hiss of wings, and 
 finally a long swt's/i, as they settled into the water. 
 Dull as a home without a baby must be the soul of 
 him who could be cool and collected on the first 
 day of his introduction to such noble birds as these; 
 and Norton was a gentleman of refined sensibilities. 
 His hands trembled as he raised his head and gun 
 over the edge of the box; his pulse bounded, and a 
 strange joy thrilled him like an electric shock, as he 
 planted a full charge of shot fair into the thickest 
 part of the flock of decoys ! 
 
 Like a flash the air above the decoys was filled with 
 a wild medley of flapping wings and cries of " wah- 
 oouk" Two black-and-white bustling bodies dropped 
 into the water with a splash at the crack of Belville's 
 gun, while Norton's second barrel roared vainly at. the 
 rest as they dashed away, until, from far across San 
 Diego's bay, the flutter of their white raiment faded 
 into the distant glimmer of the water. 
 
 " I was a little too greedy," said Norton regretfully. 
 " I'll look sharper next time." 
 
 Large flocks of curlew still winged by, with their 
 ringing note ; bunches of snipe whisked over the box 
 almost within arm's reach ; sandpipers, willet, shore- 
 plover, and waders of various kinds scudded past; but 
 
BLACK BRANT AND CURLEW. 15 
 
 all these looked contemptible now, and were allowed 
 to pass on unhailed. 
 
 " Here come some more," said Norton's friend and 
 guide. "Don't move until I do. They're coming 
 straight for us." 
 
 There were fifteen or twenty in the flock, moving in 
 a crescent- shaped bunch. When they were almost 
 over the box, Belville suddenly rose, and at the crack 
 of his gun a ghostly display of linen in dishabille in- 
 stantly took the place of the trim, sable robes in which 
 the visitors arrived, and two heavy birds came whirl- 
 ing down into the mud, one to each barrel. Norton 
 raised his gun and saw a white-and-black climbing 
 body in line with it ; he pulled the trigger; a distinct 
 chiff ' ! was heard, and a few snowy feathers parted 
 from their owner, which twisted, wiggled, lowered, 
 swung off to the right, lowered again, then finally rose 
 and flew off to join his companions. 
 
 " It took him some time to make up his mind," said 
 Belville. " He was pretty hard hit, but they are 
 tough." 
 
 Soon half a dozen lines and bunches rose in the hor- 
 izon, and widening out and then closing up, stringing 
 out and then bunching again, they came in a long pro- 
 cession down the Bight, all black as they approached, 
 white and black as they passed just out of shot, and 
 nearly white as they faded in the sheen of the distant 
 water. Then came a single brant, fast fanning the 
 air with alonely " wah-oouk" and bobbing his black 
 head and neck about, looking for company. At last, 
 
16 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 seeing the decoys, he swept around in a graceful 
 curve, set his wings, and rode down an invisible in- 
 cline, as swiftly and softly as a falling star. 
 
 Bang ! went one barrel of Belville's gun. the shot 
 skittering over the water beneath the bird. The 
 brant swiftly picked up the legs he was lowering into 
 the water, and traveled off at a rate that must have 
 required wings and legs both, while two more " dogs 
 of war" vainly barked in his rear. 
 
 Yet still they come, a few up the Bight, but most of 
 them from the sea. Over the sand-banks and dunes 
 they fly, black, thick, and swift, mass after mass. But 
 nearly all are now drifting silently past, without 
 deigning to look at the decoys ; for the tide has 
 left the decoys aground, all except two or three 
 which are still rocking in a few inches of water. Now 
 and then a flock, drawn a little out of the regular line 
 of travel from the sea by curiosity or sociability, 
 comes over to take a look at the deceivers, but with 
 little idea of stopping. Occasionally, a bird whirls 
 plunging into the mud with a sullen thump, or comes 
 struggling and flapping down at the crack of Bel- 
 ville's gun ; but the greater number pass by with in- 
 violate broadcloth and dignity unlowered. Thus 
 flock after flock drifts by out of reach. Strings of 
 twenty, fifty, even a hundred, swing by just nicely 
 out of reach, and without turning even to look at the 
 decoys. Belville and Norton would now gladly have 
 shot at the lately despised curlew, but no more were 
 flying. All were feeding, and they could be seen 
 along the shores, ambling over the mud-flats by the 
 
BLACK BRAN 7' AND CURLEW.. 17 
 
 hundred, along with willet, sandpipers, dowitchers, 
 snipe, and plover. And there were also brant, 
 waddling along the outer edge of the mud, looking 
 large as turkeys in the mirage. These were the first 
 that had been seen to touch ground voluntarily. Be- 
 fore long, nothing was on the wing but the tireless 
 gull and the ever-hungry pelican and fish-hawk. The 
 flight had ceased, and there was nothing for the 
 sportsmen to do but leave. 
 
 " It needs a regular sink-box for this sort of thing," 
 said Belville, as they started to gather their traps. 
 " But then we had good enough sport." 
 
 " Splendid, I call it," said Norton, who was delighted 
 with his first experience of California shooting. 
 
 The sun was fast sinking into the west, when a light 
 buggy containing two ladies stopped on the high 
 mesa, or table-land, back of San Diego. One of them 
 drew from her pocket a strong opera-glass and looked 
 out upon the smooth face of the bay. 
 
 " Yes, there they are !" she exclaimed, turning it 
 upon two small dots just coming out of the Spanish 
 Bight. " I can see Charley plainly, and the Doctor is 
 rowing with his back this way." 
 
 " Do let's stop and look at the sunset," said the 
 other. "I have never seen the sun set on such a 
 smooth sea and in such a clear air as that yonder. I 
 have seen him go down in a wild whirl of boiling 
 waves or slowly drowning in a bath of fog. I 
 have have seen him rise with the pale glare that 
 foretells a stormy day, or with the fierce glassy face 
 
18 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 of a hot morning. But this will be new as well as 
 lovely." 
 
 Long fleecy streams of cloud spanned the western 
 horizon like a golden suspension-bridge, while an out- 
 ward-bound steamer, with her dark hull and rigging 
 clearly cut upon the lake of crimson fire beneath, was 
 trailing her sooty banner against the brilliant back- 
 ground. Over the placid face of the still ocean the 
 light shot landward in a long lane of carmine and gold, 
 down which the steamer with her long smoky trail 
 on the sky, making a filagree of ruby and jet, seemed 
 drifting into a haven of fire. Sixty miles to the east- 
 ward, the snowy crown of Cuyamaca shone with a 
 golden glow ; the castellated crags of El Cajon and 
 other rocky peaks were purplish gray ; the dark green 
 vests of the chapparal-clad mountains turned grad- 
 ually into a deep blue. The mountains of Mexico 
 seemed to be swimming in a soft blue haze, and the 
 bold rocky islands of the Pacific loomed higher and 
 darker against the glowing south-west. 
 
 " They are nearly across the bay now, and will be 
 at the hotel before us unless we hurry," said the lady 
 with the glass. This was Miss Laura Wilbur, a young 
 lady of about twenty, to whom Norton was engaged, 
 who had come on from Boston to California partly to 
 see the country, but principally to contribute to the re- 
 covery of her lover by giving him encouragement and 
 cheer in his temporary banishment from home and 
 friends a most commendable plan, which those who 
 send friends away for their health are too apt to 
 neglect. 
 
BLACK BRANT AND CURLEW. 19 
 
 She was accompanied by Miss Eveline Norton, the 
 only sister of Charles Norton, who had no duties at 
 home to interfere with her joining her brother in his 
 sunny retreat. She was slightly older than Miss 
 Wilbur, " enough older," she said, " to matronize the 
 party," and was possessed of the same delicate, intel- 
 lectual beauty that characterized her brother, which 
 was not in her case marred by the marks of disease. 
 
 Both these young ladies were strong and active, 
 fond of such out-door sports as are accessible to a 
 city life boating, lawn tennis, and archery. In the 
 latter field they had long been famous among the fair 
 toxophilites of " The Hub," and had carried away in 
 successive years the highest prizes and honors that 
 their club had contended for. It was no small part of 
 the pleasure they anticipated from their Californian 
 trip, that they were to try whether their prowess with 
 the bow upon the greensward could be turned to 
 practical account upon real game in the forest. But 
 they had not thought of indulging in a prolonged 
 "hunt," until Doctor Belville had- persuaded Mr. Nor- 
 ton that the ladies could easily go with them, and 
 that their participation in his amusements would be a 
 good thing for him. They had brought with them a 
 complete outfit of bows, arrows, and other essentials, 
 and were to share the sport with their brother and his 
 friend, whose return from the first day's sport they 
 were now awaiting. 
 
 " What a beautiful site for a city !" said Norton as 
 the returning boat approached San Diego, which the 
 
20 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 sun now deluged with soft light as it lay sloping to- 
 ward the bay. " And what large buildings for such a 
 far-off place !" 
 
 " Few cities in the world have had finer prospects 
 than San Diego, and few could have existed so long 
 upon deferred hopes. Time was when the Texas 
 Pacific Railroad was actually building, and several 
 miles were graded, capitalists by the score and the 
 hundred arrived on every steamer, and men had to 
 form lines at the real-estate offices. But " Black 
 Friday" and the subsequent hard times brought about 
 a collapse in the railroad finances and let the bottom 
 out of everything. Few cities of its size west of the 
 Alleghanies can boast as much culture, intelligence, 
 and refinement as San Diego, and its people are a 
 marvel to-day for their courage and unwavering faith 
 in their future." 
 
 "You talk as if you owned real estate there," said 
 Norton. 
 
 " Not an inch. But then I admire pluck wherever I 
 see it, even though it may be kicking against the 
 pricks." 
 
 The light in the lofty light-house of Point Loma 
 twinkled like a star in the afterglow of the departed 
 sun ; the sea-gull folded his wing and settled upon 
 the smooth water; the cry of the brant died away 
 and the dark flocks rode silent on the distant water ; 
 in quiet dignity the pelican sat meditatively on the 
 glassy surface of the bay, and his heavy chug into the 
 water was heard no more. The shags and divers 
 drifted silent on the flowing tide ; the whistling wings 
 
BLACK BRANT AND CURLEW. 21 
 
 of the fast-scudding buffel-heads ceased, and the dis- 
 tant Table Mountain of Mexico faded into the dim 
 line of the surrounding mountains as the boat grated 
 on the sandy shore by the town. 
 
 Leaping from the boat, the hungry sportsmen col- 
 lected their game and their traps, and having arranged 
 for these to follow them, they made their way to the 
 hotel, where they were joyfully received by the young 
 ladies. Over a good supper they recounted their ex- 
 periences of the day, and afterwards, Belville con- 
 siderately strolled off with his cigar, leaving Norton 
 behind to talk of his friends at home, and to the more 
 tender joys of communion with the friends that had 
 come with him. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 FIRST GLIMPSE OF INLAND SHOOTING. 
 
 TO bump the reader over the long corduroy road 
 of description leading to the various causes, 
 emotions, propensities, tendencies, and motives which 
 lead to a sneeze, is considered by some evidence of 
 rare talent. It constitutes, they say, " fine character- 
 drawing," "subtle analysis of human nature, ""ex- 
 quisite portrayal," and so on. 
 
 But there are also many who deem these tedious 
 analyses boresome, even in a novel. And if a bore in 
 a novel, it would be doubly so in a work which is 
 purely descriptive, and in which the part that the 
 novel-reader might foolishly mistake for the body of 
 the work is only a faint thread inwoven to break the 
 monotony and to fill the " chinks." 
 
 Many of the connecting links in the chain of events 
 will therefore be omitted : why our dramatis persona 
 did this or that, or why they went here or there. And 
 if any reader does not like the thread of romance on 
 which are strung the pearls of sport and adventure, let 
 him be comforted by the thought that it occupies far 
 less space than in many sporting works is devoted to 
 getting the hunters waked, dressed, fed, armed, 
 "liquored up," and into the field. 
 
 It was the last week of ^ebruarv, and Belvilje and 
 
FIKS7* GLIMPSE OF INLAND SHOOTING. 23 
 
 Norton with the two ladies were whirling in a light, 
 open, two-horse wagon over the strips of plain that in 
 the fair valley El Cajon lie along the bottom of the 
 San Diego River, fifteen miles east of San Diego Bay. 
 Belville and Norton were provided with their shot- 
 guns ; but the ladies were indulged in their desire to 
 try if they could turn to practical use the skill they 
 had acquired as archers over the tented lawns of Bos- 
 ton, and had brought their bows and a plentiful supply 
 of arrows. Along the edge toward the river were small 
 ponds, fringed with high weeds and grass. As the 
 wagon drew near one of these, Belville stopped the 
 horses and said to Miss Wilbur, as he assisted her to 
 alight: 
 
 " Now, Miss Diana, there is a splendid chance to 
 try the virtues of the weapon of the gods. There are 
 some ducks in that pond, and if you keep around to 
 the right and get into that little gully, and then stoop 
 low until you get behind those high weeds, you will 
 be sure of a good shot. But be careful not to let 
 them see you. In the meantime I will slip around on 
 the opposite side and hide behind that little bush to 
 congratulate any that may chance to escape the 
 deadly arrow." 
 
 Through the fringe of weeds that lined the pond 
 some small dark objects were seen, some in motion, 
 others at rest. In a few moments Belville was lying 
 flat and motionless on the greensward behind the little 
 bush, and Miss Wilbur with bow and arrows was fast 
 nearing the edge of the pond. Forgetting the Doctor's 
 instructions, she raised her head too quickly and too 
 
24 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 high, and in an instant there was a vigorous " quack, 
 quack, quack" mingled with the heavy beat of rapid 
 wings, as about twenty mallards sprang into the air, 
 in a bustling confusion of long necks of burnished 
 green, gray mottled backs, white-banded dark green 
 tails, and wings flashing with a broad band of 
 golden green on a background of brownish gray. 
 Loosed from her trembling hand, her arrow flashed 
 harmlessly below the flock, and quivered in the bank 
 on the opposite side of the pond. Away went the 
 ducks slanting swiftly upward, but also onward, and 
 directly toward Belville's hiding-place. When they 
 were nearly over it a shaft of flame shot up, and 
 two ducks wilted and came whirling down with a 
 heavy thump. As the rest climbed skyward with a 
 sudden dash of throbbing wings, another line of fire 
 streamed up, and another duck relaxed his hold on 
 air and sank like a plummet. As Belville picked 
 up the ducks he saw Laura Wilbur fast emptying her 
 quiver at something in the water, and when she had 
 finished he went to her. 
 
 " I have shot one, too ! I have shot a duck ! " 
 she exclaimed gleefully as he approached. He looked 
 where she excitedly pointed, and there, near the side 
 of the pond opposite Laura, lay a mud-hen im- 
 paled by an arrow, while the feather ends of about a 
 dozen more arrows were just visible above the water 
 around the supposed duck. Belville would not spoil 
 her pleasure by telling her it was not a duck; but a 
 feeling of deep disappointment stole over her as she 
 contrasted its dull, dark feathers and miserable little 
 
FIRST GLIMPSE OF INLAND SHOOTING. 25 
 
 body with the golden sheen of the green necks and 
 heads, the cinnamon gloss of the breasts, the richly 
 mottled backs, and large plump bodies of the mallards 
 that Belville had brought down. And stronger yet 
 was the contrast between the stupid action of the bird 
 that sat and let a dozen arrows cleave the water 
 around it, with the behavior of the mallards that 
 sprang into the air at the first alarm and soared 
 rapidly away at such a keen pace. And to see one 
 thing hit while at rest and another tripped in its whizzing 
 career on high convinced her more than ever that she 
 had not brought down the right kind of game. 
 
 " I'm slightly afraid, Miss Wilbur, that you will have 
 to condescend to the vulgar gun if you want much suc- 
 cess," said Belville, with a sympathetic smile. 
 
 " Oh, I prefer the bow, still," she answered de- 
 cidedly. 
 
 " It is more poetic, I know," responded Belville, " and 
 I admit there is a delightful flavor of antiquity about it. 
 But like the aureole of sentiment with which we encircle 
 the head of the noble savage, it is much better for all 
 practical purposes to contemplate in books and on the 
 lawn than in the field. Although a splendid thing for 
 target-shooting and lawn amusement, and even very good 
 for some kinds of game, it is hardly the thing for much 
 success in general shooting in these days." 
 
 " That is because everything is scared nearly to death 
 by the noisy and destructive gun," retorted Laura. 
 
 " Be it so. I regret that myself, and should enjoy 
 hunting more if the gun had never been invented. But 
 it has been invented, and has had its effect in making 
 
26 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 game both scarcer and wilder; and I adapt myself to the 
 world as it is and not as I would like to have it. Some 
 good shooting can still be had with the bow, and I should 
 like to use it myself a little. Plenty of rabbits, some 
 squirrels, mountain quails, a few valley quails, and a few 
 ducks can be easily shot with it here. But the greater 
 part of American game, and far the nobler part, must 
 now be taken on the wing, which: cannot be accomplished 
 to any extent with the bow. Such birds as robins, 
 larks, woodpeckers, and in my opinion even doves, it is 
 a shame to shoot with anything, either at rest or on the 
 wing." 
 
 During this conversation Belville and Laura had made 
 their way back to the wagon with their game, which they 
 displayed to their companions. Taking their seats they 
 proceeded on their way. As they drove along, a large 
 hare slipped out of a bush by the roadside, and canter- 
 ing along with a few high and graceful leaps, stopped 
 about thirty yards to one side of the road, and rising up 
 on its hind legs, with its long ears pointed toward the 
 zenith, turned its sparkling black eyes upon the party. 
 
 " Now, Miss Wilbur," said Belville, " please try rny 
 gun on that fellow. The horses will stand and you can 
 shoot right out of the wagon." 
 
 " Oh ! I'm afraid. Evy, you try it first." 
 
 Miss Norton took the gun and raised it. As the gun 
 came up in line with the hare, the animal started on an 
 easy canter, but on a straight-away course ; and she 
 caught a glimpse along the barrels of long ears, brown- 
 and-yellowish coat, and flickering black tail, skipping 
 over the golden ranks of the violets, the blue-stars and 
 
FIRST GLIMPSE OF INLAND SHOOTING. 27 
 
 fern-like carpet of the alfileria, the thick mats of pinks 
 and the white and azure bells of the shooting stars. 
 Almost unconsciously she pulled the trigger. She felt a 
 slight shock, and a faint vision of rolling clouds, with a 
 brownish yellow acrobat tumbling somersaults over the 
 spangled earth beneath, rose for a second before her 
 sight. And in that second an entirely new set of feel- 
 ings sprang at a bound from some hitherto unknown 
 corner of her soul. 
 
 "That is splendid! isn't it?" she exclaimed. 
 
 "You will get to think so if you try it awhile," said 
 Belville, as he jumped from the wagon to pick up the 
 hare, returning with which he added: " But it is fair to 
 tell you that all shooting, even in as easy a country to 
 hunt as this, is not as simple as that. However, you 
 will here find plenty that is easy enough." 
 
 In a few moments more, some small, gray birds were 
 seen gliding over the sod to one side, at which Belville 
 again stopped the wagon, and offering the gun to Laura, 
 said : " Now it is your turn, Miss Wilbur. There are 
 some plover, and you cannot get close enough with the 
 bow. Take the gun and walk up to them as fast as you 
 can, and don't let them run away from you/' 
 
 She took the gun, after she had been assisted out of 
 the wagon, and walked to within sixty yards of the birds, 
 when they began to glide away. With soft, mellow 
 whistle and thin trim legs moving so fast as to be nearly 
 invisible, they slipped over the velvet sward several 
 yards at a time, stopping occasionally to turn their little 
 beaded eyes upon the strange apparition, then moving 
 swiftly on again as the gun was raised. 
 
28 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 "I told you they would run away from you," said Bel- 
 ville as he came up on foot. " You must walk fast and 
 shoot the minute they stop. Raise the gun quickly, 
 and the instant you see it in line with them, pull the 
 trigger." 
 
 She started again on a half-run, but getting too 
 close to them before she knew it, the little things with 
 light and graceful wing swung themselves into the air 
 making some musical observations as they went. Laura 
 stopped and fired, but the charge only shivered a little 
 mound of violets a few feet behind them. 
 
 " You see it is not quite as easy as giving an opinion 
 on the financial question," said Belville. " And these are 
 very easy birds to shoot, too." 
 
 "I should like to learn how to do it. But I suppose 
 like everything else it needs a teacher." 
 
 " You can teach yourself quite well for ordinary shoot- 
 ing. Practice is the main thing." 
 
 " But there is nothing like a teacher. Mr. Norton 
 taught me to use the bow at the target, and I soon" 
 
 " Sent a shaft home into your teacher's heart?" said 
 Belville, with a quizzical side glance at Laura. 
 
 She stood for a second, startled at the easy imperti- 
 nence of the remark, but quickly answered : " It takes 
 something stronger than an arrow to reach a man's 
 heart." 
 
 " And therefore you wish to learn to use the gun?" 
 
 "You seem well skilled in chaffing." 
 
 " But are there not a few grains even among chaff?" 
 
 "There, they have lit again," said Laura, not appear- 
 ing to notice the last remark; but pointing away over 
 
FIRST GLIMPSE OF INLAND SHOOTING. 29 
 
 the Turkey carpet of purple, gold, white, crimson, and 
 blue, to a broad patch of pink that thickly covered part 
 of a slope of glowing green. " It is too far to walk. 
 Let's ride," she added, as her compamon started to go 
 on foot. 
 
 "As you wish," he replied. " I will try and give you a 
 shot out of the wagon, but you must shoot the moment it 
 stops, please, or they will begin to run again, and you 
 might miss them running as well as flying." 
 
 He drove rapidly toward the birds on a slanting course 
 until within thirty yards of them, and then suddenly 
 stopping, said, " Now shoot !" Laura pointed the gun 
 until their little thin legs, flickering with speed like 
 wheel-spokes, carried the game well out of reach, and 
 then fired. The smoke came rolling back into the faces 
 of the occupants of the wagon, and when it cleared away 
 nothing was in sight. 
 
 "I hit them all, didn't I?" she inquired quite inno- 
 cently. 
 
 " I knew you were hoodwinking me. You played it 
 quite well, too," said Belville. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 " Why, I see you are an old hand at the business. But 
 really, I would advise you not to give full scope to your 
 skill here, for it is customary among California sports- 
 men to leave a bird or two in a flock." So saying, he 
 jumped out and went over to where she had shot at the 
 birds. 
 
 " Pshaw ! I wasn't quick enough. That provoking 
 gopher has got them all !" he exclaimed, looking into an 
 owl's hole in the ground. He reached in and drew out 
 
30 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 two or three owl-feathers, and bringing them to the 
 wagon said, " Here's something, though, for a trophy." 
 
 " Why ! Do gophers catch birds ?" 
 
 "They 'go for' everything that comes along. The 
 next time we must hurry and get ahead of him." 
 
 "It's too bad, I declare!" said Miss Norton, sympa- 
 thizing with Laura's defeat. 
 
 " Oh, that's a very reasonable contribution from one of 
 her standing toward keeping up the gopher family. Some 
 folks contribute half a dozen orange-trees or a dozen 
 apple-trees every season. But there is a pheasant! Now, 
 Norton, you can take a turn," said Belville, pointing 
 to a long-geared thing like a cross between a ruffed 
 grouse and a weather-cock that was scudding along the 
 edge of the plain near some brush. Driving rapidly up, 
 they got within easy shot just as with nimble leg it was 
 running around a patch of prickly-pear. Norton fired 
 and knocked over a " road-runner," " paisano," or " chap- 
 paral cock," as they are called an insignificant bird sel- 
 dom shot in California, though not at all bad eating. 
 
 "I haven't seen a pheasant since I was a boy," said 
 Norton, surveying it proudly. " But isn't it smaller than 
 our Eastern bird ?" 
 
 "Y-e-s, a trifle. But what it lacks in quantity it 
 makes up in quality," was the reply. " Ah ! there are some 
 more plover," added Belville, after a short circuit that 
 brought them around to the very same flock Laura had 
 shot at before, and which had lit only a few rods ahead of 
 the old place in a piece of low ground. " I'm almost afraid 
 to trust you with these, but if you will promise to leave 
 two I will lend you the gun," he said to Laura. 
 
FIRST GLIMPSE OF INLAND SHOOTING. 31 
 
 " Maybe I will leave them all," she answered,with a laugh. 
 
 "Well, I don't care," he said; "only please don't leave 
 them long enough for the gopher." 
 
 She got out with Norton, and this time, crouching be- 
 hind a little elevation of ground, approached quite close 
 to the plover. Then rising up she fired, and two lay 
 stretched upon the sod. 
 
 " Get them quick ! Look out for the gopher !" called 
 ' Belville. 
 
 She hesitated a moment, as if expecting to see a gopher 
 come out. But seeing no hole at hand, she picked them 
 up, saying, as she brought them to the wagon: "What 
 little beauties ! Are these like Eastern plover ?" 
 
 " Not exactly," said Belville, as he whipped up again. 
 " Most all southern California birds vary a little from their 
 Eastern relatives, and it is interesting to note the differ- 
 ences. Do you see that meadow-lark warbling his spring 
 song from that bush to the right that hangs so full of scarlet 
 bells? You see his breast, like an island of jet in a pond 
 of gold, is the same as that of the Eastern bird. So, too, 
 is his coat of russet and black, and his modest cap 
 and tail. But you might watch him a year, and you 
 would never hear a note from him like that of the Eastern 
 lark the ' k-wank krrrrrrj so often heard as he flirts 
 his tail on the haycock or smoothly shaven face of the 
 June meadow of New Jersey or Illinois. And the sweet 
 and penetrating ' tee-ah-tee-ah-tee ' that lengthens out the 
 summer evenings at your home are never heard here. In 
 its place is only a ' k-chee-ah wottle-wottle-wottle,' fuller 
 and richer in tone, as you can notice, but to my ear 
 most ineffably stupid in meaning." 
 
32 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 " I must say I don't admire the words, though the 
 timbre is certainly very fine," said Miss Norton. 
 
 " The golden rays that the yellow-hammer or high-holder 
 showers on the air as he rises and dips in his flight are 
 here darkened into orange; but in all else the plumage is 
 the same as that of the Eastern bird. But the * witcha- 
 witcha-witcha-witchaj like the distant whetting of a mow- 
 er's scythe, is gone, and in its place there is an occasional 
 *" ka-wicka,' sounded only once. The sweet low notes, 
 impossible to imitate, which they make in their social 
 meetings on some high limb in the fall of the year, are 
 never heard here. The rich, fluty * cloi-cloi-doi-cloi-doi,' 
 rapidly repeated, is also gone, and instead, there is only 
 a dull ' krrrrj much like the woodpecker's tattoo, only 
 made with the throat instead of with the bill." 
 
 "You know that sound, don't you?" he added, as a 
 " woooo-woo-woo" sounded from the timber along the 
 river. 
 
 " Oh yes. That's the dove. There go two more," 
 she answered, as two birds with whistling wing and long 
 tails swept by with the swiftness of an arrow. 
 
 "Yes," she added, as they passed, " they are just the 
 same here as at home. And what is that beautiful blue 
 bird on this live oak ahead of us?" 
 
 " The prince of rascals, the bluejay. He's not quite 
 so gaudy a scamp as his Eastern cousin. His colors are 
 more subdued and arranged in a style less bizarre. No 
 jaunty top-knot adorns his head, and gone is the jang- 
 ling note, the only discord in the Eastern woods. But 
 the same mischievous eye, you see, looks out from be- 
 neath his dark blue hood ; and you can scarce conceive 
 
FIRST GLIMPSE OF INLAND SHOOTING. 33 
 
 the villainy hidden beneath that indigo coat and gentle- 
 looking breast. He has the most delicate ear for the 
 cackle of a hen, the acutest perception of the direction 
 of her nest, and the neatest bill for drilling the shell and 
 absorbing the contents. The ingenuity he exhibits in 
 picking each green apple, apricot and pear, just enough 
 to insure its destruction, and then skipping gayly to the 
 next one, so that every meal he takes costs a hundred 
 apples or peaches, would do credit to an ancient Vandal." 
 
 "Are you sure he is not after worms?" suggested 
 Norton. 
 
 " Sh sh ! don't breathe such a thing aloud here in Cali- 
 fornia," said Belville in a serious and impressive whisper. 
 " They will take you for that * spare-the-birds ' man who 
 figures so regularly in the papers every three months. 
 If they do, nothing in the world could prevent the imme- 
 diate elevation of your substantiality by a lasso. I could 
 myself cheerfully assist at the asphyxiation of that indi- 
 vidual. He's worked so long that he needs rest." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 COURSING HARES. 
 
 MINER'S RANCH in El Cajon is now a thing of 
 the past. But the time was when twenty-five 
 or thirty guests gathered around its ample board, 
 lounged under its capacious porches, and laughed at the 
 jokes of its jovial proprietor. And at the time our 
 friends came to El Cajon, " Miner's" was at the climax of 
 its prosperity. The winter sun rose soft and clear, as it 
 nearly always does in this fair climate, and the boarders 
 sat sunning themselves on the porch or in the hammocks. 
 Nearly all were people of culture and means, and many 
 of a high grade of education and standing in society ; 
 but nearly every one was a representative of some pop- 
 ular ailment, or the wife or husband of some one that 
 was. Here was that ubiquitous nuisance whose " blood 
 don't circulate," the everlasting bore whose "liver is out 
 of order;" here also were the damsel with "nervous 
 debility," the man whose " food don't assimilate," the 
 lady whose "blood is too thin," the youth who has "out- 
 grown his strength," and the rest. 
 
 Though the seal of the great destroyer was set more or 
 less deeply upon many a cheek, and each one could see 
 it plainly enough in his neighbor, scarcely one had con- 
 sumption, in his own opinion. One had only " a little 
 bronchial catarrh ;" another admitted " a slight pulmonary 
 
COURSING HARES. 35 
 
 difficulty ;" a third confessed to " a nervous cough;" a 
 fourth had a cold he had "come down to throw off;" 
 and a fashionable shoddyite went so far as to admit that 
 her doctor had found " two buckles" on her lungs, 
 which, as Belville whispered to Laura, accounted for the 
 " tightness" of the cough of which she complained. But 
 little did any of them dream that the rocket was burned 
 out, and that their life was only the useless stick travel- 
 ing a little farther on with its original momentum. 
 
 And there they nearly all sit, and sit, and sit, and 
 grumble and grow worse. Two or three take horses and 
 go hunting every day, bringing home enough game, even 
 though they are invalids, to abundantly supply the table. 
 These are the only ones that seem to be recovering. 
 And yet when they advise the others to get a gun 
 and horse, how strange the answers ! One says it will 
 "use up his strength." He looks upon strength as so 
 much wine in a bottle every drop used gone forever. 
 Another says he " gets all the exercise he wants cough- 
 ing." Another says he "don't like California game; 
 it's flat) like California fruit" (he has the fashiona- 
 ble "lingo" about California productions quite pat). 
 Another says game is " not sufficiently nutritious," and 
 " wants beef." And similar are the reasons of the rest. 
 
 Alas for them ! The rolling green plains, the flowery 
 hills, the tree-filled caftons of the land are, for most of 
 them, full of life and health and enjoyment. Amusement 
 with rifle, gun, and long bow lies abundant on every 
 side, if they would only take it. But they are lost 
 when they step off the brick pavement; they have never 
 breathed anything but the dusty air of business ; their 
 
36 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 ears are tuned only to the measure of the dance or the 
 click of the billiard-ball ; and their eyes know no beauty 
 except in the human face or on the walls of the draw- 
 ing-room or " Academy of Arts." What wonder that such 
 should pine away with ennui ', lose heart and appetite, 
 become morose and discontented, and grow worse, even 
 in the best of climates ! Yet such is the average invalid, 
 and such his fate, wherever he goes. 
 
 Five horses stood saddled at the gate, and two lithe 
 greyhounds, named Flirt and Flash, were racing about 
 in a frenzied anticipation. In a few moments Norton 
 and Laura, Belville and Miss Norton, with Miner on the 
 other horse, were mounted and cantering over the heavy 
 greensward of alfileria, whose fern-like leaves were 
 almost hidden in broad patches by a wasteful prodigality 
 of golden violets, which, unlike the common wild violet, 
 are here as fragrant as the garden variety. Great beds 
 of pinks and jump-ups lay along the slopes, and over all 
 the shooting star, or American cowslip, hung its blue 
 and snowy bells. 
 
 They turned down along the edge of the meadow by 
 the river bottom, and inside of the outer line of weeds 
 that lined it, keeping their eyes open for the four-footed 
 game they sought. 
 
 u Hurrah! there she goes!" yelled Miner presently, 
 dashing ahead as a hare sprang from a clump of green 
 weeds and started for the hills nearly half a mile away, 
 and the two dogs burst from a trot into a full run. 
 The hare was some fifty yards ahead of the hounds, 
 running with a few rapid strokes of its little feet, then 
 throwing itself in the air with a lofty arching skip. It 
 
COURSING HARES. 37 
 
 carried its ears well forward and danced along as if it 
 feared no danger, its black eyes sparkling and its glossy 
 coat shining like that of a deer in the morning sun. 
 But as the dogs gained upon it its actions changed in 
 a twinkling. It laid back its long ears, stretched out its 
 long body beyond its former length, and skimmed over 
 the ground like a low-flying grouse. The dogs, too, let 
 out an extra length, and their long legs glimmered 
 over the checkered sod like wheel-spokes ; while the 
 horses settled down at once to business, and hugged the 
 spangled carpet of the plain at their keenest gallop. 
 
 Swiftly the hare scuds on, gaining at every jump for 
 over two hundred yards ; the violets, pinks, and snowy 
 bells flying from the horses feet close behind the dogs; 
 Belville yelling with excitement ; Norton hatless and hold- 
 ing to the horn of the saddle for safety; Laura terrified at 
 the unusal speed, but too excited to drop behind ; and 
 Miner and Eveline, who was a bold rider, tearing 
 along ahead of them all. Now the hare twists and 
 goes down a slope, and the dogs begin to gain. Closer 
 and closer they come to him, Flirt ahead and Flash but a 
 yard behind, and fast the thundering hoofs close in be- 
 hind the dogs. Still shorter grows the space between 
 dogs and hare, and Flirt is almost within a yard of it; 
 when, with a dart as quick as that of a humming-bird, it 
 switches off almost at a right angle, and leads up a slope 
 to one side, and heads again for the river bottom. Flash 
 nearly tumbles over Flirt as she tries to turn, and the 
 horses nearly tumble over the dogs, while the hare, with 
 bobbing black tail and ears laid back, spins up the slope 
 and vanishes over a rise of ground, just as dogs and 
 
38 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 horses get fairly headed in the right direction and settle 
 down again to work. 
 
 Two seconds bring them in sight of the hare, tearing 
 down the next slope for the high weeds in the river 
 bottom, three or four hundred yards away. Again the 
 violets and bluebells fly from beneath the rushing hoofs, 
 and yells of triumph ring out on the fragrant air as 
 the distance again shortens between hare and hounds 
 on the downhill run ; for downhill the dogs have the 
 advantage, and the hare is tiring, besides. Flirt soon 
 closes in, and her white teeth glisten in the sun as she 
 reaches out to collect the personal assets of the failing 
 fugitive. But not yet. is he ready to assign, nor shall 
 Flirt be his assignee. He will run his own business a 
 while longer and go into bankruptcy only on his own 
 petition, and not on that of his eager creditors. So, with 
 a sudden twist he dodges the panting mouth behind 
 him and wheels off at a tangent to the left. But Flash, 
 not so close this time as before, loses little time in turn- 
 ing, and, while Flirt is recovering herself, dashes straight 
 ahead for the hare. Swiftly he gains on the weary run- 
 away, but another twist throws him off, while Flirt, hav- 
 ing to a still greater degree the advantage that Flash just 
 had not being too close comes flying down behind in 
 a straight line for the quarry. 
 
 Now do thy best, gay Flirt, or thou art beaten ! 
 Right well she knows it ; her lithe body opens out an- 
 other section like a telescope ; the distance between her 
 and the hare swiftly shortens ; yells again rise from the 
 exultant crowd behind. But all too soon their glee and 
 cries of victory. For the hare, too, draws on its last re- 
 
COURSING HARES. 39 
 
 sources, telescopes out still longer than before, flattens 
 itself to the ground in a desperate burst of energy, 
 and in another second the high stiff weeds of the river 
 bottom close over it just as the jaws of Flirt snap vainly 
 behind. 
 
 " Too bad !" exclaimed Belville, as they reined up their 
 panting horses. 
 
 " Too good, / think," said Laura. " What more could 
 the death of the poor thing that earned its life so 
 well have added to our pleasure ? I'm sure I've never 
 enjoyed anything so much as that race, even though un- 
 successful." 
 
 " I stand corrected," said Belville frankly. " Yours is 
 the true sentiment. The chase and its associations are 
 everything ; the mere bagging of the game is nothing. 
 That is one reason why I should enjoy hunting with 
 the bow more than with the gun. But while I abomi- 
 nate above all things the monstrous heresy that the 
 principal use of game is to eat, I must admit that I am 
 so far earthly as to have a trifling weakness for seeing 
 something overhauled occasionally." 
 
 " Flash don't seem to be of much use to-day," said 
 Norton, looking at the dog, which was lounging along 
 the open ground two or three hundred yards to the right 
 of the " cavalry," and nearly one hundred yards behind 
 their line, while Flirt was actively rummaging the weeds 
 along the edge of the open ground. 
 
 " Everything has it uses," replied Miner. " An old tin 
 kettle may adorn a tail, if it can't point a moral. And 
 even that lazy dog may yet come handy." 
 
 There was a bustling noise in the weeds, a flicker 
 
40 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 of brown scudding through the thick mat of dark green, 
 and away skipped a big hare over the open plain, driven 
 out by Flirt from within the weeds. It headed for the 
 hills, six or seven hundred yards away. 
 
 "And now look at Flirt; what ails the dog? It seems 
 now as if she didn't care a fig for hares either," cried one 
 of the party, as she ran along behind the hare on an 
 apathetic gallop, losing ground at every jump, while the 
 hare, with ears erect and with high elastic bounds, 
 seemed to be only playing in its swift career. 
 
 " Let them manage it. They've hunted this ground 
 before," said Miner, as Belville in his impatience tried 
 to urge Flirt on. And before he had fairly finished the 
 sentence, a long-drawn streak of glossy darkness, with 
 a slim tail projecting behind, came flying along the 
 ground from the right, headed for a point some distance 
 ahead of the hare. The hare, too, saw it, reefed in its 
 ears, lengthened out, flattened down more to the ground, 
 and skimmed the violets at a furious pace. Flirt now 
 hastened her feet and traveled along quite briskly, but 
 on a line that would carry her some distance to the 
 left of the hare ; while in the mean time the two lines 
 that formed the courses of the hare and of Flash were 
 fast closing into the apex of a long narrow " V." Too 
 much so to suit Mr. Hare ; for his bright black eye 
 showed him that the two lines might soon meet, and in 
 his inner consciousness he felt a possibility of his line 
 merging in the other. So he concluded to shift his 
 line to more pleasant places, and darted off to the left, 
 so as to leave Flash on a straight line behind him. 
 
 Whether Flirt had been anticipating some such move- 
 
COURSING HARES. 41 
 
 ment or not we will not say, but in a twinkling she had 
 changed her course and was rapidly flitting along the 
 ground on the line of another " V'and aimed well ahead 
 of the fugutive. The idea of " merging" again suggested 
 itself to the hare, and he wheeled away to the right again 
 so as to leave Flirt behind him, while at the movement 
 Flash went spinning along on another cut-off. As the 
 hare tried to evade this by another twist he found Flirt's 
 propinquity getting somewhat annoying, and endeavoring 
 to escape that, he found Flash also getting too familiar on 
 the other side. So he stopped suddenly short, doubled 
 on his track, and turned directly back on his course, 
 leaving both dogs a dozen yards behind in trying to turn 
 with him. Right in among the clattering hoofs of the 
 cavalcade he ran, whipped unscathed through the medley 
 of legs as the horses tried to check their momentum, and 
 by the time the dogs had got past the horses, there was 
 nothing in sight but a distant bit of bobbing brown, fast 
 fading toward the dim line of weeds. 
 
 "Wasn't that splendid!" exclaimed both the ladies, 
 almost out of breath with hard riding. 
 
 " Well, I must confess I would have liked it better if 
 they had caught him after such a scientific maneuver as 
 they made. I like to see brains successful," said Belville. 
 
 "Well, so do I," said Laura. "Even if it is a ''hare 
 brain' for the hare showed intelligence too." 
 
 " It's very seldom a hare does that," said Miner. " Not 
 once in fifty times. But I must admit that I like to see 
 one get away in that style." 
 
 " And I'll stick to it that I like to see something caught 
 occasionally," said Belville. 
 
42 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Norton was tired with the hard riding, and so were 
 the dogs with running ; so the riders dismounted and sat 
 down on a sunny bank of flowers to rest. 
 
 " You spoke of the heresy of thinking the principal 
 use of game is to eat. Why do you want to catch it, 
 then?" asked Laura of Belville. 
 
 " Well, I don't, unless it is done skillfully. I wouldn't 
 give a cent to shoot at a hare with a shot-gun as you 
 did yesterday. I would only shoot at one with a rifle, 
 and only when running crosswise at that. Although I 
 cannot hit more than one in three, I enjoy it far more than 
 if it were no trick to hit them all. Yet, at the same time, 
 I do want to hit one third of them at least. And so I 
 like to see a dog catch one occasionally, though I appre- 
 ciate a skillful escape still more." 
 
 " I think all your ideas are slightly advanced," said 
 Miner. " I feel somewhat that way myself ; although I 
 must say that a few years of dry ranching makes the idea 
 of meat most tyrannically predominant over all finer 
 feelings." 
 
 "You have a beautiful ranch, I think," said Miss 
 Norton. 
 
 " Yes indeed. It is fairly stuffed with beauty. So 
 much so that at times I fear it will burst." 
 
 "Why, what do you mean by that?" asked Laura. 
 
 " Burst me, I mean. Beauty is a little unsubstantial 
 for a steady diet. It's thinner nutriment than rabbit. 
 But we interrupted the Doctor's remarks about the uses 
 of game," said Miner. 
 
 " My views are those of the minority of sportsmen," 
 
COURSING HARES. 43 
 
 continued Belville. " But that minority is fast increasing, 
 and in a few years will be the majority. I think that 
 game was made, first, to hunt ; second, to find ; third, 
 to look at ; fourth, to shoot at ; fifth, to hit; sixth, and 
 last, to eat." 
 
 " That is exactly the reverse of the common idea," 
 said Miner. 
 
 " I know it," said Belville. " And that is why the game 
 is being swept from the land. It is the idolatrous hom- 
 age that is paid to the palate as the principal and most 
 righteous claimant upon the game of the country that 
 now compels a man who would seek the medicine of the 
 field and stream, the best medicine in the world for some 
 kinds of ailments, to go so far from home and friends to 
 find it. It seems to be generally conceded that the 
 palate of the man who is too lazy or stupid to hunt his 
 own game must be as tenderly cared for as any of our 
 personal rights. And from all this comes the atrocious 
 heresy that the first and most important, instead of the 
 last and worst, use of game is to eat it. But a better day 
 is already dawning." 
 
 " But why has not the man who is unable to hunt as 
 good a right to get game in his way as you have in your 
 way ?" asked Miss Norton. 
 
 " That is the common argument, I know, and it seems 
 very plausible. But the answer is more than plausible 
 it is undeniable. There is not game enough, and there 
 never can be enough, for one fourth of the people. It is 
 game for a few, or game for none game under close 
 restrictions, or no game at all. That is the question, 
 
44 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 and there is no avoiding it. With other animal food it 
 is different. Fish can be bred, but game cannot." 
 
 By this time the party were well rested and ready to 
 remount and return to the house, which they reached in 
 time for dinner. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE VALLEY QUAIL OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 EARLY in the morning of the next hunting day 
 the enthusiastic quartet of Nimrods and Dianas 
 were seated in their familiar vehicle, appropriately armed 
 for the sport they were after. In a country so full 
 of game, they had not driven far when they suddenly 
 noticed dark objects energetically darting and gliding 
 swiftly over the emerald-dotted ground, as the wagon 
 rolled into a little valley that lay between two low ranges of 
 hills. See how they vanish down the green vistas among 
 the sycamores, skim the sod in the arcades of elders, and 
 dart among the bushes and up the velvet slopes that lead 
 toward the hills. Here, there, and all over, by twos, 
 fours, dozens, and scores, they-dodged, rustled, and disap- 
 peared from view. And look at old Prince, who hangs 
 fifty or sixty yards behind the wagon, with nose high up- 
 raised, tail nearly rigid, and countenance as serious as 
 that of an incubating owl, waddling along as if the pinks 
 and violets were New Jersey sand-burrs. What sound is 
 this that now rings from the hillside, shining with the 
 orange glow of innumerable poppies, where phacelias 
 are just lighting their soft purple lamps of spring, and 
 the orthocarpus is kindling its crimson fire along the 
 ground, where the olive green of the ramiria is lovingly 
 embraced by the rich pink of the wild pea, and the dark, 
 
46 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 glossy green of the -sumac is twined with the lighter 
 green leaves and the white showery blossoms of the 
 chilicayote, or the golden bells of the wild honeysuckle ? 
 It sounds like " o-yfo-o, O-///-G, o-/*/-o," o->fo-o, blown from 
 a silver flute. And it is answered from the opposite 
 hills, from up the valley, and from all sides, until the 
 whole region is filled with calls for " Ohio." 
 
 " Now," said Belville, as he tied the horses, " if you 
 will please follow me you will see something quite novel, 
 and a sight that few Eastern people would believe in 
 unless they saw it. You need not try to follow me all 
 the time ; but after I first start the game, sit down on a 
 rock until I get them scattered." 
 
 " They followed him as he led the way some fifty yards 
 up the sloping hillside, when suddenly from the ramiria 
 and wild buckwheat, a few yards ahead, came a sharp 
 metallic-toned " whit-whit, whit-whit" followed by a muf- 
 fled " k-wook k-wookook, k-ivook k-wookook, kwook k-wook, 
 k-wookook" from dozens of little throats. To the sur- 
 prise of the rest, Belville tied Prince to a bush, beside 
 which the dog was already standing like a statue. 
 
 "In the East," he explained, "a dog is absolutely 
 necessary to hunt quails with any success at all, but here 
 they run so fast that they will spoil a dog, unless he is 
 kept back until they are thoroughly scattered and scared, 
 so as to make them hide and lie closely. In the upper 
 part of the State they often lie quite well, but here they 
 will not until thoroughly scared and hustled. One can 
 get here all the shooting he needs without any dog at all ; 
 but to see the dog work js for me nearly one half of the 
 pleasure, although these birds are so plenty and so strong 
 
THE VALLEY QUAIL OF CALIFORNIA. 47 
 
 of scent that it does not call for as much care on a dog's 
 part to find them as it does to find the Eastern bird." 
 
 Meanwhile the cries of " whit-whit " and " k-wook-ook 
 k-wook-ook" had ceased. But after rapidly walking some 
 fifty yards farther, they were heard again. At this, Bel- 
 ville, instead of going slowly or waiting to see something, 
 started on the full run toward the sound. 
 
 What a change ! A dark blue cloud roared upward 
 from the low brush and flowers ahead of Belville, but 
 out of shot, swept swiftly over some two hundred yards 
 of space, and sank from sight in the shrubbery. Belville 
 fired both barrels of his gun, but nothing " tarried." 
 
 " I could have hit so big a mark myself," said Laura 
 to Norton. 
 
 " I shot at a bigger mark than you thought, and hit it 
 space" said Belville, who had overheard her. " I don't 
 want to stop now to pick up any, even if they should rise 
 within shot." 
 
 He did not wait for an answer, but started again on a 
 run to the place where the quail had settled in the low 
 bushes. Before he reached it the swarming cloud 
 again rose well out of shot, and thundered along the 
 ground ; but this time it was more widely scattered than 
 before. As Belville fired his gun over the flock it broke 
 still more, and settled some two hundred yards farther 
 on, but this time scattered over a circle of nearly one 
 hundred yards in diameter. Again he charged, loading 
 as he went ; again the cloud rose and broke at the first 
 shot into two or three smaller flocks, and these in turn 
 broke up at the report of the second barrel ; and in 
 widely scattered bands of from five to twenty or thirty, 
 
48 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 with some single birds and pairs, they went whizzing 
 here and there, and lit all over five or six acres of rolling 
 hills some two hundred and fifty yards ahead. 
 
 " Now you can come on," called Belville to the rest of 
 his party. 
 
 " I guess they will lie now," he added, as they came 
 up. t: You see, a person who did not know how to handle 
 these birds would have hard work to get good shooting. 
 Even the experienced Eastern sportsman is apt to vote 
 them a fraud at the first interview or so. Some- 
 times, especially in summer or fall, one can get close 
 enough for a shot into the flock. But now nearly all 
 the flocks are so wild that the birds must be taken singly 
 and on the wing, as indeed all birds should be taken for 
 good sport. And this can be done only by getting them 
 well scattered and scared, so that they will lie and hide." 
 
 They had been walking ahead while they conversed ; 
 but now they were suddenly interrupted by a whizzing 
 and a "chip-chip-chip" and looking up saw a bluish bird 
 that had started from a twining creeper with scarlet trum- 
 pets fly rapidly off. From the bushes all around a dozen 
 swift-whirling companions rose, with mottled waistcoats 
 of white and cinnamon flashing below dark gray-blue 
 coats, little black and white heads, black throats within 
 white collars, and long jaunty black plumes hanging for- 
 ward over their bills, all in clear relief against the horizon, 
 some darting straight ahead with defiant "chip-chip-chip" 
 others twisting to either side. 
 
 Belville's gun was quickly at his shoulder; a puff of 
 feathers flew at the report, and the stricken bird went 
 plunging downward amid the buzz of his companions on 
 
THE VALLEY QUAIL OF CALIFORNIA. 49 
 
 every side and the roar of hundreds more beyond. Soon 
 all were down again, covering the slopes and the heads of 
 the little ravines over a space about two hundred yards 
 in diameter. 
 
 " Pretty wild," said Belville, " but I guess they will 
 be sure to lie now." 
 
 Meanwhile, brilliant passages of canine melody were 
 coming from the bush where Prince had been tied, but 
 no attention was paid to them. 
 
 " Now, Norton," said Belville, " you may try your 
 gun, and Miss Wilbur may take mine, and I will keep 
 in the background for a while and go after Prince." 
 
 Norton and Laura moved on. a few yards, and half a 
 dozen birds, each with a saucy " chip-chip-chip" sprang 
 whizzing from the blooming ground about ten feet in 
 front of them. One curled around Norton's head with 
 his mottled breast flashing in the sun, while the thunder 
 and smoke of Norton's gun roared and rolled at a safe 
 distance in his rear. Laura had watched the birds be- 
 tween the hammers of her gun until a dozen rose at the 
 sound of Norton's first barrel. When she turned her 
 attention to them, they were ensconced in safety in the 
 green pockets of a little ravine two hundred yards away. 
 
 " You're too slow, Laura. You must shoot qui " 
 
 Whizz ! buzz ! " chip-chip-chip /" went three or four 
 more, and bang! went Norton's second barrel before he' 
 fairly saw anything. Laura, however, improved upon 
 l.er first attempt so far as to fire just as they were about 
 to light one hundred and fifty yards away. 
 
 " Too slow yet, Laura," he said, and then in turn 
 again seriously impaired the symmetry of a bursting 
 
50 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 plume of the yucca, as another pair of birds darted from 
 the farther side of it. 
 
 " It seems about as effective as your shooting," she 
 replied, with a light laugh. 
 
 " Well, I was exci " 
 
 Again he was interrupted by the obstreperous wings 
 and chirping impudence of twenty or more birds burst- 
 ing from every shrub, within five steps of the spot he 
 had reached in advancing. His gun went off again 
 before he knew it, and the second barrel tunneled the 
 smoke of the first ; while Laura pointed her gun from 
 one bird to another, unable to decide which to fire at, 
 until they lit about a hundred and fifty yards away. 
 
 The wild medley of cries and whizzing wings now 
 increased as they advanced farther into the center of 
 the ground where the flock had lit. On every side, from 
 almost every bush, before and after the crack of the gun, 
 while with trembling hands they hurried fresh cartridges 
 into the heated chambers, birds were darting, whizzing, 
 calling, buzzing, going up hill, down hill, crossing, 
 quartering, or curling around behind them ; some scud- 
 ding like hares a few yards along the ground before 
 bursting into flight ; others rising almost perpendicularly 
 a few feet before spinning away; others still shooting 
 off on a low upward slant from the ground, but all de- 
 parting with equal speed. 
 
 The guns flamed and roared. Miss Norton now took 
 the gun from Laura, and succeeded in improving on the 
 latter's shooting by firing about as the birds passed the 
 one-hundredth yard instead of the hundred and fif- 
 tieth ; while Norton scattered leaves of green, pink, 
 
THE VALLEY QUAIL OF CALIFORNIA. 51 
 
 purple, orange, crimson, or gold behind the birds before 
 they fairly cleared the cover. 
 
 Hurrah ! At last a bird whirls over at the flash of 
 his gun ! He runs quickly ; it is only a few feet away, 
 and he is soon there, just in time to see a dark object 
 flash along the gaudy earth and disappear in a twink- 
 ling. You must drop them dead, Norton; for you might 
 as well try to catch a flash of lightning as a wounded 
 quail that has its legs all right. 
 
 " I'm completely demoralized," said Norton, as Bel- 
 ville came up, with Prince walking stiff-legged behind 
 him. " Do you think such exercise good for me, Doc- 
 tor ? I'm all out of breath," he added, wiping his brow, 
 which for the first time in many a month was wet with 
 healthful perspiration. His face glowed with unwonted 
 color, his breath came fast, and his heart throbbed with 
 an energy long unknown to it. 
 
 " So long as it comes only from pleasant excitement, 
 it is the best medicine you could have. You will eat 
 more and digest better to-day when we go back to the 
 house than you have done for a long time. If it were 
 work or alarm that wearied or excited you, it would be 
 vastly different. But, you see, you have walked scarcely 
 a quarter of a mile, and that very slowly. I did all the 
 work. You have had only the excitement and amuse- 
 ment, mixed with just exercise enough. And that is all 
 an invalid should have little work, much amusement. 
 You should never venture out hunting without a buggy 
 or saddle-horse, and should never hunt these quails 
 without a companion to break and scatter the flock; 
 which is sometimes quite a lively task, though it is not 
 
52 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 always necessary to run as I did. You can often scatter 
 them on horseback. Now you can sit down on this 
 stone and I will take a turn." 
 
 Belville again tied Prince to a bush, and went on 
 alone, while the rest remained behind and watched him. 
 The bewildering intensity of the rush and buzz in 
 which Norton had become so demoralized was over. 
 But birds were rising still at almost every step as Bel- 
 ville went on, and somber lines of blue were spinning 
 through the air all the time, a fresh bird starting before 
 the previous one disappeared. 
 
 Belville, though a good shot, was out of practice ; 
 and however wella person may understand hunting and 
 shooting, and however well he may shoot with slower 
 game, he must keep the very highest polish on his skill 
 if he would successfully trip these dark, swift-flying 
 fellows. For, remember that they rise at more than six 
 or seren yards, and are not pointed by a dog in the 
 method of hunting now described. They stand shot 
 well, too, and they will keep up like hope in the bosom 
 of a spinster. No more gamey bird flies than the Cali- 
 fornia quail, and he dies game to the last. Unless fairly 
 struck with the center of the charge, and that too at 
 close distance, they are quite apt to win the victory even 
 over the tremendous odds of the double gun in skillful 
 hands. And though Belville had long hunted quails, 
 he had not yet learned what it takes many so long to 
 learn to load for these quail with very fine shot, not 
 less than No. 10, and heavy charges of powder ; so that 
 the air in the bird's course shall be filled with flying 
 missiles, all at the highest attainable velocity. 
 
THE VALLEY QUAIL OF CALIFORNIA. 53 
 
 And therefore it was that, as Belville went on firing 
 at every eight or ten steps, many birds spun away, leav- 
 ing the spectators gazing in wonder at the cloud of 
 feathers floating back on the air. Some went for two 
 hundred yards or more zig-zagging up and down in alter- 
 nate yielding to death and victory over it, and finally 
 descended with a plunge and a bounce upon the 
 ground. Others towered swiftly upward with their gay 
 plumes in sharp relief against the sky, set their little 
 wings for a moment, and descended with a whirl down 
 the side of a ravine, where it would bother one to find 
 them ; or, if there were much prickly-pear or other cactus 
 convenient, they seemed to take especial care to select 
 an impenetrable clump of it for their last resting-place. 
 Some ran into clumps of cactus with their, last breath, 
 sat coolly down in it just beyond reach, and, while the 
 little crested heads drooped in death, cast on the hunter 
 a look that said, as plainly as words : " No, you don't, 
 Mr. Smarty." Others descended out of a thick shower 
 of feathers, and, recovering, went glimmering through 
 the bushes on foot at a speed Belville could scarcely 
 follow, even on open ground. There were some that 
 unloaded a handful of feathers at the crack of the gun, 
 and seemed to travel all the easier for it. And even 
 when killed they kicked, fluttered, bounced, and rolled 
 along the ground and down the slopes, as if determined 
 not to yield; and one fluttered out of his captor's very 
 pocket and went towering upward, after he was thought 
 to be dead. 
 
 Quite as remarkable as anything about the practiced 
 quail-shot of Southern California is his skill in picking 
 
54 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA, 
 
 up dead birds. Owing to the confusion, the swift run- 
 ning of the birds, the excitement often too much for a 
 dog to stand and the frequent lack of water, without 
 which on a warm day a dog can do little work, the quail- 
 hunter of this section often does not use a dog even to 
 retrieve dead birds, but prefers to pick them up as well as 
 find them himself. Well developed must be his bump 
 of locality, keen his eye, and quick his judgment, or 
 else in the maze of green, yellow, red, blue, white, and 
 pink, with birds buzzing and " chip-ing " on every side, 
 and with no time to lose, he will never pick up two 
 thirds of the birds he kills. But Belville had shot many 
 a quail before in this county, and whenever a bird fell 
 he went straight to the spot where it was. 
 
 Suddenly. he stopped, came back to the party, and. 
 said : " It is too bad to cripple so many. I'd rather not 
 shoot at all. But I've got a little slow from being out of 
 practice and let them get too far off before shooting. It 
 is almost time to let Prince loose, anyhow. Perhaps, now, 
 you think there are no more birds on this ground that 
 you have been over." 
 
 " I don't see how there can be, after all that got out of 
 it," said Norton. 
 
 " Well, we'll inspect it. We will go around to the lee- 
 ward of it, so as to have the dog's nose against the wind." 
 
 Prince suspended the few last bars of the variations he 
 was brilliantly improvizing upon his original touching 
 theme, and when he was untied his tail nearly thrashed 
 his sides with joy. His master made him march behind 
 until hs reached the windward side of the ground where 
 the birds had been first thoroughly scattered, and then, 
 
THE VALLEY QUAIL OF CALIFORNIA. 55 
 
 with the words "Hie on! "sent him out ahead. With 
 nose nearly even with the general level of the bushes, and 
 lashing his tail, he threaded the cover with the ease of a 
 snake. Scarcely had he wound his way from side to 
 side for fifty yards, when his tail began to slacken speed. 
 His legs improved upon the example of his tail, and his 
 tail set the legs a still better example ; the rivalry con- 
 tinuing until the whole animal was anchored like a 
 rock. 
 
 As the hunters came up beside him, he turned his head 
 a bit and cast an inquiring and anxious eye upon his 
 master, his nose twitched a little at the corners of its 
 channels, his chops seemed fairly to water with expecta- 
 tion, and his tail quivered faintly at the tip with the effort 
 to hold it rigid. 
 
 " You take first shot now. The bird is not over ten 
 feet from his nose, probably in that little bush," said Bel- 
 ville. 
 
 Norton's heart suddenly felt like a shuttle between his 
 hair antf his boots. But he advanced, smiling and confi- 
 dent, into the arena. When one step ahead of Prince, he 
 heard a quick rustle in a bush of ramiria, a defiant " chip- 
 chip-chip-chip" a dark flash was dimly seen along the 
 ground through the variegated undergrowth, and a quail 
 suddenly burst into flight, with Norton's shot mowing the 
 scarlet bells from a creeping vine twined around a buck- 
 wheat bush just behind it. But before the swift-scudding 
 streak had lengthened another yard ahead, Belville's gun 
 came up, and as the flame and smoke leaped out, a puff 
 of feathers appeared to take the place of the bird. Prince 
 lay down until the guns were loaded, and then at the word 
 
56 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 walked in, picked up the bird by the wing and brought 
 it to his master. 
 
 How unlike any Eastern game-bird is this odd little 
 combination of bluish slate, black, cinnamon, and white, 
 with its long natty black plume ! Yet the short, thick, 
 curved bill, the full swelling breast, and graceful form 
 would all show it to be unmistakably a quail, even if we 
 had not witnessed its gamey behavior. Who that has 
 not seen for himself could realize the great numbers 
 in which the birds are often found, and the brain-befud- 
 dling extravagance of their whizzing presence, when one 
 is in the midst of a large, scattered flock ? And yet, 
 if the reader will pause and reflect for a moment, he will 
 see that what appears like a " California yarn" of stupen- 
 dous size may be even below the actual truth. Consider 
 that these birds are far beyond the orbit of the market- 
 shooters, the " big-bag" louts often miscalled sportsmen, 
 and the netter and trapper ; that they do not suffer from 
 cold winters or wet breeding-seasons, the " dry year" 
 only suspending their breeding without destroying the 
 old birds. Remember, too, that in the breeding season 
 they are equally at home in the garden or the wildest 
 canon, the depths of the ravine or the high hill-top; 
 equally happy among rocks or brush, along steep hill- 
 sides or in the long grass or tangled underbrush of river 
 and creek bottoms. In timber or out of timber, by water 
 or miles from water, four thousand feet or one foot 
 above sea-level, all to them are the same. Then remem- 
 ber that they raise twelve or fifteen young, and some- 
 times nest twice in a season ; that in the fall the separate 
 bevies run together and form in packs like pinnated 
 
THE VALLEY QUAIL OF CALIFORNIA. 57 
 
 grouse ; and that even these packs sometimes run together. 
 So that sometimes all the birds bred on one, two, or three 
 thousand acres of ground, or even more, may be found 
 in a single band ; and when thus banded they are nearly 
 always found in the little valleys, and no longer in the 
 hills where most of them were bred. 
 
 The shooting soon changed character after Prince was 
 introduced. Instead of a bird in almost every bush 
 there were now not more than one in fifteen or twenty 
 yards. But the birds lay much closer than before, and 
 the shooting was more like Eastern quail or pinnated- 
 grouse shooting. Old Prince wound to and fro on a slow 
 trot, with his head and nose plainly visible above the 
 brush. Every few minutes he stopped and stood, a statue 
 such as the sculptor's art never yet portrayed, as his deli- 
 cate nose detected, by that subtle scent unknown to man^ 
 when he approached some little plumed rogue ensconced 
 in the dense wealth of flower-twined ramiria, sage, buck- 
 wheat, or sumac, unconscious of being scented. But though 
 it is far easier to shoot when one knows exactly whence 
 the bird will spring, they were still far too quick for 
 the tyro. And though Belville gave them the first shot 
 every time, neither Norton, with his nervous expedition 
 in unloading, nor the ladies, with their dilatory fumbling 
 of the gun until the bird was gone, could lower the nod- 
 ding plume of a single one. But Belville sent them whirl- 
 ing at nearly every shot, and in a short time had a bagful. 
 
 " I have enough now," he said, " but if you don't feel 
 too tired you can keep on and practice. We can find 
 birds at this rate for two or three hours yet, and a man 
 
58 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA, 
 
 low enough down to shoot for count could kill over a 
 hundred yet before night." 
 
 They were all ready to leave off the sport, however, 
 both Norton and the ladies feeling somewhat wearied 
 with exercise and excitement, and regaining their wagon 
 they drove gayly back. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 GOOSE CAVALRY DUCKS AND QUAIL. 
 
 r I ^HREE or four miles above Miner's is a small 
 A laguna, with a bank some twenty feet high on one 
 side and open flats on the other side and at each end. 
 This was known to Belville as a capital hunting-ground ; 
 and, desirous of taking his friends there, he got them 
 started at an early day. As they drove up in sight of 
 the laguna, its smooth face was seen to be dotted with 
 small dark bodies. 
 
 " Pretty liberally sprinkled with mud-hens," said Bel- 
 ville ; " still there are some ducks there. And, as sure as I 
 live, there is a flock of geese on that flat !" he added, 
 pointing to a distant line of dark gray birds standing on 
 the green sod across the pond. " If I can borrow the 
 horse of that fellow I'll try a charge on them. It's the 
 only way to get a shot." 
 
 So saying, he hailed a young Mexican who was com- 
 ing behind them on horseback, and, pointing to the 
 geese, asked him in villainous Spanish to lend him the 
 horse. 
 
 The Mexican dismounted with a smile, perhaps at the 
 Spanish, perhaps at the geese, possibly at neither. We 
 shall see. Belville mounted and ambled down to within 
 two hundred yards of the geese, on the windward side. 
 Then, on a gentle canter, he rode on a, slanting course 
 
60 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 toward one side of the flock. He did not look at them 
 at all until he got within about one hundred yards, when 
 he suddenly wheeled the horse and charged directly at 
 them on a full run. They waddled and looked, and looked 
 and waddled, until the "cavalry" got within sixty yards, 
 when they concluded it was about time to clear the 
 track. Being compelled, however, to rise against the 
 wind geese can rise down wind, but prefer up wind 
 the cavalry, in its rapid career, was within thirty-five 
 yards before the heavy birds got fairly started from the 
 ground. The confused bustling huddle of black necks, 
 white collars, dark gray backs, together with the sound 
 of heavily beating wings and the rapidly recurring " onk- 
 k-wonk onk-wonk honk fcwonk-onk" caused the horse, 
 a mere colt, to sheer a little. But the target was so 
 large that a snap-shot, the only kind possible from a run- 
 ning horse, could hardly miss it, and with the report of 
 the first barrel two geese sunk heavily to the sod. 
 
 So did Belville at about the same instant. As though 
 a keg of powder had exploded beneath him he left the 
 saddle, as the horse, springing high in air, struck ground 
 stiff-legged and with arching back. Belville sat for a 
 moment, half dazed by the jar, but finding no bones 
 broken, picked himself up, took an affectionate gaze at 
 his swiftly retiring charger, and indulged in some highly 
 philosophical observations upon mustangs. and their skill 
 in the art of "bucking." 
 
 He did not smile very much as he approached the" 
 wagon and thanked the owner of the horse. But the 
 owner did a smile fully as deep as politeness demanded ; 
 then he borrowed a bunch of matches and some tobacco 
 
GOOSE CAVALRY DUCKS AND QUAIL. 61 
 
 of Belville, and bade him good-by in a tone and with a 
 smile that said, as plainly as words, " If my horse can be 
 of any service to you next time, he is entirely yours." 
 
 At one end of the pond a little arm ran up containing 
 a few bunches of rushes, on the bank of which one of 
 Miner's boarders had built a little hut of brush close by 
 the edge a place where many a duck had been shot by 
 a lady. 
 
 " Now if one of the ladies will go and sit in that little 
 blind and wait, patient and motionless, until they light 
 close enough," said Belville, "I will go and drive up 
 some ducks. And you, Mr. Norton, I will drop over 
 there between this pond and that other little one beyond. 
 Then do you please lie flat on your back in that little 
 gully, and don't move until the ducks get right over you. 
 
 Laura took the blind and Miss Norton remained in the 
 wagon. A number of flocks of ducks had been started 
 on the wing by Belville 's shot at the geese, but had set- 
 tled again at the upper end of the pond. As the wagon 
 drove along the shore they rose, some mounting high at 
 once, others skimming low for some distance, but all in 
 one flapping, quacking, squealing mob. In a few seconds 
 they were divided off into flocks. The big mallards 
 with long projecting green necks and heads, cinnamon 
 breasts, and whitish-gray " underclothes" swung high in 
 air and marched away. The sprigtail trailed for a few 
 moments his plumed rudders along the sky, and left for 
 more retired parts. But the widgeon in large flocks 
 whistled their way on high a few times around the pond, 
 and then, setting their wings, went hissing down the air 
 toward the little pond beyond the big one. 
 
62 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 As they passed over where Norton lay, they shot 
 upward at the flame of his gun as if they had struck an 
 incline of lubricated ice ; but one at the rear of the 
 flock eliminated two or three feathers and started 
 downward at about the same angle the others took in 
 going up. Down to within three feet of the ground he 
 came, then rose again, gyrated, twisted and alighted for 
 repairs, just as Norton again took a hand in and com- 
 posed his anxiety with the second barrel. 
 
 Meanwhile a flock of teal, after scudding up and 
 down the pond a few times and executing some hand- 
 some curves at each end, wheeled into the arm of the 
 pond where Laura was posted, and settled in the water 
 about thirty yards from her little hut. She could see 
 their little beaded eyes, the green spots on the wings of 
 the gray teal, and the blue bands on the wings of the 
 cinnamon teal, all shining in the sun, and she saw them 
 wiggle their tails, lower their black bills, and swim 
 closer together. She trembled with anxiety and exulta- 
 tion as the thought crossed her mind that she might get 
 them all at one shot. And as she put the gun through 
 a little opening and fired too high, as almost every tyro 
 will do at such times, she never dreamed of the possi- 
 bility of getting less than half. But when the smoke 
 cleared away she saw the rear of the flock just swinging 
 at a rapid pace around a bunch of rushes, and the water 
 where they had sat bore not a single feather. 
 
 Norton got back into his place just as a flock of 
 spoon-bills came curving down to light in the pond 
 behind him. On they came in solid array, and his 
 expectations embarked at once in a balloon. So did his 
 
GOOSE CAVALRY DUCKS AND QUAIL. 63 
 
 judgment. The first barrel rang out, and the solid 
 ranks scattered for a second, rose and closed up again 
 in solid mass just as he pulled the second trigger full at 
 the thickest part. Not a feather, not a twist or "wabble" 
 in the flight of a single bird! Norton turned around 
 and watched them. He could hardly believe his eyes 
 as he saw them curve, sail down in orderly array, and 
 light with unruffled plumes in the distant pond. 
 
 He had little time to meditate on the causes, however, 
 for Belville was soon around to the pond with the wagon, 
 and started up that same flock and several flocks of wid- 
 geon, beside. They came along, some over Norton, others, 
 remembering the place of their late scare, sheering off, 
 others turning off to leave these quarters entirely. As a 
 flock of widgeon passed whistling over him, he raised his 
 gun too soon, and they climbed and sheered out of 
 reach ; but a flock of teal close behind them came whiz- 
 zing on in level flight, and too swiftly to change their 
 course enough to escape the gun. They sheered and 
 huddled just as Norton caught along the barrels a fair 
 sight on the center of the thickest bunch. Four wilted 
 and whirled downward at the report; another lowered 
 from the flock, and scudding downward toward the 
 pond, splashed dead into the water at its edge, while a 
 sixth mounted high in air, hung there a moment as if in 
 doubt as to which element he belonged, and then decided 
 in favor of earth. 
 
 The spoon-bills, after circling two or three times, put- 
 ting on a great amount of style, slid down the air on a 
 winding course and lit within about twenty yards of 
 Laura's blind. They looked ineffably stupid, with their 
 
64: RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 big shovel bills, but as Laura began to move her gun 
 they began to swim suspiciously away. Suddenly they 
 rose, but at the same instant she happened to shoot, and 
 two of them fell flat as a pun in the humorous column of 
 a weekly newspaper. 
 
 A flock of cinnamon teal were about to settle at the 
 same moment, but changed their minds so expeditiously 
 that Laura knocked down the roof-tree of her house in 
 trying to get a flying shot at them. Before she had time 
 to fix it another flock rounded the bunch of rushes, fly- 
 ing low along the water, and were almost upon her before 
 they sheered and rose a medley of shining cinnamon 
 jackets and flashing wings of gray and blue. As she 
 quickly raised the gun and looked along the barrel, she 
 saw, or thought she saw, the whole flock directly in line, 
 and with a smile of satisfaction pulled the trigger. The 
 smile was instantly swamped in a quagmire of wonder, 
 and to this day she can't understand how she missed 
 those ducks. 
 
 " The big ducks are all leaving," said Belville, driv- 
 ing up. " Let's go up to the Monte and lunch, and 
 when we come back we will visit the small ponds and 
 sloughs where they have gone." 
 
 Two miles over rolling green sod brought them to the 
 gate of the Monte, a long, narrow park of level, timbered 
 ground between two ranges of hills, on the one side high, 
 ragged, and rocky, on the other side lower, smoother, 
 and blazing with all the colors of the rainbow, over a 
 groundwork of soft, warm green. They rode along 
 beneath old sycamores heavily festooned with grape- 
 vines, now bright with new life, past thick jungles of 
 
GOOSE CAVALRY DUCK'S AND QUAIL. 65 
 
 wild rose and sweetbrier, by great beds of mustard 
 whose rank green was now waving in a yellow sea 
 of bloom, and heavy green elders just opening their 
 snowy millinery, until they reached a grove of 
 aged live-oaks that might have been monarchs when 
 Charlemagne was a baby. And beyond they found 
 on one side the river whirling its glittering mica 
 sands, while the hill, covered with boulders beneath 
 which sprang an abundance of lace, gold, silver, cotton, 
 and other ferns, narrowed in on the other. 
 
 Across the river rose Mt. Cajon, a stupendous wall of 
 granite nearly three thousand feet high, steep as the 
 Palisades, born of agony, nurtured by convulsion, and 
 baptized out of chaos. Here and there, through the 
 chinks in the wild mass of immense boulders that 
 covered its grizzly crest, the lilac or manzanita 
 struggled, and here and there a scrubby tree fought for 
 a foothold in some of the rifts of the great sheer wall ; 
 but all else was gray, impassive granite. Far above the 
 towering head of the mountain some dark birds were 
 winding with outstretched, motionless wing in graceful 
 curves through the soft blue air. 
 
 " How beautifully those eagles sail !" said Laura. 
 
 " Quite a natural mistake," said Belville. 
 
 " What do you mean ? Are they not eagles?" 
 
 " I'm a little afraid your knowledge of eagles has 
 been derived from poetry," said Belville. *' Except in 
 poetry and tinsel rhetoric the eagle is only a great over- 
 grown booby of a hawk, the clumsiest and most ignoble 
 of his tribe. I've seen a hare outwit him by twisting on 
 the open plain, and have found him dead by the side 
 
66 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 of a miserable sheep-stealing coyote whose poisoned vitals 
 he had been eating. No other hawk eats anything but 
 his own game. And besides, no eagle ever sails with half 
 the grace of those unpoetical things that are curling with 
 such majestic sweep above us." 
 
 " What are they, then ?" she asked, with an air of 
 mingled disappointment and skepticism. 
 
 " The Californians, who love to dignify all of the 
 productions of their native State with imposing names, 
 call them vultures ; but they are in fact buzzards 
 differing from the common buzzard only in color and 
 size, being the largest bird in the world next to the 
 condor of the Andes. But of all birds that fly their 
 motions are the most beautiful and " 
 
 " They are not either. I don't like them a bit," said 
 Laura, dropping her shining eyes upon his and trying to 
 look indignant. 
 
 " You change your opinion suddenly. A rose by any 
 other name should smell as sweet." 
 
 " Indeed it does not, though. I'll stand by the eagle, 
 and won't hear him insulted the bird of Jove and 
 America! I'm shocked at you," she retorted, with a 
 pretty pout. " One or two critics like you could spoil 
 the romance of all creation." 
 
 " I know," he said, " that to substitute a buzzard for 
 the eagle in a poem would be to dig the poem's grave. 
 I know, too, that he is indispensable to the callow city 
 scribbler who takes a summer trip to the mountains or 
 the northern lakes. The eagle on the blasted pine or 
 spreading his great vans on heaven's breeze is invalua- 
 ble to the literary upholsterer who has never seen any 
 
GOOSE CAVALRY DUCKS AND QUAIL. 67 
 
 thing of nature except through others' eyes. But 
 when " 
 
 A mellow " O-hi-o, O-hi-o, O-hi-o" ringing from a dis- 
 tant opening in the hills, interrupted him. 
 
 "I can't stand that!" said Belville. "Let's go and 
 enliven them a little." 
 
 " I'm a little tired with riding and hunting ducks," 
 said Norton, " and it may be too far for me." 
 
 "Perhaps the ladies will go, then?" 
 
 Laura answered first, saying that she would go, and 
 Miss Norton said she would stay and get the lunch 
 ready. So Belville and Miss Wilbur started for the quail. 
 
 It took but a few moments to break and scatter the 
 flock, as on the day before. 
 
 " Now, Miss Wilbur," said Belville, " I really don't care 
 whether we get a bird or not, but it will be a splendid 
 chance for you to practice, since you seem so anxious 
 to learn." 
 
 " I should be delighted to try. It's fun to see them 
 fly and shoot at them, even if you hit none." 
 
 " Then keep a little ahead of me, please, and when a 
 bird rises try and see him along that strip between 
 the barrels of the gun, and the instant you do see him, 
 pull the trigger. This flock is not so big, and therefore 
 not so bewildering as the first one you saw, which was 
 of extraordinary size even for this country." 
 
 As Laura moved ahead, a bird sprang up, with a saucy 
 " chip, chip, chip," from a bush almost beneath her feet. 
 As she raised her gun at this one, another bustled out of 
 a bush to her left with such vigor that she abandoned 
 the first and turned her gun on the second. While do- 
 
68 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 ing so she heard a rustle and a squeal in a bush to her 
 right, and a bird burst from it and scudded a few yards 
 along the ground, almost as fast as if in flight, and then 
 darted away on the wing just as she raised her gun at it ; 
 and at the same instant four or five more, buzzing and 
 squealing as they flew from a bush to her right, com- 
 pleted her confusion. 
 
 " Mercy !" she exclaimed, as soon as she could catch 
 the breath she had held all this time. "I'm too nervous. 
 I'm trembling like a leaf!" 
 
 " So is every one at first that has any fine sensibility. 
 But you mustn't allow other birds to distract your atten- 
 tion. Keep your attention on the first one you raise the 
 gun at, and shoot at that one even if it does get too far 
 away; and don't shoot until you get the gun well 
 aimed." 
 
 Another bird rose at her first step forward. As the 
 gun came to a level, she caught over its end a faint 
 glimpse of a dark blue object swiftly skimming the top. 
 of the brush. A strange feeling tingled like an electric 
 shock through her whole frame ; she was scarcely con- 
 scious of touching the trigger ; yet a shaft of flame shot 
 out, and through the rolling smoke she dimly saw a cloud 
 of fine feathers come drifting back upon the breeze, and 
 the dark blue thing was gone. 
 
 "Isn't that just splendid!" she said, with sparkling 
 eyes and rapid breath. " I never thought that shooting 
 was so nice." 
 
 " Ah ha ! Farewell now to peace of mind ; farewell 
 the dance, the piano, and the song ; farewell the lamp- 
 mat, the novel, and the tidy ; farewell embroidered cats 
 
GOOSE CAVALRY DUCKS AND QUAIL. 69 
 
 and decalcomanie vegetation ! You're gone now lost, 
 lost, lost!" 
 
 " Well, I'm awakened, surely, as you said I would be. 
 If that's any specimen of the amusement, I'm a confirmed 
 sportsman from now on." 
 
 " But it's only fair to tell you that you will have a long 
 road to journey before you can do that often. However, 
 you will find pleasure enough in hitting one out of four." 
 
 41 Oh yes, I'm sure that's enough ; for it's half the pleas- 
 ure to be out of doors amid such charming scenery, and 
 to see the birds fly and dart about so fast," she answered, 
 walking on. " I'm sure I shall learn to " 
 
 Whizz! went another bird, and bang! went the gun 
 harmlessly above it. " Chip, chip, chip" went another, as 
 the shot from the second barrel shattered a wild cucum- 
 ber hanging from a bush several feet behind it. 
 
 " Pshaw ! I haven't quite mastered it yet, have I ?" she 
 exclaimed ; then adding, as he reloaded for her, " I'm 
 wasting your cartridges, too." 
 
 " I dote on their destruction," was the gallant reply. 
 " But you must take it more easily. Don't shoot until you 
 see the bird between the barrels, and shoot a little ahead 
 of birds flying crosswise." 
 
 Another quail darted from a bush to the right, skipped 
 like a hare along the ground for a few yards, then burst 
 into full flight with a " chip* chip, chip" followed by the 
 shot of Laura's first barrel far in his rear; and whizz! 
 buzz! "chip, chip, chip" went a dozen more, drifting like 
 meteors through the smoke of the gun, while Laura 
 shifted her aim from one to the other, and finally shot 
 at vacancy. 
 
70 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 A few steps, and half a dozen more whisked out of 
 the ramiria, radiating like the branches of a fan, and 
 each made first-class time for a different point of the 
 compass. She looked at them an instant in confusion, 
 then raised the gun on one going straight away. It came 
 full in range of a careering line of gray and blue, and 
 almost automatically she pulled the trigger. 
 
 At the report, the bird rose upward ; up, up, up it 
 went, its little dark head and sable plume in clear outline 
 against the sky; but now its wings beat slower and 
 slower, it hung a moment on high, then drooped its 
 little crested head, folded its fluttering wings, and 
 dropped with a heavy thump to earth. 
 
 " Shot through the head ! Fit emblem of many another 
 crack-brain whose towering has only increased the vio- 
 lence of his fall," said Belville, as he picked up the bird 
 and brought it to her. 
 
 "Oh, I feel so sorry for the poor little thing! " she 
 said, with sad November morning in her expression. 
 "But isn't this delightful?" she added a moment after, 
 with a June noonday in its place. 
 
 Strange passion indeed ! That even a woman should 
 draw pleasure from the sufferings of poor little innocents ! 
 Yet what avail sentimental arguments against what is 
 as fixed as the eternal hills? The taste is there, im- 
 planted by the Creator ; not intended to lie dormant, for 
 it is too intense to be given for nothing. The highest 
 and noblest of our race have bowed to it, and each year 
 the throng of votaries increases. And what, after all, 
 are the arguments against it but the old plea of prefer- 
 ring the incidental before the essential? One might 
 as well say that the pleasure of riding lay in the suffering 
 
GOOSE CAVALRY DUCKS AND QUAIL. 71 
 
 of the horse that is compelled to travel against his will, 
 as to say that the pain of bird or fish is anything but an 
 unpleasant, although unavoidable, incident of hunting or 
 fishing. 
 
 "You're doing remarkably well," said Belville en- 
 couragingly. " Killing two birds the first day is rare 
 even for a man." 
 
 " Oh, now you're flattering." 
 
 "May I never speak again if" A bird here rose 
 with noisy wing, curled to the left of Laura, and passed 
 almost over Belville's head. As she raised the gun 
 Belville was hidden by the barrels, and when she fired 
 and took down her gun he lay flat upon the ground. 
 
 A shriek that might have waked the mummy of an 
 Egyptian deaf-mute nearly froze the wine in the lunch- 
 basket at the wagon. As the echo died away along the 
 wall of Mount Cajon, Belville raised his head and said, 
 
 "Why, what's the matter?" 
 
 "Oh, Doctor! how could you scare me so?" she 
 gasped. 
 
 " Scare you ? Why, I only dropped out of your way, 
 and stayed there, so as to give you a clear field for your 
 second barrel : a thing one should always do when a bird 
 comes near." 
 
 "You lay so long ! I thought you were shot/' 
 
 " Perhaps I did lie a little longer than was absolutely 
 necessary. But I wanted to be sure the shot had got past. 
 This San Diego powder is a little slow sometimes." 
 
 "I thought all powder was quick enough?" said she. 
 
 " Everything is slow in this country life, death, rail- 
 roads, debtors, and all, and the presumption is strongly 
 in favor of the slowness of the powder," he replied. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A GLANCE AT THE OLDEN TIME. 
 
 HERE is a vast quadrangle of earthen wall and 
 ruins, and our friends now stand musing in 
 it. Who built and trod this long array of doorways, 
 arches, galleries, and storied tiers of rooms, all now crum- 
 bling to decay ? How quickly the past rises before the 
 spectators as they gaze on the wreck of what was once 
 the stateliest structure of California, and contemplate what 
 has been spared by the Vandal hand that for a few paltry 
 tiles has despoiled this noble shrine ! These long colon- 
 nades and fretted arches, the long walls of adobe run- 
 ning in all directions, the rough mounds of earth that 
 were once the walls of many houses, all speak of departed 
 greatness. In one corner stands the massive church and 
 tower inside of which, as in the olden days, is still the 
 rudely-painted altar where thousands of dusky worship- 
 ers have bowed. High in the tower, where the cactus 
 bristles from the rents of time, still hangs the bell that 
 called to prayer the tenants of the fallen tombs in the 
 graveyard below. But within and without all is now 
 silent as the grave. 
 
 Sneer not, you who have "been abroad." When you 
 contrast this relic with St. Peter's, remember that the 
 nand that sprung these arches and this dome, that laid 
 out these great walls, leveled these floors, and raised these 
 
A GLANCE AT THE OLDEN TIME. 73 
 
 colonnades so plumb, had no artisans to follow out its paper 
 plans, and possessed few tools but those of the roughest 
 sort ; no nails, but only rawhide lashings ; no wagons, 
 carts almost nothing but the raw material. There were 
 no workmen but the wild and lazy Indians, the stupidest 
 of their race, speaking a strange language, caring for 
 nothing but food, and watchful of nothing but a chance 
 to steal. From yonder mountain, thirty miles away and 
 six thousand feet high, those beams were carried yes, 
 carried, on Indian shoulders; for there were then no 
 wagons or teams, nor yokes of oxen to drag them. 
 
 Think of the toil, the patience, the nerve no, the un- 
 dying faith, for nothing else could have done it that 
 was necessary to superintend every inch of that massive 
 work, from the digging of the dirt or hewing of the tim- 
 ber to the painting of the altar; and remember that the 
 brain that directed it all was trained only to the work of 
 the cloister and the confessional, and was thousands and 
 thousands of miles from supplies or skilled help. 
 
 All now speaks only of death and decay. Yet there was 
 a time when busy life streamed daily through these portals; 
 when the dust of business whirled daily in these courts; 
 when all these buildings were thronged with dusky arti- 
 sans, vibrating between work, atole, and prayer; when 
 , thousands of Indians not dragooned, for there were no 
 soldiers to do it bowed to the persuasive will of a single 
 priest who had left home, friends, civilization, and com- 
 forts of every kind, for their sake alone; when thirty 
 thousand cattle, ten thousand horses, and thousands of 
 sheep roamed these rolling hills around us. Quietly this 
 little world moved on, without feeling the jars that shook 
 
74 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 the greater sphere. They scarcely knew, until it was 
 over, of the paltry scuffle for empire on the Atlantic 
 coast ; and when Napoleon was thundering at the doors 
 of Europe the echoes died away thousands of miles from 
 their peaceful hearths. They lived, built, worked, taught, 
 prayed, and died, their lives one long, lingering summer 
 day, until Mexican cupidity eclipsed its peaceful sun. 
 
 What sadness must have possessed the souls of the 
 padres as they then hastened to put a barren sceptre 
 into the hand of the secular invader, turned the Indians 
 loose among the fattened herds, tore up the vineyards, 
 threw down the wine-press, and dismantled the pictured 
 shrines ! Yet even sadder is the thought that this grand 
 old ruin of the mission of San Luis Rey is, like all 
 the missions of California, also doomed to destruction 
 through apathy, stupidity, and Vandalism, aided by a 
 bigotry that refuses to let others save what it will not or 
 cannot save itself. 
 
 After passing over a few miles of smooth, rolling hills 
 clad with wild oak, alfileria, clover, and mustard, our 
 party of hunters descended into the fair valley of Santa 
 Margarita, part of the princely estate of Don Juan 
 Forster, and in a short time they reached the ranch- 
 house itself. 
 
 This place is a relic of that golden age of California 
 life which lay between the decline of the missions and 
 the invasion of the Yankee. Here still stands the old 
 ranch-house, a great quadrangle of adobe, built around 
 a court-yard, the seat of a little empire of thirty square 
 leagues of land, much of it the very best in Southern 
 California, The great walls, nearly a yard thick, hint 
 
A GLANCE AT THE OLDEN TIME. 75 
 
 strongly of cool days in summer and warm nights in 
 winter. The long massive beams, cut in the mountains 
 thirty miles away; the rafters lashed with rawhide 
 instead of being nailed; the old red tiles made by the 
 mission Indians and held in place by their own weight 
 all speak of the difficulties of building in those days. 
 . ct the whole is massive and strong, and will stand for 
 many a year to come when far more costly structures are 
 decayed. Here still, as in bygone days, may be heard 
 the whizz of the riata thrown by the skillful hand ; for 
 here yet linger a very few of that almost extinct race, the 
 old vaqueros of California men who could, single- 
 handed, ride down, lasso, and bind the wild bull of the 
 hills on a mountain- side where a city rider would hardly 
 dare to lead a horse. 
 
 Here, too, may still be seen another fast-fading relic, 
 the hospitable old Spanish gentleman of the olden time. 
 An Englishman by birth and a Spaniard by adoption, 
 Don Juan Forster is well fitted to be the grandee that he 
 has been and dispense the rare old hospitality to all the 
 world that he has so long dispensed. Uniting the vir- 
 tues of both races, without the vices of either unless 
 liberality be a vice two generations have looked upon 
 him with no feeling of envy, but only of friendly pride. 
 And though, for the interests of the country, many will 
 rejoice that his immense estate is thrown open to settle- 
 ment, there are still many who will regret the loss of 
 this grand memento of the olden time. 
 
 Despise not, my stylish friend, that olden time. The 
 handsome rosewood and massive mahogany furniture of 
 antique pattern, the laces and the linen of the fineness, 
 
76 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 solidity, and patterns of the past, and many other ancient 
 household articles, show plainly that comfort and luxury 
 were even then not strangers in this wild land. 
 
 But what if they were? What if the great adobe houses 
 lacked the tinsel frippery of more pretentious mansions ? 
 Spend a few hot days in their cool recesses when your 
 modern house of clear lumber, scroll-work, brackets and 
 cornices is heated through by the sun, and you will 
 begin to think it just possible that cheapness was not the 
 sole motive in building of sun-dried mud. What if their 
 tables lacked the fare that tickles the palate and makes the 
 undertaker smile ? They repaired their fleshly tenements 
 with the solid oak and not the gilded pine; and they 
 and their children show the difference. What if they 
 lounged not on silken sofas or gazed on no costly daubs ? 
 They took their ease in the saddle, and their eyes 
 rested daily on pictures that art can never degrade to 
 canvas. 
 
 If they had no railroads, they could travel from San 
 Diego to the farthest northern settlement without a cent 
 a proceeding that savors of bankruptcy in these 
 enlightened days. They had no newspapers, but they 
 knew not the torture of the column of bad puns, and 
 cared nothing for the advent of triplets in Mr. Snipe's 
 family in Texas, or for the abrogation of Barney Mul- 
 doon's optic in a Bowery row. They had no telegraphs, 
 but also no mining-stock reports to steal away their 
 brains and money; no imposing school-houses with big 
 cupolas, but no bonds to swamp them with taxes; few 
 novels or none, but also few lazy girls. They had no 
 aristocratic pups, hammerless breech-loaders, or repeat- 
 
A GLANCE AT THE OLDEN TIME. 77 
 
 ing rifles ; but they could lasso the grizzly and drag him 
 alive from his mountain home. 
 
 Rude was their system of justice ; but they had no 
 probate courts or public administrators. They had no 
 doctors or lawyers ; but then they died without expensive 
 assistance, and their families got at least one per cent 
 of the property they left. Living in true patriarchal 
 style, surrounded by plenty of the solid necessaries of 
 life, with plenty of servants that cost only their board, 
 with nothing to do but look after their herds, roll cigar- 
 itas, attend fandangos and meriendas, and warble their 
 beautiful language, they drifted down the stream of time 
 without touching oar or rudder or striking sand-bars 
 or snags. 
 
 That soft Arcadian day is gone. Its twilight still lingers 
 in a few places, but its sun has set forever. Our country- 
 men came and were welcomed; for, contrary to the com- 
 mon belief, the majority of Californians were anxious for 
 the change. We came with our usual Yankee conceit 
 and our prejudice against everything that comported not 
 with our notions of " progress" all strengthened by the 
 prejudice against Mexicans imbibed during the war with 
 them. We came to load them with ruinous costs and 
 atrocious lawyers' fees to maintain those vested rights of 
 property which all nations respect ; to squat on their 
 ranches and live on their cattle ; to pass laws to destroy 
 their only industry, and, as time has proved, the best 
 industry of this southern country. We came to lend them 
 money at five per cent a month, and trap them into con- 
 tracts to pay it for a long enough time to sweep away 
 their homes with the mortgage. We came to turn up the 
 
78 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 parvenu proboscis at Indian-bred and Castilian-bred 
 alike, and treated as "greasers" some who were our 
 equals in every respect and the superiors of many of the 
 upstart Americans who sneered at them. 
 
 I do not believe that justice has ever been done to the 
 Spanish of California ; and this is not the place to do it 
 even if I were fully qualified for the task. But such 
 ideas as are generally obtained from newspaper and 
 magazine articles about Texas and New Mexico convey 
 a very false idea of the Spanish of California. Their 
 names are written high upon the roll of honor of the 
 State ; and they have been among the best and most 
 honest of State and county officials, and the most incor- 
 ruptible and impartial of judges. No more law-abiding 
 or better citizens exist than the upper half of the Span- 
 ish, and it is difficult to see wherein the lower half are 
 any worse than the lower half of American society. If 
 they are, it is only because they have bettered the instruc- 
 tion of excellent and faithful teachers. Their "laziness," 
 so much talked about, is precisely what that of the 
 Western farmer would be if overwhelmed by a horde of 
 Chinese, who should pass laws that virtually compelled 
 him to abandon his way of making money and adopt 
 theirs, of which he knew nothing, and which would 
 barely make him a living. If their possessions are gra- 
 dually slipping from them and their lands passing into 
 the stranger's hand, it is due to the laws and the heavy 
 taxes we have forced upon them much more than to either 
 their own improvidence or want of thrift. And when 
 more than half the Americans are going the same road, 
 we might as well acknowledge that we do not know all 
 
A GLANCE AT THE OLDEN TIME. 79 
 
 about the best way to make a living in Southern Cali- 
 fornia, and that the old inhabitants did know at least 
 something of that art ; for it is certain that they were 
 nearly all wealthy and wanted nothing. 
 
 After their visit to the old mission our friends were 
 glad to sit down under Don Juan Forster's great front 
 porch and look down the valley toward the sea, just as 
 the flood-tide of rosy mist began to flow in from the sink- 
 ing sun, and the soft carpet of the high smooth hills to 
 run through all shades of purple, green, and gold. The 
 waves of light ran rippling over the rolling slopes of sil- 
 very-green wild oats; the emerald meadow in front was 
 dotted with horses and cattle ; the wild geese and brant in 
 clamorous mobs were marching in from the coast ; the 
 wild ducks in whizzing flocks scudded up and down the 
 valley ; here and there a snipe was pitching and squeak- 
 ing aloft ; the sand-hill cranes, with dolorous " gr-r-rooo, 
 gr-r-rooo" were floating across the blue zenith ; the white 
 pelican, the egret, or the swan was winging its solemn 
 way toward the Laguna ; and from the canons came the 
 clear " ohio, ohio" of the valley quail. 
 
 "It seems like an enchanted land, does it not?" said 
 Laura. " I don't wonder so many people fall in love with 
 California." 
 
 " You are now seeing it at its best. There are times 
 when it is different from this," said Don Juan, with a 
 frankness that is too rare among the Californians when 
 any question about California comes up. " We expe- 
 rience here three kinds of winter: First, the 'good' 
 winter, when there is just about rain enough, and that 
 properly distributed. Then vegetation is at its climax, 
 
80 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 crops are good, the sloughs and ponds have plenty of 
 water, and geese and ducks, as well as other game, are 
 plenty. Second, the 'medium' year, when there is not 
 rain enough (or not properly distributed), to make much 
 more than half a crop of grass and grain, but when there 
 is still enough to feed all stock and cover most of the 
 expenses of the settler. The first of these may be too 
 wet for the very sick invalid, the second will be about 
 right, and there is a third will suit him exactly if he 
 wants only clear, warm weather and has no sympathy for 
 a suffering land. 
 
 " But who with a sentient soul can behold the ' dry ' or 
 'bad ' winter and not feel sorrowful? Day after day and 
 week after week the sun climbs the unclouded sky, sinks 
 into his ocean bed of silver, carmine, and gold, and 
 flames next morning at the eastern gate with as smiling 
 a face as that of a just-accepted lover. At long intervals, 
 as if in mockery of our hopes, a very few rain-drops patter 
 gently on the roof. And once or twice there may be enough 
 of a shower to tempt one to borrow an umbrella, but not 
 long enough to make him yield to the temptation to 
 keep it. 
 
 "But January treads on the heels of February, and 
 February joins March in the long procession of bright 
 days, with a smiling face above and sad and sickening faces 
 below. Then yonder rolling hills of velvet green are 
 brown and bare ; the violets and the alfileria, called 
 out by the first good rain-spirt, curl up and wither 
 away, or seed out at an inch high ; the earth yields no 
 interest on the farmer's loan ; the bee returns empty to 
 his hive ; the quail declines to mate ; the hare retires 
 

 A GLANCE AT THE OLDEN TIME. 81 
 
 like a monk to the cloisters of the rocks ; and the goose 
 returns disgusted to the north. Then the ewe deserts 
 her new-born lamb, and the raven begins to feed on her 
 even before she lies down to die. The ox or the horse 
 staggers to the spring and is unable to return ; bloated 
 and weary, the overworked buzzards sit around on the 
 corral fence; and still nature keeps up a steady dress- 
 parade of fine weather, and the sun smiles on, smiles on, 
 as bright and soft as if bound on an errand of mercy in- 
 stead of an errand of death." 
 
 As he finished this doleful description, Don Juan 
 shrugged his shoulders, with a gesture of resignation ; 
 and then, recovering his wonted demeanor, he rose, and 
 with a smile excused himself to provide for the entertain- 
 ment of his guests within. 
 
 " Many people are very much disappointed with 
 California and do not like it," said Belville, after his 
 host's departure. "It has been so absurdly overpraised 
 by some writers who, not content with dipping their 
 quills into the rainbow, must upset the whole brill- 
 iant affair altogether and splash it over their pages, 
 that thousands have come here hoping to enjoy the felic- 
 ities of heaven without the preliminary of dying. And 
 nobody who has taken his ideas from these hyperdia- 
 bolical books hyperbolical I mean, but it's all the same 
 in this case can feel anything but a bitter disappoint- 
 ment when he comes to California. All this has pro- 
 duced a reaction, until it is now the fashion to be quite 
 as unjust on the other side." 
 
 " I don't think it fair to make California responsible 
 for the imaginations of writers," said Laura. 
 
82 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 " Of course no writer can guard against every miscon- 
 ception," said Belville. "But every writer is bound to 
 know that certain mistakes will surely be made unless 
 guarded against. And where a book is written expressly 
 to induce immigration, as some have been, it is wicked 
 not to provide against misconstruction, to say nothing of 
 assertions positively false." 
 
 " But suppose you were writing up our hunting trip, 
 you would not describe days of poor shooting, would 
 you?" 
 
 " Such thing would not be a guide-book. Besides, 
 fully detailed descriptions of hunting trips are always a 
 bore, and every one of sense enough to read about such 
 things at all knows that there are times and places in 
 the best of hunting countries where the shooting is poor. 
 If he should infer from anything I wrote about the hunt- 
 ing, scenery, or climate that he had better cut adrift 
 from good moorings at home and anchor his bark in El 
 Cajon, or any other place, as a farmer or fruit-grower, he 
 could not blame me if he found himself mistaken. But 
 if I allowed him to think that game grew on every bush 
 when, as you have seen, there are thousands of acres 
 without a feather ; or to think that he could get all the 
 shooting he wanted in a short stroll on foot from any 
 house when, as you know, a buggy or saddle-horse is 
 nearly as indispensable to comfort as the gun is to suc- 
 cess ; I should be doing wrong." 
 
 " Do you think any one would believe it, anyhow, if 
 you should tell the plain, unvarnished truth?" asked 
 Norton. 
 
 " Oh yes," said Belville. " The beauty of California 
 
A GLANCE AT THE OLDEN TIME. 83 
 
 in spring is quite generally conceded even by those who 
 dislike it most, and it is granted by all Californians 
 that in a good year the southern part is the richest 
 in flowers. It is also well known that California is one 
 of the best, if not the very best, of states in the Union 
 for game ; although, except for quails and perhaps rab- 
 bits, the northern part is the best. It is generally known 
 by all well informed on hunting matters that hundreds 
 of farmers in the north have to employ ' goose cavalry,' 
 or mounted men with guns, to keep the geese off their 
 fields." 
 
 "And I should have to do so here if I raised wheat," 
 said Don Juan, as he came out to invite the party in- 
 doors to take some wine, a beverage very different from 
 the California wine so often seen East, which contains 
 more headache than a green-hickory club. 
 
 " California is pretty well known, too, as the best of 
 all the states for camping out, and the easiest and most 
 comfortable generally for all out-of-door campaigning, 
 especially for ladies, thousands of whom hunt, fish, and 
 camp out every year," added Belville to Norton, as they 
 left the porch. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AMONG THE GEESE AND CRANES. 
 
 THE next morning, under a sky of spotless blue, 
 the wagon rattled down the valley toward the sea, 
 with a jolly quartet on pleasure bent. The hills seemed 
 to swim in a luminous mist of green, their round heads 
 powdered with diamond and gold dust, their sides robed 
 in the silvery green of the wild oats. The wealth of 
 flowers our friends had seen in other valleys was missing 
 here; but there was still exuberance enough, for the small 
 pink stars of the alfileria twinkled from every slope, the 
 scarlet of the cardinal flower gleamed here and there, the 
 poppy blazed in small patches along the distant meadows, 
 in places along the far-off hills glowed banks of violets 
 or the orange-colored toroso flared in gaudy pride, while 
 far up along the hill-tops the white and purple yuccas with 
 their tall staffs and enormous plumes stood like sentinels 
 of the land. 
 
 Along by little sloughs and ponds where cinnamon 
 teal, green-wings, widgeon, and other ducks were diving, 
 muddling, or floating; where great pelicans rode at an- 
 chor, and blue cranes and white egrets stood along the 
 shore in solemn dignity and hungry hopefulness; past 
 meadows where far-off troops of geese stood like ten- 
 pins on the greensward, and brant were pitching and 
 tumbling from on high with clanging cackle, they made 
 their way. 
 
AMONG THE GEESE AND CRANES. 85 
 
 " Why don't you stop ? I should think there was 
 game enough here," said Norton. 
 
 "I'm bound for headquarters," was Belville's answer 
 as he cracked his whip over the spinning team. 
 
 Suddenly he stopped, and pointing to three large white 
 birds in a pond some three hundred yards away that to 
 the rest of the party looked like pelicans, he took his 
 favorite Winchester rifle, and jumping from the wagon, 
 made a long detour to get behind a heavy fringe of 
 rushes that grew along one side of the pond. This 
 brought him to within fifty yards of the birds ; but while 
 he had been going around they had drifted away from 
 where he had first caught sight of them, so that when he 
 raised his head, a little too carelessly, to find them, they 
 saw him first. 
 
 They rose with surprising ease and grace for birds so 
 large, and floated upward against the rising breeze, while 
 ball after ball from the swift-repeating rifle splashed the 
 water and went singing gayly over the flowery meadow 
 beyond. But at the fifth shot the hindmost bird wavered, 
 and fell with heavy splash. 
 
 As the wagon drove up and they looked at the snowy 
 plumage, the long neck, the black feet and bill, it needed 
 little guessing to tell what it was. 
 
 "Why, it's a swan, isn't it!" exclaimed Laura. "How 
 could you do such a wicked thing? Isn't the down soft 
 and lovely ! Can't I have it ? I feel so sorry for the 
 poor thing, so innocent and snowy. What a lovely trim- 
 ming that down will make! I'm going to have it, am I 
 not?" 
 
 "Of course," said Belville. " I only shot it for you." 
 
86 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 " How can you lay the poor creature's death on me ?" 
 said she reproachfully. "But what lovely down, and 
 so much of it!" she added, turning up the feathers; 
 and then said, archly, " couldn't you get the other two ?" 
 
 A few moments more brought them within sight of 
 the sea. Long, lazy breakers were booming with per- 
 functory grumble upon the shore, and beyond them lay 
 sleeping the deep, gentle monster, its soft blue face 
 reflecting the smiling vault above, more like a mill-pond 
 on a still summer day than the mightiest of oceans. 
 
 And now the " honk" of the old gray goose, which they 
 had heard at intervals ever since they reached the 
 ranch, came ringing in from a hundred directions, until 
 the deep, mellow tones mingled in one uproarious din. 
 Hundreds of geese were rising here and there, hundreds 
 were riding the light ripples of the bays and inlets, hun- 
 dreds standing along the shores and on the flats and 
 meadows. 
 
 Belville drove to a piece of low mesa, or table-land, on 
 one side, where stood great flocks of geese that went 
 waddling off a few steps and rose in flight as the wagon 
 came on. Far off along the mesa, looking like bands 
 of sheep, were flocks of sand-hill cranes. Along the 
 sloughs ducks in varied flocks were whizzing, while 
 gulls and numerous other sea-birds were flapping lazily 
 about. * 
 
 " We had better make a specialty of geese to-day," 
 said Belville. "I'll take you to Temecula, a much bet- 
 ter place for ducks, same other day. Now I want you 
 to stay where I put you, please. Keep perfectly still 
 when anything comes, and don't move a muscle until it 
 
AMONG THE GEESE AND CRANES. 87 
 
 is within good shot. Hide as close as you can, have 
 plenty of patience, and don't shoot at anything unless 
 you can see its eyes or hear its wings plainly. Stay in 
 one place, and don't leave it because you think you see a 
 better one somewhere else." 
 
 He then placed Norton in the grassy head of a little 
 gulch into which the sun was shining warmly. Miss 
 Norton he posted in a little clump of bushes in the 
 head of another little gulch about two hundred yards 
 farther on. He and Laura then went some three hundred 
 yards beyond, to a large bush of the Heteromeles arbuti- 
 folia that stood at the head of another little grassy gulch. 
 
 " I'll stay here with you long enough to show you how, 
 and then will go to another place," he said to his com- 
 panion. 
 
 " It seems almost incredible that this is only the last 
 week of February," said she, looking at the rank mat of 
 alfileria that lay all around her with its little pink blos- 
 soms and long pin-like seed. 
 
 A deep, silvery "honk" so close that it thrilled her to 
 the soul, startled her from her composure, and as she 
 seized the gun a quick wtff, iviff, miff of heavy wings in 
 sheering flight told her that she had been seen. Before 
 she could get into position to shoot, the geese were some 
 eighty yards away and drifting off to one side. 
 
 Belville sat laughing and unconcerned. 
 
 "You see you've got something besides an ordinary 
 goose to deal with," he said. "He who takes the Anser 
 Canadensis for a fool is badly mistaken. Now, if you had 
 been perfectly still with your hand on your gun and the 
 gun in such position that you could raise it in a moment, 
 
88 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 that flock would have come directly over you. These 
 are not at all like Anser Humanus. They are not at all 
 susceptible, and are very shy of a lady." 
 
 "They don't look as if they had a bit of romance 
 about them," Laura responded. "The human goose 
 generally has too much." 
 
 "That is why he is so easy to capture, I suppose. 
 But now crouch low and don't move. Look up there." 
 
 A long string of white birds with black-tipped wings 
 was bearing down upon them from the north, not ovei 
 twenty feet above the level of the ground. They seemed 
 nearly as large as the gray goose, but flew with a more 
 rapid wing and made a hoarse "gaak, gaakj" as they 
 came along. 
 
 "Now let slip the dogs of war!" whispered Belville, as 
 the birds were about twenty yards from the bush. 
 
 The gun flashed, there was a tremendous bustle and 
 beating of wings and a wild array of flashing white and 
 black in the air, and one of the flock with broken pinion 
 came whirling down almost upon her head. 
 
 " What a beauty ! , What is it ?" she exclaimed, as Bel- 
 ville caught it. " A white goose, isn't it ?" 
 
 " That's the white goose, or white brant as they are 
 sometimes called. That was splendidly done for your 
 first attempt; but as these geese are not very good you 
 had better reserve your energies for the others." 
 
 " Then why did you let me kill the poor thing?" 
 
 " To tell the truth, I did not tiink you would hit any." 
 
 "And you expected to have a good laugh at me?" 
 
 " No, I should have felt only sorry at the failure of so 
 promising a disciple," 
 
AMONG THE GEESE AND CRANES. 89 
 
 "And do you think me really promising? Shall I 
 really learn to shoot ?" 
 
 " If you continue as you have begun, you certainly will." 
 
 At this moment they heard the bang ! of a gun from 
 Norton's stand and a confused huddle of swerving geese 
 above it, but never a sound of falling game. Away 
 drifted the prey over where his sister was, and a report 
 from her gun sent them all climbing heavenward. 
 
 ".Miss Norton's gun is too lightly loaded, I'm afraid," 
 said Belville. " But I was afraid to load her cartridges 
 heavier, as she is not used to shooting. You have the 
 heavier gun which does not kick so much." 
 
 A few minutes more and a V-shaped bunch of large 
 dark birds with slowly moving wing and long necks out- 
 stretched came swinging down upon them with a clear, 
 liquid-toned 4< honk, honk!" 
 
 "Don't move a muscle!" whispered Belville. "Now 
 salute them!" he said, half a minute later, as he sprang 
 to his feet and began to dispense hissing lead from his 
 own rifle. 
 
 Dark and bewildering was the confusion of big 
 bodies, huge wings, and outstretched necks into which 
 Laura fired ; but one only came down, and that one shot 
 through with a ball from Belville 's rifle. 
 
 "How could I have missed the rest?" she asked in 
 wonder. 
 
 " Have you ever seen some fair enchantress shoot a f a 
 
 whole flock of the Anser Humanus without hitting any?' 
 
 "One generally hits them all," she answered defiantly. 
 
 " I stand corrected. But none were mortally wounded 
 
 this time feathers only ruffled a little." 
 
90 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 "Proceed with your illustration." 
 
 "If she would take a dead aim on some particular one 
 she might wing him." 
 
 " Even so. I'll try and do it next time. 
 
 "It's the only safe rule in shooting at a flock of any 
 kind to pick out a single bird. And with large birds this 
 is indispensable. Those geese were not over fifteen] 
 yards distant, and at that distance shot from that gun 
 does not scatter six inches." 
 
 *' Hadn't you better take the gun ? It's a pity to spoil 
 your pleasure. You could have easily shot two with it 
 that time," said Laura. 
 
 " But I didn't come to procure nutriment, nor to make 
 a big score to boast over. I detest hunting for either of 
 such purposes. Of course I like to get something, but I \ 
 would rather shoot two geese flying with a rifle than ten 
 with a shot-gun. The two are enough when you get 
 them, and the skill required to get them with a rifle is 
 five times that necessary with a shot-gun." 
 
 " Oh, I see ! It's the case of bow versus gun in another 
 shape. I wish I had my bow with me," 
 
 " I think you will find the murderous gun requires 
 skill enough at first to sufficiently amuse you, When 
 you cloy on the ease of shooting with that, the rifle will 
 then afford some scope to your desire to do something 
 not too easy. When you get satiated with the ease of 
 hitting with that again, you can fall back on the pistol. 
 And behind them all as a last resort, when wearied with 
 your own skill, stands the immortal long-bow." 
 
 " How sarcastic you are about the bow ! It's a noble 
 weapon," said she with an affected pettishness. 
 
AMONG THE GEESE AND CRANES. 91 
 
 " So it is. Only too noble for common use, on flying 
 game. See now yonder great birds that seem to be only 
 floating in the air, whose clear penetrating cry we hear 
 so far away. What could the bow do with them ? I de- 
 clare, they are coming this way, too ! Here, let me put 
 some long-range cartridges in your gun, for they are 
 high up. Now keep still as death, and don't move even 
 an eyelid until they are over us." 
 
 Louder and clearer came the tremolo of that piercing 
 note the sand-hill crane sends from on high ; and swiftly 
 the huge birds came sailing on, though to the eye their 
 flight seems slow. 
 
 " Shoot at the leader," he whispered, as they swept by 
 some fifty yards to the right and the same distance above 
 the ground 
 
 At the report, one ashen-gray body, an awkward 
 looking conglomeration of long neck and legs and great 
 wings came whirling and flapping down amid the ring- 
 ing " gr-r-r-r-o-o-o, gr-r-r-r-o-o-o T of its fast-scatter- 
 ing comrades. It landed on its feet and started off on 
 a dignified walk. 
 
 As Belville and Laura ran up to it, it rose up, tall 
 almost as a nian, with the feathers on its head bristled 
 up and its long dagger-like beak aimed at the party. 
 Its eyes scintillated with strange fire and its whole as- 
 pect bespoke defiance. 
 
 " Keep back !" said Belville, " they're a dangerous kind 
 of snipe. You keep him at bay until I can get a rope. 
 He's only wing-tipped." 
 
 He ran back to the wagon and got a piece of rope, in 
 
92 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 which he made a running noose, and coiling it like a 
 riata threw it over the head of the bird. 
 
 " Now hold this," said he, handing the end to Laura, 
 " and if he comes at you, run and keep your face away 
 from him." 
 
 He then took some small cord, and going to the 
 opposite side easily noosed the crane, when it drew the 
 first cord tight. It was then the work of only a moment 
 to muffle the great beak with a handkerchjef and a buck- 
 skin glove, and to hobble the long legs, and the captive 
 was safe. 
 
 " And now what will you do with your elephant ?" said 
 Belville. 
 
 Laura looked at the prisoner with admiration and 
 pride ; her dark eyes sparkled in the sun, and her cheeks 
 were flushed as with wine. Belville thought he had never 
 seen any one so handsome as she appeared at that mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "I'll keep him for you to take home, if you wish," 
 Belville offered. " These birds make very gentle pets, and 
 are cunning as can be. Such a dandy as that would 
 make a rare sensation in Boston. We'll go into part- 
 nership with him immediately," he added, as he cut a 
 stake and fastened the bird on the sod about twenty yards 
 from their hiding-place, and then took off the muffling 
 from his bill. 
 
 They sat there half an hour more, but nothing came 
 near. A few flocks of geese and brant flapped lazily by 
 out of reach. The captive decoy trilled out occasion- 
 ally a cry to his distant friends on the mesa. Troops 
 of geese and brant were seen standing on the grass far 
 

 -AMONG THE GEESE AND CRANES. 93 
 
 out of shot; and there was an occasional flash and 
 smoke from the blinds where Norton and his sister were, 
 but nothing falling. Belville seemed much more interest- 
 ed in talking to Laura than in watching for game, and was 
 making some extravagant-sounding promises about get- 
 ting her a shot at a deer, when a shrill " gr-r-r-o-o-o /" 
 above made him drop a cigar he had just lit. A long 
 string of cranes with stiffened wings outspread was slid- 
 ing down the air directly toward the captive, who also 
 was making some apparently very expressive remarks. 
 
 Unable to restrain her impatience, and deceived in 
 distance by the immense size of the approaching birds, 
 Laura fired before they got within sixty yards of her, 
 and as they bounded upward and swerved to either side 
 she sent the second barrel into the flapping mass of gray. 
 Three balls from Belville's rifle spun whizzing among 
 them, but not even a feather came as a result. 
 
 " You'd better take the gun and stay here alone," said 
 Laura, "else we will get nothing at all. I'll go back to 
 the wagon, where I will not disturb any one." 
 
 " Then I'll go too. I'll try and get you a shot out of 
 the wagon. I don't know how it will work, for they are 
 wild now, but early in the season a wagon can often be 
 driven close enough for a shot. But, if we are not com- 
 ing back here, as we p'robably shall not, we had better 
 release this crane, and let him do the best he can without 
 our protecting care." 
 
 " We'll have to leave you here for the present," he 
 said, as they passed Norton and his sister. " We are 
 going to try for a shot from the wagon, and want it as 
 light as possible for fast driving." 
 
94 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 He took out the back seat and all superfluous loading, 
 and drove out with Laura upon the long stretch of sod that 
 sloped away to the sea. He swung around to the wind- 
 ward side of a large flock of geese, and started on a line 
 that would carry him some thirty yards to one side of 
 them, 
 
 "Now," said he, " keep your gun ready, but don't look 
 at them at all until I slacken the speed of the wagon. 
 Then shoot as quick as you can." 
 
 Looking straight ahead, yet watching from the corner of 
 his eye, he sent the horses on a spinning trot. The great 
 birds sat watching them until they had come within fifty 
 yards. Then they began to waddle a little, and as Bel- 
 ville hurriedly stopped the wagon they rose in a clanging 
 hubbub. Laura fired, but nothing stopped, and far and 
 near the mesa resounded with their cries. 
 
 " The wind is not strong enough to make them rise 
 toward us, as I had hoped," he said. " But we'll try that 
 flock yonder." 
 
 He pointed to a row of distant heads that looked like 
 a line of stakes just visible above the grass, and headed 
 the wagon for it. " Try now and shoot without any 
 stopping," he said. 
 
 The wagon whirled past the birds within forty 
 yards of them, but the first shot went above and the 
 second below this flock, which was one of gray brant. 
 As they disappeared with a " clank-a-lank ! clank-lank /' 
 Laura said : 
 
 " Doctor, we shall go home without anything, at this 
 rate. Let me drive and you shoot." 
 
 " Happy thought ! I never yet saw a lady that couldn't 
 
AMONG THE GEESE AND CRANES. 95 
 
 drive fast enough. But I'm afraid you'll go so fast 
 you'll carry the shot a mile or so beyond. Perhaps I'd 
 better shoot from here as soon as you start." 
 
 " Spare thy wit until afterward. I've driven in the city." 
 
 " So have I. I drove my mother nearly crazy," said he. 
 as he handed her the reins, and she drove rapidly 
 towards another flock of the great Canada geese. 
 
 Sweet delirium ! who that has felt it does not enjoy 
 it ? If there be any pleasant road into the jaws of death, 
 if ever there be a time when man feels a sweet resigna- 
 tion, it is when whirled along at a break-neck pace by 
 some fair feminine driver who knows nothing of danger, 
 and not much of driving except to apply the whip. So 
 thought Belville as he was rattled, bumped, bounced, and 
 banged in half a minute's time up to within thirty-five 
 yards of the astonished geese. They rose in a cloud of 
 black, gray, and white, the air thick with flapping pin- 
 ions; and more by good fortune than otherwise, for it 
 was impossible to take aim, the first barrel of Belville's gun 
 rained its chilled shot into the very thickest part of the 
 flock and sent four of them to earth, sprawling. Before 
 he could pull the second trigger he was careering along 
 beyond them, out of shot. 
 
 "Isn't this just ecstatic!" exclaimed the fair steed- 
 compeller, as with Belville's aid she stopped the horses 
 some distance beyond where the geese were. 
 
 " Y-e-h !" said he, catching his breath, " I'm not at all 
 opposed to dying of ecstasy, and rather prefer that meth- 
 od of translation. But to tell the truth," he added in a 
 serious whisper, " I am not exactly prepared. I should 
 like to make a will first " 
 
9G RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 " Why, that wasn't fast ! " she exclaimed, Belville 
 looked full in her eyes for a moment. With upturned 
 face, smiling and sweet, she returned his gaze ; and, with 
 eyes full of inquiry and innocence, said : 
 
 " Did you really think that fast?" 
 
 " Oh no. But the geese seemed to think so, and it's 
 a pity to deceive the poor innocent things." 
 
 " I'll try and drive a little slower, if you wish." 
 
 " For the sake of the geese, please make the effort as 
 strenuous as possible. But be sure and don't let them 
 know what you are driving at." 
 
 Half a mile over the carpet of alfileria brought them in 
 sight of a flock of sand-hill cranes standing like so 
 many sheep along a sunny slope of shimmering green. 
 Laura took the reins, and the whip flashed over the 
 horses' backs. The plain, so smooth and hard for ordi- 
 nary driving, suddenly became like a corduroy road as 
 they ricochetted over its gentle swells. Before Bel- 
 ville could say a word, the fast-galloping team had 
 cleared a hundred yards ; the cranes were getting rest- 
 less, and the distance that yet lay between them and the 
 wagon was glimmering fast away. Belville felt sweet resig- 
 nation again stealing over him, and he cocked his gun to 
 shoot. In a twinkling there was a bump, a crack, and a 
 smash, and he was whirling in a headlong plunge to earth, 
 with Laura following him with a death-like grip on the 
 whip. The fore wheel on his side had shed its tire some 
 yards behind and, striking the skull of a functus officio ox, 
 had let Belville's corner of the wagon rather suddenly 
 down. 
 
 He picked himself up, and gave a look at the flying 
 
AMONG THE GEESE AND CRANES. 97 
 
 team with its three-wheeled attachment, and a lambent 
 smile played over his scratched and grass-stained face as 
 Laura rose, breathless but unhurt. 
 
 " What a narrow escape !" she gasped. " Thank Heaven 
 that" 
 
 " The lunch basket is safe. I took it out before we 
 started," he interrupted gravely. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NEW TACTICS. 
 
 positively shall kill a goose before you leave 
 
 here," said Belville to Laura next morning. 
 " You came pretty near to killing one yesterday, but to-day 
 I'm bound you shall succeed though not exactly in the 
 way you tried it yesterday. We will drive up to the Laguna, 
 a mile or so above the house, and try a trick on them. 
 It's a mean one, I confess, but then what's to be done ? 
 To-night we will try and meet some by moonlight alone 
 as they fly in to roost. But to-day I propose to take ad- 
 vantage of their vanity." 
 
 So saying, he put into the wagon which he had obtained 
 a large looking-glass that he had borrowed from the 
 house, along with some strips of wood, some string, screws, 
 and other things. Arriving at the Laguna, he fastened 
 the looking-glass in front of a little skiff that was there, 
 so that it hung down to the water and concealed the boat 
 completely. 
 
 He then fastened a piece of broken looking-glass to a 
 split stick and lashed it to the boat, so that it projected 
 sidewise from the bow and just beyond the line of the 
 edge of the glass in front, giving to those in the boat a 
 view of everything ahead. Then, when all was ready, 
 he and Laura pushed off, while Norton and his sister 
 watched them from the shore. 
 
 " It will be some time before the geese come in. as they 
 
NEW TACTICS. 99 
 
 are off feeding," said Belville. In the meantime we will 
 let those swans take a look at themselves." 
 
 While approaching the Lagima they had seen four 
 swans sailing on its smooth face, and Belville, placing 
 Laura behind the glass, and getting on his knees and 
 stooping low, sculled the boat with one hand out into 
 the open water. 
 
 It was slow traveling, but the space that lay between 
 them and the swans was gradually lessening. Laura 
 and Belville could see the stately birds in the small piece 
 of glass at the bow, looming up larger and larger on the 
 shining water, moving to and fro, turning, floating and 
 sailing with admirable ease and grace. Soon they began 
 to stand out higher and higher from the water. And 
 now their dark bills are plainly visible, and shine in the 
 morning sun as they arch their proud necks and turn 
 their eyes toward the boat. 
 
 "They're admiring themselves, or think they see 
 friends," whispered Belville. " Let them look a while 
 longer." And softly the boat drifted onward, while the 
 swans closed up together and held a consultation about 
 the approaching brethren in the glass. 
 
 " Now is your chance for edging!" whispered Belville. 
 " They are close enough. Such lovely down, you know ! 
 Be sure and shoot straight ; for it makes splendid 
 trimming!" 
 
 She cocked the gun, and, as she raised it, there was a 
 sudden bang! a scream, and four astonished swans rose from 
 the water with skittering flight as a thousand bits of one of 
 Don Juan Forster's mirrors flew over the water around 
 them. 
 
> ROD AND ~ GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 . ^X 
 
 " Such lovely down !" said Belville, with a commiserat- 
 ing laugh. 
 
 "It was your fault," said Laura, with rueful face. 
 " Look at that, too," she added, pointing to a hole in the 
 center of the glass big enough to put her arm through. 
 
 "Why, that's just what I wanted. I was thinking 
 about doing that myself." 
 
 " Doctor, I would like to ask one question, if not too 
 impertinent." 
 
 " I burn to respond." 
 
 " It is this. Were you ever disconcerted ?" 
 
 " Yes, once. A fashionable young mother once invited 
 me to kiss her baby." 
 
 " Why, I never heard of such a thing!" 
 
 " Oh, it's very common. She didn't, of course, say it 
 in that way. She only told the baby to ' give Dr. Belville 
 a nice kiss.' But really that glass is better for having that 
 hole in it. You can put the gun through it and get a 
 shot at them before they fly, as they would do the instant 
 you showed your head above the glass." 
 
 "But the swans are gone !" she said sorrowfully, as she 
 pointed to four snowy flakes drifting seaward down the 
 bright blue sky. 
 
 " But the geese will soon be here." 
 
 " And then I'll have to let Evy shoot. It would not 
 be fair for me to do it all." 
 
 " As you will. But really the loss of the swans amounts 
 to little. It is considered even by good sportsmen quite 
 an achievement to get a swan. To my mind it is not a 
 very illustrious achievement. I shot that one yesterday 
 only because it was the first we had seen within shot, 
 
NEW TACTICS. 101 
 
 and the first I had got a chance at for two years. I 
 could easily have brought my gun and killed one or two 
 of these before they got out of reach. The swan is a 
 rare, beautiful and harmless bird, but of little or no value 
 to eat, being generally tough. What few there are should 
 be spared. I hope to see the day when the man who 
 delights to murder everything rare, the man who knocks 
 over every egret or other beautiful bird, or kills any other 
 harmless but worthless bird, will be choked off by the 
 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals." 
 
 " Well, I think you are right. Of course I cared but 
 little, after all, for the down, and the death of one of 
 the beautiful things could have added nothing to the 
 pleasure of " 
 
 "Shooting a looking-glass? No, I doubt if it could. 
 Well, let's go ashore and wait for the geese." 
 
 Laura was well chaffed by the Nortons, when she 
 landed, for the extensive slaughter she had made in 
 looking-glass! and she laughed as heartily as the rest at 
 her own expense. 
 
 An hour or more passed away with little but the* lazy 
 flap of some pelicans above the Laguna, the squeal of mud- 
 hens in the rushes along the edge, the " wauk " of herons, 
 the quack of a few mallards, and the whistle of a few 
 passing widgeon ; while the party, not caring to molest 
 anything but geese, sat sunning themselves on the high 
 green banks on the water's edge. 
 
 But hark ! Pure, deep, and mellow rings out a welcome 
 tone from yonder sky. Each pulse bounds faster as the 
 penetrating note rolls in, soft and clear as that of a 
 French horn, and each eye is turned toward where the 
 
102 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 verdant crest of a far-off range of hills fades into the blue 
 beyond, Then comes a dark dotted line fast widening 
 out, and beyond it is another and still another dim line 
 just looming up from the blue depths beyond; while faster, 
 clearer, and louder, comes the tumultuous clangor of 
 trumpet-tones. 
 
 " Now, will you please hide in the head of that gulch ?" 
 said Belville to Laura, " and do you, Norton, lie flat in 
 that lot of sage beyond. They will swing over this high 
 ground before they light in the Laguna." 
 
 He then put Miss Norton at the " port-hole" in the 
 glass, and running the boat down along the outer edge of 
 the reeds, he backed it out of sight into a small opening. 
 
 "We'll wait here," he said, "till a good flock lights 
 out ahead of us, and then we will make a sally." 
 
 " Laura," said Norton, tarrying at the place where she 
 was to stop, instead of going on to his own position, "I'm 
 glad he took Evy in the boat." 
 
 " I told him to." 
 
 " Oh ! you did, eh ? And what did he say ?" 
 
 " He said he would, of course." 
 
 " Did he say it willingly ?" 
 
 " What a question, Charley ! Why ?" 
 
 " Well, to tell the truth, I think he is too much inclined 
 to monopolize you." 
 
 " And you are a trifle jealous, you naughty boy ?" 
 
 " Oh no. Only I wouldn't encourage any such mo- 
 nopoly, if I were you. If he is going to accompany us 
 on the whole tour, as we have arranged, it would be 
 rather slow for Evy if he paid all his attention to you, 
 
NEW TACTICS. 103 
 
 " I see your meaning. Don't be afraid, Charley, that 
 I'll neglect you ;" and she kissed him, and tapped his 
 cheek with her hand in gentle reproach. " Now, darling, 
 you must get out of sight quick, for here come the birds, 
 right toward us, too." 
 
 From an elevation of over one thousand feet there 
 came, winding down in a curve half a mile long, a veri- 
 table battalion of large, dark gray birds with long, 
 arrowy necks outstretched. Swiftly, yet with majestic 
 grace, they slid down the soft and sunlit air, not a wing 
 moving, all silent as death, yet gliding swiftly down a 
 gigantic spiral course which was winding unmistakably 
 toward Laura. Immovable as the rocks both she and 
 Norton remained, until the soft hiss of sailing pinions 
 was heard almost over them. Then came an uproar of 
 bang ! whang ! bang ! bang ! the wiff, wiff, wiff ! of 
 scores of heavy wings swiftly beating the air, the "honk 
 k-wonk, onk" of dozens of trumpet-throats, and in a 
 moment the birds were drifting swiftly away. 
 
 "Is it possible we didn't get any ?" said Norton, scru- 
 tinizing the air in vain for even a feather. " I didn't 
 suppose we could miss such a crowd as that." 
 
 " I'm daily discovering that it's not the easiest thing 
 in the world to hit even a large and slow-moving mark 
 with the gun. But the more I find this out, the more I 
 love the gun," said Laura. 
 
 More geese were appearing in the distant sky, and soon 
 another flock came curling down out of the blue. Fully 
 a thousand feet of descent, fully half a mile of curve, 
 without a wing moving, and with a swish ! plainly audible 
 on shore, they settled in the center of the Laguna, And 
 
104 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 scarce had they left the blue vault above, when another 
 flock appeared far behind them. But these birds are 
 smaller and move with more rapid wing than the others, 
 and utter a" 'clank-lank ! clank-lank!" very different from 
 the tones of the other flock. Soon they are nearly over 
 the edge of the water, and suddenly, as if caught in a 
 whirlwind, they pitch, tumble, gyrate, and whirl in all 
 sorts of motions downward, as swiftly as if struck dead 
 in air. Down, down they reel with obstreperous cackle, 
 and just as Laura and Norton have about concluded that 
 they are either very drunk or something worse, they catch 
 themselves, fall into a long crescent line, glide smooth- 
 ly down to the water, and settle beside the first that came. 
 
 " Those are the gray brant, a smaller kind of goose," 
 said Belville to Evy. "And now we'll start. Put your 
 artillery through that port-hole and keep it perfectly 
 still, but have it so that you can easily pull it out and 
 aim above the glass for the second shot. Meanwhile I 
 will row towards them." 
 
 They have not far to go before the eyes of the geese 
 are almost visible. A few strokes more are given, when 
 the muffling that Belville has put on the oar to deaden 
 the sound slips off. The oar makes a dull noise as it rubs 
 the oarlock behind; he stops it instantly, but yet too 
 late, for the air throbs with the beat of powerful wings 
 mingled with the excited cries of over a hundred throats. 
 
 " Too far !" said Belville, as his companion vainly fired. 
 "These geese have been tried with boats before, and 
 know right well the sound of an oar, you see ; though I 
 doubt if any one has tried the glass, as it is a trick that 
 very few hunters know." 
 
*NEW TACTICS. 105 
 
 They retreated to the opening in the reeds and waited 
 for another flock to light. Not long had they to wait ; 
 for beyond the rolling green in the southwest dark lines 
 of clamorous birds already flecked the sky, and soon 
 came winding down the air. A large flock lit some three 
 hundred yards from the boat, and Belville started for it, 
 his oar again being muffled. Softly the skiff moved on, 
 the geese sitting passive and careless. Soon they turn 
 their heads toward the on-coming boat, and a few move 
 a little way toward it. 
 
 "Thirty yards more, and you can shoot," whispered 
 Belville. 
 
 There was a soft rush of outspread wings, accompanied 
 by a low, peculiar chirping note, as a flock of brant sped 
 by some fifty yards above this spot, and the geese in front 
 suddenly began to look suspicious. 
 
 " Those brant alarmed them," whispered Belville. "We 
 - must be very careful." 
 
 Slowly and softly he sculled along, and so carefully 
 that he did not notice that the boat was swinging a little 
 sideways with the rising breeze which struck on the back 
 of the glass. In an instant fifty or more geese sprang 
 flapping up from the water in front, all in a tumultuous 
 huddle, while Evy vainly rained the shot from both bar- 
 rels of her gun into the gray and white mass. 
 
 " Too far again !" said Belville. " They're a tough bird. 
 Those others put them on their guard. I guess we'll 
 have to give them up for this morning. But to-night I 
 think we will hear something drop." 
 
 Old Phcebus had unhitched his wain, and Diana had 
 
1UG RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 run the evening train high up in the eastern sky, when 
 our friends again appeared upon the high ground along 
 the Laguna. 
 
 "We needn't go far from the wagon," said Belville. 
 " They will not be afraid of anything when it is dark." 
 
 He placed Norton near the wagon, taking out a seat 
 for him to sit on. Eveline he posted one hundred yards 
 farther on. 
 
 " Miss Wilbur had better stand about another hundred 
 yards away, and I will go on to the bank of the Laguna," 
 he said. 
 
 Soon the distant birds began to send in the deep- 
 toned "honk)" and the gray brant its cackling " clank- 
 lank ;" and very soon, from the dim obscurity around 
 them, loomed up into full view against the starry sky a 
 dark, V-shaped line of dots that quickly changed into 
 large bodies, not over thirty feet up, and almost directly 
 over Eveline. 
 
 The liquid tones thrilled her like the sudden burst of 
 a bugle-call close by. Her hands trembled as she raised 
 her gun, and her heart throbbed wildly as along its bar- 
 rels the silver moonlight showed, dimly painted on the 
 blue above, a long black neck and head right in line 
 with her aim. Quickly her tremulous finger touched the 
 trigger; the circle of darkness around was for an instant 
 illumined by a long jet of flame ; and as the parted waves 
 of darkness again closed in there was a confused wiff> 
 wiff, wiff, a sound of something heavy falling at her feet, 
 mingled with the silver-toned "honk," the clangorous 
 discord of distant brant, the " gaak" of snow-geese, and 
 the dolorous " gr-r-r-o-o-o" of far-off traveling cranes. 
 
NEW TACTICS. 107 
 
 A feeling such as she had never known stole over her 
 as she picked up the heavy, dark gander from the sod, 
 and said to herself, 
 
 "Ah ! now I see why people are so crazy about hunt- 
 ing." 
 
 Shortly after, two long flashes darted up a hundred 
 yards away, and the quick reports of the guns were fol- 
 lowed by a heavy whop, k-thump ! on the ground. 
 
 " Well done ! Miss Laura," she heard in the voice of 
 Belville, who was evidently close by Laura instead of 
 where he said he was going. " That was a splendid 
 shot. I never saw one learn so fast as you." 
 
 "There's nothing like a good teacher, you know," she 
 replied. 
 
 "An apt scholar is better," he responded. 
 
 " Yes, better than a physician who neglects his patients 
 to play with a gun." 
 
 " Pcccavil I would neglect more for so good a 
 scholar." 
 
 "You would like more scholars, then?" 
 
 "No. One at a time is enough." 
 
 " Too many are dangerous, I suppose." 
 
 "Yes, very; even one is often fatal." 
 
 "I meant too many guns." 
 
 "Well, so did I." 
 
 Evy hardly heard this last remark, for the "clank-lank" 
 of brant had come to be delightfully close, and in a mo- 
 ment a flock emerged from the darkness just ahead of 
 her. As she was about to shoot, the fire from Norton's 
 gun, streaming heavenward at another flock, caused her 
 flock to swerve and huddle in the air, and she pulled the 
 
108 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 trigger fairly at the center of a black chaotic medley of 
 throbbing wings and cackling throats. Biff, whack, 
 k-thump ! came down four on the grass, followed by a 
 yell of applause from Norton and Belville, while the 
 smile of the shooter nearly outshone the moon sailing 
 among the fleecy billows of cloud. For half an hour 
 more, flash after flash rent the stillness of the night, and 
 many a heavy thump greeted the ear, until soon the cry 
 of the last departing bird died away in the vault above, 
 and the flight of birds had ceased for the night. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 EASY WORK AT DUCK-SHOOTING. 
 
 THE next morning, our friends started again under 
 the guidance of Belville, and were early whirling 
 fast over the prairie-like mesa of the southeast corner 
 of the great rancho, Santa Margarita. The land no 
 longer heaves like great storrn-waves with curling crests, 
 but rolls before them like the ground-swell of the peace- 
 ful sea. The golden blossoms of the wild alfalfa begin 
 to glow on every hand ; the grayish-green stalks of the 
 white sage, one of the finest honey-plants of the world, 
 shoot up in myriads; the wild cucumber, with its 
 drapery of light green and white, hangs from the dark 
 and reddish green of the sumac ; the purple flowers of 
 the wild pea entwine in loving embrace the ramiria ; 
 the bunch-grass rears its slender blades among the thick 
 mats of alfileria; and the starry eyes of the violet peer 
 out from every opening. 
 
 Away this prairie stretches to the high bluffs of the 
 Temecula River, where it is lost in the foot-hills of the 
 dark, wavy mountains of Santa Rosa ; and far ahead it 
 rolls away into the green dales and oak-filled valleys of 
 the rancho of Montserrate. 
 
 Swiftly our friends skimmed its northern boundary. 
 Past hills where the wild lilac of California oppressed 
 the air with its rich perfume ; where the white blossoms 
 
110 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 of the tall cercocarpus betulatifolius rivaled the intensity 
 of the lilac's pink ; where the wild gooseberry stretched 
 out its arms full-hung with long scarlet trumpets ; where 
 the bayonet reared its gaudy plumes, and even the dark, 
 scraggly adenostoma of the chaparral smiled in its new 
 spring suit, they rolled along into the fair plain of the 
 Vallecito, an emerald in a girdle of frowning rough hills. 
 Then on through a gateway of rugged mountains, thick- 
 studded with immense boulders, tangled with chaparral, 
 dashed here and there with a struggling live-oak, they 
 passed, until the great, snowy mountains of Grey- 
 back and San Jacinto loomed like sheeted ghosts in the 
 far-off blue ; until, descending into the valley of Teme- 
 cula and crossing a dashing creek of clear, cold water, 
 they reached the end of a long slough. 
 
 " See there," said Laura, sorrowfully, " that spoils all 
 our fun !" As she spoke, she pointed to a sign-board on 
 a post, which said in unmistakable English : 
 
 NO SHOOTING HERE ! 
 
 "Well, I know better," said Belville. " There's just as 
 good shooting here as I want, anyhow. Look at that 
 bunch of cinnamon teal there, already. I'm going to let 
 you do the shooting now, while I hold the horses. There's 
 no hitching-place here, and it may be a bad country 
 to borrow wagons in," he added, with a mischievous smile 
 at Laura. 
 
 The slough before them was two or three miles long 
 and only a few feet wide, with small, narrow ponds here 
 and there, the banks of which were eight or ten feet high. 
 
EASY WORK AT DUCK-SHOOTING, HI 
 
 "But that notice means that we can't hunt here," in- 
 sisted Laura. 
 
 14 Well, I'm sorry to insinuate that the author of it tells 
 a deliberate whopper," he answered, " for it is just the 
 easiest place to hunt ducks that I know of, and that is 
 just why I brought you here. There are a few places 
 where a lady can hunt ducks." 
 
 "But it means there's no shooting allowed" said she. 
 
 " By all means let us shoot softly, then. There's a lot 
 of cartridges in there loaded with the new Dittmar pow- 
 der. It shoots in a whisper, but shoots just as strongly 
 as the other." 
 
 " Doctor, I guess I'll have to give you up as " 
 
 " Well, I can stand that ; for so many young ladies 
 have already done so that I am quite used to it." 
 
 Belville held the horses, while the other three, on foot, 
 swung around over the smooth plain some two hundred 
 yards, so as to approach the bank of the slough at right 
 angles. They got to within fifteen yards of it before 
 anything moved; when suddenly there was a splash, a 
 funny sort of a " quack, quack,'*' and the air twenty yards 
 ahead was full of little bodies of a shining cinnamon 
 color, with whizzing wings of gray and sky-blue. Three 
 barrels roared in succession, as they cleared the opposite 
 bank, and two of the flock came tumbling on the green- 
 sward ; and as the rest scattered in wild array, two more 
 barrels materially accelerated their upward career. 
 
 "Only two, out of all that lot !" said Laura in a dis- 
 appointed tone, as Belville drove up. 
 
 "Well," said he, encouragingly,"that's doing well enough 
 for beginners. I've seen as many shots from old hands 
 
112 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 bring down nothing at all. But if each had taken aim 
 at some one bird, or two, instead of firing at the flock, 
 you would have done better." 
 
 The birds of California are not remarkable for beauty, 
 but the little cinnamon teal has few peers among water- 
 fowl. The wood-duck is gorgeous, but too gaudy ; and 
 the mallard is beautiful, but bizarre. But this little chap, 
 with coat, vest, and pants of bright glossy cinnamon, and 
 gray and sky-blue wings, whether he be gliding along 
 the edge of the pond, springing aloft from danger on 
 swift-flashing pinion, or lying lifeless upon the spangled 
 sod, is the very embodiment of modest beauty and un- 
 assuming elegance. Dull must be the soul of him who 
 can pick up one of them without a feeling of self-re- 
 proach. Yet who can stay his hand from the trigger, 
 when he sees their little blue wings flashing ? 
 
 The teal had flown on up the slough and lighted about 
 five hundred yards off. 
 
 " Get into the wagon, please," said Belville. " We can 
 drive to almost every pond here. We shall probably see 
 more before we get far." 
 
 They drove along the bank of the slough for a little 
 distance, when Belville, pointing to some ducks a hun- 
 dred and fifty yards away, said, " I think you had 
 better go as you did before, but when you get within 
 shooting distance let two of you keep down while the 
 other takes a shot at them in the water. Then the 
 two can shoot as the birds rise. Those are sprig-tails, 
 one of the finest kinds of duck." 
 
 So Laura and Norton went around out of sight, and 
 came up to the edge of the water, stooping low as they 
 
EASY WORK AT DUCK-SHOOTING. 113 
 
 approached. As Laura, who was to take the sitting shot, 
 
 cautiously raised her head, a dozen or more large ducks 
 
 with long gray necks, gray backs, white "aprons," and 
 
 two long thin feathers streaming behind, sprang into the 
 
 air at twenty-five yards' distance. Upward they mounted, 
 
 with two barrels vainly roaring below them ; then they 
 
 turned away up the slough, while two more fruitless 
 
 1 shots echoed along the dark green hills of Santa Rosa 
 
 : half a mile away. As they sailed off with their long 
 
 i forked rudders outspread, Norton looked regretfully after 
 
 ; them, and remarked: 
 
 " There's considerable space outside of even a very 
 
 j big bird. I always had the idea that to hit a mark like 
 
 . that with a thing that scatters like a shot-gun was a 
 
 mere boy's trick ; but, judging from our experience on 
 
 geese and on these fellows, we shall find it quite a man's 
 
 trick before we learn it." 
 
 "Your teal are in that little pond above," said Bel- 
 ville, driving up again. 
 
 " I guess teal are our forte" said Laura. " Let's try 
 them." 
 
 As they went up to where the teal were, Norton 
 pointed to four or five of them in a bunch among some 
 grass in the water. He fired, and brought down the 
 whole bunch consisting of half a dozen turtles on a 
 dead stick, which went slipping into the water with a 
 splash as the shot glanced harmlessly from their shells 
 At the same time, the air just beyond glistened with a 
 flashing sheen of cinnamon and blue, as thirty or more 
 teal started from behind a bunch of rushes. 
 
 Norton raised his gun again, caught along the barrels 
 
114 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 a glimpse of red with glimmering spots of blue on either 
 side, and pulled the trigger. Two of the flock sank, and 
 as the rest radiated with a rush, the shot from his sister's 
 gun spattered harmlessly along the water beyond them. 
 Wheeling suddenly, they closed up their scattered ranks 
 and started whizzing off in orderly array, when Laura's 
 gun cracked, and the hindermost bird came gyrating to 
 the ground. 
 
 "Hurrah! well done!" called Belville from the wagon. 
 " If you had shot a little ahead of them you might have 
 got more ; but that was good enough, for it was a long 
 shot," he added, driving to where they stood. 
 
 " Those sprig-tail lit not far from here," he said, as 
 they got in the wagon. 
 
 " I think the teal afford ample scope to our talents," 
 said Laura. 
 
 " I will put you, after a while, where you will have a 
 chance at some under full headway. Sometimes, undei 
 those circumstances, it takes two persons to attend to 
 one of them." 
 
 " One to hit if the other misses ?" 
 
 "No. One to say 'here he comes,' another to say 
 ' there he goes." 1 
 
 '* Those are only spoonbills," said Belville, as they 
 passed almost within shot of another flock of ducks. 
 
 "They don't act very spooney," said Norton, as the 
 birds vacated their quarters with expeditious wing anc 
 vigorous quack. " Why didn't you stop ?" 
 
 " They are not a highly desirable duck, and we will 
 find plenty of a better kind." 
 
 " Nearly all Americans speak Spanish here, don't 
 
EASY WORK AT DUCK-SHOOTING. 115 
 
 they?" asked Miss Norton, seeing a Mexican pass by talk- 
 ing to an American. " I've noticed that several times." 
 
 "Yes. They do in all the Spanish- American coun- 
 tries," answers Belville. "They pride themselves very 
 much on their accomplishments in that line. But it's 
 generally of the quality of the German spoken by a young 
 friend of mine who had been educated abroad. Coming 
 down street with me one morning, and not knowing that 
 I understood a word of the language, he said to a Ger- 
 man friend whom we met, * Gut morgen, mean hair; 
 hast geheard daz die bank ist gebusted ?' " 
 
 At this moment a flock of mallards rose from a pond 
 just ahead with a great amount of bustle, their brilliant 
 green heads and the blue and white of their throbbing 
 wings shining bright in the noonday sun, and then sped 
 away. 
 
 Belville handed the reins to Norton at the first sound, 
 seized the gun, and, just as the ducks got fairly started 
 on their straight -away course, tranquilized a heavy 
 green-headed gentleman that was cheering on his labor- 
 ing comrades with energetic quacks. Another one lit 
 close by for repairs, a stray shot having " impaired his 
 usefulness." Norton went to him to pick him up, taking 
 the gun along by Belville's advice. As lie approached 
 the duck it rose with as vigorous quack as if nothing 
 was the matter, and though its ascension was materially 
 slower than before, Norton thought it rapid enough, and 
 raised the gun. Instantly he saw along the barrel the 
 white bands and delicate glossy green curl of the tail ; 
 he pulled the trigger, and the duck at last lay flat. 
 
 Driving on, they came in sight of a long narrow little 
 
116 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 lagoon which was dotted with hundreds of ducks, some 
 nearly black, some colored with white, blue, green, and 
 cinnamon. 
 
 "There are some canvas-backs and red-heads," said 
 Belville, pointing to some whitish-backed ducks with 
 reddish necks. "And plenty of mallards too. Now 
 we'll have some fun if we can only find good hiding- 
 places. We can't very well drive them out of this, and 
 they'll just fly from one end of the lagoon to the other. 
 Now, Miss Laura, if you'll go around and hide behind 
 that thing" pointing to another board close to the 
 water with " No shooting here'* painted on it. 
 
 " But suppose the man comes ?" she interrupted, look- 
 ink at a distant house, evincing considerable hesitation 
 about getting out. 
 
 "We'll ask him how he expects you to see it when 
 you are behind it." 
 
 "But it is probably printed on both sides." 
 
 " Then get underneath it. That's where you want to 
 be, anyhow. Tell him we don't read English edge- 
 ways." 
 
 "But suppose he tries to teach me?" 
 
 " Oh, there's no danger. That sign is only to keep 
 off a certain class who shoot rifle-balls anywhere and at 
 anything without regard to cattle or horses being in 
 range. They'll not bother us, you may depend." 
 
 Laura went to the sign-post and hid behind the brush 
 and weeds at its base, but not without some reflections 
 as to the possible consequences of the act. Norton 
 remained at one end of the pond, while his sister went 
 with Belville to the other. Then Belville began to drive 
 
EASY WORK AT DUCK-SHOOTING. H7 
 
 back and forth to stir up the ducks in case they should 
 light too far from any of the guns. 
 
 In a few moments there were about five hundred 
 ducks in the air, and a hundred mud-hens skittering 
 along the water, making as much fuss as if they also 
 were in high demand at Delmonico's. 
 
 Away went the ducks to the upper end of the pond, 
 curled around and upward like the thread of a screw, 
 then turned and came swooping down along the water 
 with their stiffened wings hissing with the speed ; glancing 
 up from the surface of the water like sunbeams, at the 
 vain crack of Laura's gun; whizzing down to the other 
 end of the pond, and bounding high in widespread con- 
 fusion as. Norton prematurely raised his gun ; then gather- 
 ing their scattered bands, turning, and rushing along on 
 high back to the other end again. 
 
 Bang! whang! bang ! went gun after gun, as the swift- 
 rushing flocks went by. But not a splash was heard, and 
 ducks were fast getting high instead of low. The mal- 
 lards and canvas-backs soon set their shining sails for 
 other waters and drifted swiftly away. The sprig-tails 
 floated far away in the sky. The widgeon whistled his 
 way to more congenial quarters. The, spoonbill picked 
 up his exorbitant bill and left, without waiting for a 
 receipt. And the little cinnamon teal, tired of playing 
 bobbin in that kind of a shuttle, finally faded away into 
 the distance. 
 
 Tying the horses, Belville sent Norton to another pond, 
 near by, to scare up the ducks, leaving the ladies at the 
 first pond to scare them back again when they flew there. 
 He then lay down in the long grass of a little swale mid- 
 
118 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 way between the two ponds. Flat on his back, with his 
 gun beside him, he kept perfectly motionless as a flock 
 of mallards started from the lower pond and came toward 
 
 - 
 
 him. On they came like charging cavalry, their long 
 necks stretched out and occasionally bobbing up and 
 down. Now he hears the swift beat of their wings, 
 and they are close upon him. Still he moves not. A 
 second more, and they are almost over him; then he 
 quickly sits up, and at his shot a duck, riddled through 
 and through, comes plunging like a wet rag to earth. 
 Swiftly, with pinions moving on the double-quick, the 
 rest of the flock climb heavenward, when the second bar- 
 rel cracks, and earthly cares outweigh the towering aspi- 
 rations of another member of the band. Some canvas- 
 backs, red-heads, and sprig-tails, that were coming 
 swiftly on in the rear, sheer, tower, wheel, and whizz past 
 out of shot ; then close up again after passing him, and 
 go gliding downward with hissing wings to the first 
 pond. 
 
 No sooner had they reached it than the boom of 
 Laura's gun sent them scrambling aloft in huddling con- 
 fusion. Down they went to the other end, where 
 the sight of Evy's hat, which was a little too conspicuous 
 in color, sent them veering spirally upward; then, gath- 
 ering their hosts into a serried mass, they went scudding 
 back to the pond beyond Belville. 
 
 With a cautious side-glance, Belville had been watch- 
 ing a lone sprig-tail coming from the pond where Norton 
 was, and, with its long pennant trailing in the breeze* 
 it was now fast winnowing the air not far away. As he 
 raised his gun, a yard ahead of it, a canvas-back one of 
 
EASY WORK AT DUCK-SHOOTING. H9 
 
 the outriders of the flock coming from the other direc- 
 tion came whizzing like a white meteor right across the 
 line of his sights, and 
 
 He killed them both at one shot ? 
 
 Nay, reader. That would have been a mere bungling 
 bit of good fortune. That might have been something 
 for a tyro to brag over; but the crack shot knows that 
 such a thing is more accidental than anything else. Bel- 
 ville did something far better. You may brag of spring- 
 ing two quails at once and cutting down one with each 
 barrel. You may boast of clipping the twittering wing of 
 one autumn woodcock in the tangled brush, then wheel- 
 ing and dropping on one knee, and checking the upward- 
 wheeling career of another that started at the same time. 
 And you may still chuckle with pride as you recall the 
 time when in the darksome brake two booming brown 
 rapid-sailers, rising almost out of shot, came bouncing 
 and bounding to earth, one from each barrel, you scarcely 
 knew how, so quickly was it done. Your pride in all 
 these things is pardonable, for they require almost the 
 acme of skill with the gun, a skill unattainable by many, 
 rare even among the skillful. 
 
 But if thou hast never tried to stop two single birds 
 darting past each other at the rate of sixty miles an 
 hour, thou knowest little of double shots. 
 
 Amazing is the rapidity of a sportsman's thought at 
 such a moment. Only two or three times in his long field 
 experience had Belville seen this feat accomplished, and 
 only once before had he succeeded in doing it himself. 
 Yet, in an instant, he saw his opportunity, and saw that to 
 try to kill both at one shot would be nothing if accon> 
 
120 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 plished, and would only be to throw away the chance of 
 making the finest of double shots. Quick as the thought 
 itself the first barrel blazed out on a line a few feet ahead 
 of the sprig-tail ; almost before the victim of this shot had 
 folded its sails, the gun was turned six feet ahead of the 
 canvas-back, which was already a hundred feet past the 
 other and darting skyward at that. At the report, the 
 canvas-back came whirling down ; the two ducks striking 
 ground nearly a hundred yards apart. 
 
 "I guess we'll have to try the long slough again, or 
 you will get no shooting," said Belville, as Norton came 
 up, after waiting a long time for further game. "It must 
 be well stocked by this time, as most of these ducks have 
 gone down that wa3 r ." 
 
 The party were soon driving back to the slough, where 
 the high banks afforded them good rising shots, with 
 nothing to do but to ride along until they came in sight 
 of ducks far ahead, when they could get out and walk a 
 few hundred feet around out of sight. 
 
 Many indeed were the bustling wings that sprang hud- 
 dling upward, and few indeed the number that came to 
 grief; yet, when they reached the end of the day, they 
 felt prouder of the few ducks that lay in the bottom of 
 the wagon, all shot on the wing, than if they had killed a 
 wagon-load with sitting shots. 
 
 Evening closed in as they rolled down the dark shade 
 of Fall Brook valley, and before long they stopped at 
 Reche's apiary. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 BOUNDING BEAUTY. 
 
 ** 1~\ON'T you think we could get a deer to-mor- 
 J^J row ?" asked Belville that night of Reche. 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder. There are two or three bucks 
 in the hills below here, and they must be in good condi- 
 tion now," replied his host. 
 
 Full information was given, before they retired for the 
 night, as to where the deer might be found, and by sun- 
 rise next morning the party had breakfasted and were in 
 the saddle, winding through a grove oT live-oaks that 
 were pioneers of this land before Columbus set sail to 
 discover it. 
 
 " Look at the robins !" exclaimed Miss Norton, as a 
 dozen or more flew past. 
 
 " There are a few here in the spring," said Belville. 
 " But though they seem to be exactly the same in plumage 
 as our old Eastern songster of the orchard and the 
 garden, yet one never hears the beautiful carol that 
 sounds so cheery in the opening spring, back East. They 
 are quite a silent bird, here, and even the single piping 
 note is toned down to a husky squeak." 
 
 " But there is one of the birds of California that is 
 handsomer and more gamey than his Eastern relative," he 
 continued, pointing through an opening among the live- 
 oak tops to a gigantic sycamore not far away, in whose 
 
122 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 upper branches thirty or forty large birds were sitting. 
 " Suppose you try them, Norton. Just over yonder you 
 will find a sandy creek-bed that will take you right to 
 the tree. But be sure and keep out of their sight." 
 
 Norton disappeared, and in a few moments there was 
 a great bustle and flapping of wings in the sycamore, 
 and three or four birds sank with a great flutter when the 
 report of the gun was heard. 
 
 Norton soon returned with beaming countenance, bring- 
 ing in his hand four birds a little larger than common 
 house-pigeons. Their color was a soft, glossy lavender, 
 shading along the neck, wings, and breast into a metallic 
 luster of changeable hue. Around the neck was a narrow 
 white collar, and the deep lustrous eyes wore golden 
 spectacles. The long bluish tail was broad and square 
 at the end, like that of the tame pigeon, and the full 
 strong breast, mild eye, tender bill, and pink legs and 
 feet all showed unmistakably that it was a pigeon. 
 
 u The mountain pigeon, or ring-dove of California," 
 said Reche, who had accompanied them. " They are 
 driven from the high mountains now by the snow, and 
 come into these lower valleys for acorns. Some winters 
 they are very plenty in this grove, and others they are 
 not." 
 
 " I should think the birds of California and their 
 differences from Eastern birds would be an interesting 
 study," said Miss Norton. 
 
 " So it would," said Belville. " But I am not much of 
 a naturalist. Though I have shot thousands of quail, I 
 could not describe one correctly without looking at it. 
 My observation of birds is confined mostly to such of 
 
BOUNDING BEAUTY. 123 
 
 their habits as bear on hunting them. Still I have noticed 
 many differences. There, now, is a thrush, that dark brown 
 chap with snuff-colored vest, long curved bill, and long 
 tail, that is whisking about under yonder bush. He has 
 no music in his soul ; a stony ' chuck' once in a while is 
 his only note. He spends his life in hopping silently 
 under bushes, rarely mounting to a tree-top to pour out 
 his soul like the Eastern thrush. And yonder is a 
 bird that looks very much like the Eastern blue- 
 bird, though I doubt his relationship very much. He 
 wears a pretty blue coat, but the soft purling note you 
 hear from your bluebird in early spring is wanting, and 
 there is nothing in its place. He cares nothing for your 
 bird-houses or boxes, and is an unfriendly chap, generally. 
 And there is a king-bird, that brown-backed, straw- 
 breasted thing going * ch-caa, ch-caa, ch-ca-cha-cha-cha-caa! 
 Different, you see, from the Eastern bird, both in color 
 and note, yet of about the same flight, action, and 
 habits, and quite as fond of bees." 
 
 " What quantities of quails !" exclaimed Laura, as flock 
 after flock rose from their path. " How delightful it 
 must be to live among so many birds !" 
 
 Reche smiled and gazed away, on the distant hills. He 
 had been raising fruit long enough to have his admiration 
 of " harmless birds" slightly modified. 
 
 "Isn't that a deer?" he said at length, pointing to a 
 distant ridge, as they came to a place that gave a view 
 of the distant hills. 
 
 "Where, where?" exclaimed Norton and the ladies, 
 who saw nothing but rolling ridges covered with grass, 
 flowers, white sage, ramiria, sumac, and green bushes. 
 
124 RIFLE, ^ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 " Do you see yonder small, shining, dark spot by the 
 side of that big green bush about six or seven hundred 
 yards away ?" said Belville, pointing to the bush. 
 
 As usually happens at first, the ladies and Norton 
 began to look for a deer, and not, as they were instruct- 
 ed, for a "small, dark, shiny spot." Consequently they 
 saw nothing. But Belville's knowledge of deer was not 
 derived from pictures ; so it was with all confidence that 
 he drew his glass and turned it on the spot. 
 
 " That is just what it is," he said in a moment. "It's 
 a fine buck, too. He is sunning himself. Let's drop out 
 of sight and hold a council of war." 
 
 Through the glass the ladies could at last make out 
 the outlines of a deer, but were much disappointed at 
 its seeming so small. They did not consider it at all sat- 
 isfactory. 
 
 " You will think him sufficiently big if we can get close 
 enough to him," said Belville. " And now, which way 
 will he be likely to run if started by some one going up 
 the point of the ridge?" he asked of Reche. 
 
 " He'll either cut across the next gulch for that rocky 
 hill beyond, or will run along the back of the ridge and 
 aim for the live-oak canon of Montserrate," Reche 
 replied. " Or he may slope off up the gulch on this 
 side." 
 
 "Then," said Belville, " do you go to the point of the 
 ridge and try him, while we go around to where we will 
 stand a good chance of being run over in case he slips 
 through your fingers." 
 
 " Mercy !" exclaimed Laura, " I don't want to be run 
 over!" 
 
BOUNDING BEAUTY. 125 
 
 " It's the nicest fun in the world," said Belville. " He'll 
 jump clear over without touching you, and all there is to" 
 do is to hold the gun perpendicular and pull the trigger 
 the instant you find your sunlight shut off." 
 
 Belville took them around to the gulch that lay on their 
 side of the ridge. 
 
 "You, Norton, had better stay in this gulch, as you 
 have the best gun for buck-shot," said Belville, as he 
 tied the horses in a little hollow. " I'll leave the ladies 
 on top of the ridge, and go myself to the gulch be- 
 yond." 
 
 He then took the ladies about a hundred yards up a 
 gentle slope to a large bright sumac-bush on the top of 
 the ridge, and, telling them to keep behind the bush and 
 to be both quiet and patient, he went down the next 
 slope to the gulch about one hundred yards farther on. 
 
 Ten minutes passed away, and then, sharp and clear 
 along the hills, rang the report of a rifle from the direc- 
 tion of the deer, causing a flutter in the nerves of the 
 ladies and a lively activity in Norton's pulse. 
 
 In a few seconds a faint bump, bump was heard in the 
 direction of the shot ; which soon became plainer, more 
 distinct, and unmistakably closer. Bump, bump, bump, 
 it came, like a wooden maul striking hard ground, at 
 short intervals. Then the ladies saw over the bushes, 
 some distance down the ridge before them, a dark 
 object rising and falling, keeping time to the bumping 
 noise, which was steadily growing louder. Soon they 
 could clearly see an animal with glistening gray coat 
 and thick dark neck, black forehead, long mulish gray 
 ears, gray nose, black muzzle, shining dark eyes, and 
 
126 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 two thick, stubbed, velvet-covered horns, nearly black, 
 with four trim slender legs, all grouped close together 
 under the body, as it curved upwards and Cervus 
 macrotis, the deer of Southern California, was in plain 
 sight and within easy shot ! ^ 
 
 This deer is commonly called the " black-tail " from 
 the fact that its tail is nearly black on the upper side. 
 But, according to Judge Caton, of the Illinois Supreme 
 bench, probably the best authority on deer in America, 
 it is a variety of the mule-deer of the Rocky Mountain 
 basin ; while the black-tail is not found in Southern Cali- 
 fornia at all. This is a smaller deer than the common 
 mule-deer though some of the males attain great size 
 and is shorter-bodied and shorter-legged than either that 
 or the Virginia or common deer of the East. 
 
 But what this deer lacks in size he makes up in activity ; 
 and the peculiar gait of the mule-deer, most highly de- 
 veloped in this variety, the spectators could now plainly 
 see. There was no gentle canter, no rapid run, no hug- 
 ging the earth like a greyhound, nor anything indicative of 
 effort to absorb space. Nevertheless the noble fellow 
 bounded not ran, as though the ground were India rub- 
 ber and his legs steel springs, his four feet grouped close 
 together, all striking the hard ground at one blow and 
 glancing from the touch like the ricochet of a cannon- 
 ball. And yet there seemed to be no more effort, no 
 more energy expended, than in the motion o"f a birch 
 canoe over a stormy lake. 
 
 But oh, how deceitful that billowy flight to him who 
 views it through the sights of a rifle ! Talk not of your 
 snap-shooting or your double shots with the shot-gun ! 
 
BOUNDING BEAUTY. 127 
 
 Away with the mechanical smashing of glass balls practi- 
 cally at rest as they pause on the turn in the air, and at 
 a distance so short that a mere boy could hit them with 
 a putty-blower if they were actually at rest ! Boast not 
 of shooting pigeons tossed from a trap to nearly always 
 the same point of space, or of your shooting with a rifle 
 "at a fixed mark at known distances and under almost 
 unchanging conditions ; or of your skill with the rifle 
 on the common Virginia deer when running. Until you 
 have tried this surging beauty you know little of rifle- 
 shooting. The big mule-deer jumps high enough. So 
 does the Virginia deer when there is anything to cross, 
 and he rises quite high even in his gentle canter. But 
 the rise of either is nothing to the upward glance of this 
 compact magazine of condensed energy when the four 
 feet all strike the ground at one blow with full force. The 
 height of this rise is not fully appreciated, even by those 
 most familiar with it. Much as we had admired it, won- 
 dered at it, and been deceived by it, we never fully realized 
 what it was until we saw a half-grown fawn playing before 
 some dogs. A fence, shoulder high, was in its course, 
 and it skipped over it three or four times with scarcely a 
 perceptibly higher rise and no more perceptible effort than 
 when bounding along the level ground ; although we stood 
 not fifty yards away, watching it with special reference 
 to these points. 
 
 Though by no means its only style of showing its heels, 
 this is the gait it generally takes when started ; and up 
 hill, down hill, through brush, over brush, among huge 
 boulders, rocks, shingle, or anything else, it holds this 
 tiresome gait with such astonishing speed and endurance 
 
128 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 that it is always worth half a day's work just to see one 
 run. 
 
 Vainly you hold the sights of the rifle on its body, 
 unless extremely close. Aim at it when in the air, and 
 your bullet whizzes through the space it has just left, three 
 feet or more above. Aim at it when it touches ground, 
 and your bullet has a clear field away below the gathered 
 legs, for it stays on the ground no longer than a sunbeam 
 on a wave. The forward motion is alone sufficient, if 
 the deer is at any considerable distance, to leave the ball 
 singing across his wake, unless aimed well ahead. And 
 this, combined with the rise and fall, would make this 
 deer the hardest of all big game to hit with a single ball, 
 even on open level ground. One can easily imagine, then, 
 what it must be on the rough brushy ground upon which 
 this game is generally found, when at one jump it clears 
 fifteen feet, at the next ten, at the next perhaps eighteen, 
 and at the next twelve ; now describing a high narrow 
 arch in air, now a long sweeping curve more deceptively 
 high. Cry not Eureka! if you happen to catch the first 
 one or two at the first or second shot. Wait until you 
 have shot at a few hundred, and then we shall be happy 
 to hear from you provided you have kept the reckon- 
 ing of expended bullets by something besides the deer 
 you bring home. 
 
 What wonder, then, that despite the rapid staccato fire 
 and the hissing lead from Belville's Winchester rifle in 
 the next gulch, the buck comes dancing gayly onward, 
 as unconcerned as a careless man about a note his indors- 
 ing friend has been compelled to pay. On he comes, 
 with louder and closer bump, bump, butnp, smash of brush 
 
BOUNDING BEAUTY. 129 
 
 and scattering of flowers, annihilating at every bound 
 five or six yards of the distance between him and the 
 ladies. What wonder that their hands shake and their 
 hearts throb faster and faster, that Laura forgets to 
 shoot, and a charge of buckshot from Eveline's gun goes 
 far above the glossy gray pelt, as the deer descends from 
 a lofty spring. 
 
 You thought this deer didn't know how to run, did 
 you ? Behold him, then, as he wheels like a flash from 
 the smoke of the gun. No longer the glossy fur shines 
 undulating above the brush, but the gait is changed in a 
 twinkling into a low scudding movement as, his head 
 laid well back, with the pace of a racer the deer cleaves 
 the low brush like a shot. 
 
 Straight toward Norton he shoots, bridges at a bound 
 the deep broad gully at the bottom of the gulch, flirts 
 off at a tangent as he sees Norton, dashes headlong into a 
 deep branch gully as the latter's gun bellows vainly above, 
 clatters up the narrow rocky bottom as if it were a race- 
 track, skips out at the other end and resumes his ricochet 
 gait with one of Reche's celebrated five-hundred-yard 
 shots tearing up the dirt about fifty feet below and be- 
 hind, and the buckshot from Norton's second barrel pat- 
 tering harmlessly around him, stops on top of the ridge, 
 gives a complacent wiggle of his stubby little paint-brush 
 of a tail, and then strikes into a trot and disappears down 
 the next slope, with jacket inviolate. 
 
 And this you call sport ? I imagine some one asking. 
 Perhaps not. To some, sport is only the securing of 
 game. For such the "wild Western" tale lies ready and 
 the reeking page of the African or Indian book, and 
 
130 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 in proper time the market, unfortunately, will again be 
 open. 
 
 But there are others to whom sport is sometimes the 
 getting away instead of the getting of game, or gratifica- 
 tion of the almighty palate or of the stupid pride of the 
 hunter for "count." Of such were the party of Nimrods 
 whose doings are here chronicled; and they returned 
 home, well satisfied with their day's work, even though 
 no trophy crowned their efforts. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THTS MOUNTAIN TROUT. 
 
 THE blaze of orange, blue, carmine, and pink is 
 nearly burned out along the southern slopes ; the 
 golden glow of the actinolepis drowns out the last rem- 
 nant of the violets and shooting stars along the plains ; 
 the pin-like seeds of the alfileria are beginning to pale 
 and curl in spots; an ashen tint begins to creep along 
 the brow of the wild-oat hills; the haze poured through 
 the valleys by the sinking sun takes a tinge of deeper 
 crimson ; the granite castles of the hills shine at evening 
 with a darker purple ; the brooding call of the quail 
 rings from hillside and valley; the mocking-bird's flood- 
 tide of song begins to ebb ; the bright steel-blue body 
 and orange wings of the great wasps gleam here and 
 there in the warmer sun, and the great miller booms at 
 evening like a humming-bird around the honeysuckle. 
 Yes, summer is approaching. 
 
 Like a great whale among his billows, Smith's Moun- 
 tain rolls above the wavy land, and in the jaws of one of 
 the great canons that cleave its sides our friends have 
 camped. A mile high, the mountain towers above them, 
 its base a mass of boulder and shingle, its breast a carpet 
 of waving wild oats, its shoulders orchards of green oaks 
 with alfileria and silvery foxtail glowing beneath them, 
 its head a forest of dark pine and fir. Through a vast 
 
132 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 rift, descending nearly four thousand feet in three miles, 
 now tearing madly down short rapids, now sleeping in a 
 basin guarded by huge boulders, now swirling gently 
 between steep-curving banks, and again plunging down 
 in a foaming cascade, comes from near the mountain's 
 crest a clear crystal stream of ice-cold water, one of the 
 very few living streams in all this county, and the only 
 one containing trout large enough to be worth catching. 
 Along the dank side of the giant walls of the rift hang in 
 long green fringes the bright maiden-hair ; gold, silver, 
 lace, and other ferns spring on all sides in luxuriant waste 
 beneath the boulders ; the stately alders, great trees 
 here, shoot up their glistening brown trunks and shining 
 foliage in all directions ; the old sycamores are festooned 
 with grape-vines, and some of the live-oaks are hoary with 
 mossy beards. Far above, the ring-doves are drifting 
 across the great chasm ; the linnet's warble rises above 
 even the roar of waters ; the quail's clear pipe rings 
 along the mountain side, and the bluejay, the high- 
 holder, and other woodpeckers flash here and there 
 through the green shades. 
 
 Belville, in planning the day's fishing, had intended to 
 go up-stream with Laura while he sent the other two 
 down-stream. But while he was cutting a pole for Eve- 
 line, Laura went with Norton, who called her to go with 
 him when he went to cut a pole for her. So it happened 
 that Belville and Eveline went together. 
 
 " Do you see those heavy boulders around yonder 
 pool?" said Belville, after he had fixed the line for his 
 companion. "You had better slip quietly behind that 
 largest one and drop your line gently over it into the 
 
THE MOUNTAIN TROUT. 133 
 
 water, and keep yourself put of sight. These trout are 
 not difficult to catch. One needs only to keep out of 
 sight, put the bait on properly, and get them hooked. To 
 get them fastened on the hook is the only thing about it 
 requiring any skill. You can lift them directly out with- 
 out any playing, for they are not large enough or gamey 
 enough to require that." 
 
 She followed his directions, and he went with her be- 
 hind the boulder. Scarcely had her line touched the 
 water when there was a jerk on it. In a second more a 
 four-ounce trout was struggling in the air with desperate 
 vigor. 
 
 "Swing him in quick !" said Belville. 
 
 As she did so, the fish wriggled off the hook and 
 landed on the sloping bank between two boulders. She 
 made a spring and attempted to grab her prey ; but the 
 fish bounced so high at every flop, and flopped so fast, 
 that it was rapidly nearing the water's edge, when she 
 suddenly threw herself flat upon it. 
 
 "I declare!" exclaimed Belville with admiration, <: you 
 are more game than the fish. Most ladies would have 
 stood still and warbled their heart-rending lamentations 
 and let him proceed on his flopping career. It's a pretty 
 good fish, too, for this brook. There are not many large 
 ones here, few being over eight inches long. They are 
 different from the Eastern trout, and not near so gamey." 
 He held up the fish, while she inspected carefully and 
 with pride its dark-green back and its sides like tarnished 
 silver spotted with black. 
 
 "Not so handsome, either," he continued, "as the 
 crimson-speckled beauty of the Eastern brooks, being 
 
134 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 rather more like chubs both in action and taste; but 
 they are trout, nevertheless, and though they are de- 
 ficient in avoirdupois, which to some minds is the chief 
 criterion in judging of fish, this is trout-fishing all the 
 same." 
 
 " Oh, I think," said Evy, "just to sit beside this boiling 
 whirl of waters amid such dark and solemn shades, after 
 a few weeks on the dry plains and along the open hills of 
 this country, would be in itself a pleasure, even without 
 any fish." 
 
 " You will be still more of that opinion when we go to 
 the trout-streams of San Bernardino County. But there 
 are more in here. Try it again." 
 
 Again she cautiously dropped the hook. Soon there 
 was a gentle tremor at the line, a cautious nibble such 
 as ye country verdant, pluming himself on his acuteness, 
 first takes when he reaches Wall Street with the proceeds 
 of the ancestral farm. Then came a bolder bite, such as 
 ye aforesaid taketh when he turns a few pennies on the 
 first venture and credits it to his own superior sagacity. 
 She gave a pull on the line, and the fish came whirling up 
 through the water and the air, dropped struggling on th< 
 boulder, bounced high from it again with a vigorous flop 
 and fell back into the dark water. 
 
 " I am afraid you didn't hook him right. You mus 
 give a quick, short jerk, so as to fasten him before you 
 pull him out," said Belville. 
 
 "I thought catching fish was like catching men," saic 
 Evy, demurely. " They shouldn't be hooked too quickly 
 but played a little first." 
 
 "But some men are so eager that they don't neec 
 
THE MOUNTAIN TROUT. 135 
 
 playing at all, either before or after being hooked; and 
 these fish are just like them anxious and verdant." 
 
 "Just the kind I like, then, for I never can catch any 
 others." 
 
 "Which fish or men?" 
 
 " Fish, of course," said she, with a laugh, as she 
 dropped her line again, while Belville pulled out a 
 wriggling little trout which he tossed back into the 
 water. She shortly followed suit and drew out one of 
 nearly the same size. "The same fish, I declare!" she 
 exclaimed. " If he's so determined to be caught let's 
 accommodate him. He is not so very, very small," she 
 said, looking at it critically with the fisherman's eye, 
 which she was already fast developing. 
 
 " It is not the same one, although he's pretty small ; 
 but you should never fish for count," said Belville, sen- 
 tentiously. 
 
 "Go back then, and send thy big brother," said she, 
 gayly, as she tossed it back and put in her line once 
 more. Hardly had her bait struck the surface, when 
 the line swished through the water, and out came a 
 struggling, flopping beauty, almost ten inche's long. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! He sent his father instead of his brother," 
 said Belville, helping it off the hook. "A nice one, 
 too ! about a five-pounder." 
 
 "Five pounds! Oh, I'm so glad; for I have seen in 
 some book that that was about the largest size they 
 grow to." 
 
 " Yes, fully five pounds fisherman's weight, of course. 
 Avoirdupois, we might have to discount that possibly," 
 said Belville, " Now here comes the brother on my hook," 
 
J3G RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 he added, pulling out another fair-sized fellow. "I 
 wonder if his grand-daddy is still living? We must 
 bag the family. It would be cruel to separate them." 
 
 "Yes, he's living, and at home, too," said Evy, as 
 another five-pounder (fisherman's weight) came wrig- 
 gling out. He fell on the boulder, flopped up between 
 her hands into her face as she clutched at him, and landed 
 in a small pool at one side which had an outlet into the 
 larger one. In a moment she had one arm in the water 
 to the elbow, trying hard to hold the slippery struggler. 
 
 " t Do what you don't dare to do,' says Emerson !" 
 
 " I never would have got him otherwise," she said, as 
 she finally pulled out the fish and laid him high and dry. 
 
 " What Emerson said was sound philosophy that time, 
 anyhow," said Belville. 
 
 Suddenly there arose a hubbub down the stream, such 
 as jars the foundations of some mansion what time the 
 first-born cuts its first tooth. 
 
 "Oh Charley, run quick! Oh! oh! oh! Look! 
 look! Oh! I wish the Doctor was here to see it. Call 
 him, Charley. Take him off! Oh! stop him! Ain't 
 he a beauty ?" 
 
 Belville hurried down, and found Laura holding a 
 pole with a fish dancing in air, while Norton with the 
 tips of his fingers was gingerly trying to unfasten it. 
 
 "You must learn to take off your own fish," said Bel- 
 ville, laughing, "or you will never become a fisherman." 
 
 " But it might bite," said Laura. 
 
 "Yes, that's so ; they'll bite nearly as badly as a lamb." 
 
 "Is that a trout, Doctor?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes; a handsome ten-pounder," 
 
THE MOUNTAIN TROUT. 137 
 
 "And is that very big?" 
 
 " Middling fair for this brook. They don't run over 
 nine and a half here as a general thing." 
 
 " Doctor, does it really weigh ten pounds?" she asked, 
 searching Belville's eyes with a half-doubting look, as 
 she saw Norton smile. 
 
 " Well, I couldn't conscientiously recommend you to 
 weigh it. The pocket scales lately invented are the 
 greatest curse ever inflicted on fishermen. The inven- 
 tion strikes a deadly blow at the very root of the angler's 
 happiness." 
 
 "And how much do you suppose it actually weighs?" 
 she asked, with a pleading look in her deep dark eyes. 
 
 " If we had scales sufficiently delicate he might run 
 as high as an ounce and eleven nineteenths, if he was 
 first well fed with shot and weighed before he stopped 
 kicking. But you know a trout never looks so big as 
 when you first see him on the end of your line. You 
 see, this fellow has grown small already," said he, toss- 
 ing it back into the water. " We'll send him home, as 
 his mother may be getting anxious. I see you haven't 
 had very good luck. Come with me and I'll show you 
 how to do it." 
 
 So Laura and the Doctor went up-stream to some 
 untried pools above, while Norton stopped with his 
 sister, who had followed Belville to the scene of excite- 
 ment. 
 
 " Evy," said Norton, " don't you think he rather in- 
 clines to take Laura with him a trifle too much ?" 
 
 "Well, he seems fond of her company. But what of it ? 
 You can't blame him for that. Following the rule of 
 
138 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 human nature, I of course ought to mind his being 
 more attentive to her than to me. But I don't. I con- 
 sider him only a kind of an agreeable flirt, and he likes 
 her company best because she is more lively and prettier 
 than I am." 
 
 " Well, I wish you could throw yourself a little more 
 in their way. I don't like to have him monopolize her 
 so much." 
 
 " Why, you surely are not afraid of him ?" 
 
 " Not in the least ; yet, to tell the truth, some how I 
 don't like it. She seems to enjoy his company more 
 than I care to have her. If he were not so indispensa- 
 ble to our trip I would gently drop him. But he knows 
 all the country, and all about hunting, fishing, and camp- 
 ing; so that we can't get along without him at present. 
 And he's such good company that, in fact, I don't want 
 to lose him." 
 
 " I don't think anybody could shake Laura's attach- 
 ment to you, Charley. And there's less danger from 
 him than from any -one I know. He's only a light- 
 hearted fellow that cares for nothing but a little fun." 
 
 . " What do you say to climbing the big Grayback of 
 the San Bernardino range when we go up there fishing?" 
 said Belville to Laura, after they were out of hearing of 
 the others and had cast their lines. " It's the highest 
 mountain of Southern California, and one of the highest 
 perhaps the very highest in the United States, above 
 the country around its base." 
 
 " Oh ! I should love dearly to climb a mountain if I 
 only could," she added with a doubting accent. 
 
THE MOUNTAIN TROUT. 139 
 
 " It is very easy. We can go almost the entire distance 
 on horseback, and I believe a good mountain horse could 
 make the top. It's really a noble mountain and well 
 repays the toil." 
 
 "Let us try it then, by all means. I never have 
 climbed anything higher than Mt. Holyoke, which is 
 only a mole-hill by the side of this mountain." 
 
 " And Grayback is about as high again as this. But 
 here's a bite on my line. Now will you please take hold 
 of the pole, and when you feel a bite again give a quick 
 but short and gentle jerk, a little sideways, so as to hook 
 him. Then you can pull him out at your leisure." 
 
 There was another nibble soon, and in a second the 
 hook was anchored in an alder branch about eight feet 
 above the water, while the fish, describing a shining arc, 
 fell back into the water. 
 
 Belville loosened the tangled line, and handed it back 
 to her, with a caution about jerking too hard. 
 
 " Isn't it delightful to smell the water after being out 
 on the dry plains and hills?" she said. 
 
 " Yes indeed ; I could lie down on one of these boulders 
 and dream the long summer away in perfect " 
 
 There was another bite, another jerk, another shining 
 arc, and a splashing back into the water ; and as Belville 
 made a grab at his arm when the hook stung through his 
 coat like a hornet, his foot slipped on the wet boulder he 
 was on, and the dark boiling water closed over him. 
 The water was not deep, and he soon raised his head 
 and quieted the apprehensions of his companion. 
 
 "You've hooked him at last !" said he as he caught his 
 breath. " Now pull him out at your leisure." 
 
160 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 "I guess I'll go back and stay with Charley," said 
 Laura, "and leave you and the Doctor to catch fish 
 enough for breakfast." 
 
 "What a false position I stand in!" she soliloquized, 
 when alone. " May heaven help me ! I do not mean to 
 do wrong, yet how can I help loving both ; loving one 
 more than the other, yet loving the other too much to 
 tell him what I should. Heaven forgive me if I am 
 wrong. I do not mean to be." 
 
 : "*i. 
 
 " I'm so glad you have come, Laura," said Norton, 
 with a smile, when she had reached the camp. 
 
 " I knew you would be lonely when Evy left, so I 
 came right away." 
 
 " Yes, Laura, I was very lonely, as I always am with- 
 out you. And I have something I am very anxious to 
 tell you. Laura, I am dying!" He spoke in a deep, 
 solemn tone, and fixed his dark, sunken eyes, burning 
 with weird brilliancy, full upon hers. 
 
 " Why, Charley ! How can you talk so ?" 
 
 "Yes, Laura, dying. Dying by the day," he said with 
 the same tone and look. 
 
 "Why Charley, you are looking better every day." 
 
 " Yes," said he, with a tinge of bitterness, " the sun 
 and wind improve the color. But such skin-deep re- 
 covery does not deceive me in the least. The oil is 
 burnt out and it is only the fast-charring wick you see, 
 an(J soon its light will cease. Laura, there is just one 
 thing left for me now ; just one thing. It lies in your 
 power, and in yours alone, to brighten the few days that 
 yet remain for me." 
 
THE GREAT AMERICAN TROUT SWINE. 161 
 . ^x 
 
 "Charley, you have the 'hypo.' You are surely 
 stronger than when you came here. Let's go fish a little, 
 and that will cheer you up. To-morrow we start for the 
 Cucamunga Mountains, and they say the scenery there 
 is even finer than this. There is more variety there," 
 said she ; adding in a light gay voice, " and a little vari- 
 ety will send your spirits up, up, up!" 
 
 It produced no effect, however, and he continued in 
 the same tone and with the same look : 
 
 " There is one thing, Laura, for which I have tried 
 oh ! so hard to live. Otherwise, I should willingly 
 have staid at home and allowed death to work his will 
 with me. But for your sake I have come here and 
 tried to live. That hope has been vain, Laura, and 
 already I feel rising fast around me the dark tide that 
 will soon overwhelm me. Laura, must I die without 
 seeing the dream of my life fulfilled ?" 
 
 " I hope not, Charley. I hope you will recover," she 
 faltered. 
 
 " Laura, lay that out of the question. / know. But 
 whether I recover or not, why should we wait any 
 longer? Why not unite now our hands as well as our 
 hearts? And if I die" 
 
 "Charley!" she exclaimed in a half scream, "how 
 can you talk so ? Don't ! don't !" 
 
 "Well; if I live, then?" said he, earnestly. 
 
 "I hope you will. I know you will," said she, brushing 
 a tear from her bright eye. 
 
 " Then it will only anticipate what's to happen anyhow 
 before a great while." 
 
 A low "yes" slipped out before she knew it. She 
 
142 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 "And the cliffs don't 'beetle* nor the crags 'topple 
 worth a cent," he replied. "And the eagle isn't on 
 hand, either, to spread his great vans on the breeze. I'm 
 really afraid it isn't a mountain at all." 
 
 " Oh ! yes it is, too. It's all right ; all right, for surely 
 the sun ' glints' on yonder peak," said Laura. 
 
 "jOh! I'm so glad. And, now I think of it, didn't we 
 hear a brook 'brawl' a while ago ?" 
 
 "I thought I heard a rill ' tinkle.'" 
 
 "Yes, I heard a stream 'purl,' too. But that is not 
 enough. 'Brawling' is absolutely indispensable to a 
 mountain stream," said he. 
 
 " But those meadows we passed were certainly 'lush.' " 
 
 " At any rate we can soon tell, for we must be almost 
 in sight of the ' horrid crest' >: 
 
 The top was soon reached, and, tying their horses to a 
 rock, they sat down. Nearly all the great mountains of 
 our country, and even of the world, rise from a region 
 already elevated thousands of feet; so that the actual 
 rise of the mountain is not great. Few indeed are the 
 mountains that look down from an altitude of two 
 miles; and Grayback, looking down from a height of 
 eleven thousand five hundred feet upon a country less 
 than a thousand feet above sea-level, is in fact a grander 
 mountain than Pike's Peak and many others much 
 higher. 
 
 And now with a glass they looked down upon a circle 
 of two hundred miles in diameter a wild and wasteful 
 mass of beautiful confusion and imposing desolation, 
 broken here and there at long intervals by a spot of 
 green the silvery thread of some stream or aqueduct, 
 
THE SILVER TROUT AT HOME. 143 
 
 or the sheen of some rare laguna glittering like a dia- 
 mond in the bosom of the plain. Where rests the eye 
 upon a grander sight than great San Jacinto, heaving 
 his giant bulk ten thousand feet in air at a single sweep ? 
 Yet there he stands just across the pass of San Gorgonio, 
 eight thousand feet deep, curling up from the desert on 
 the east, like a vast wind-swept wave, and tumbling in 
 long lines of pine forests, blue foot-hills, and green valleys, 
 away to the plains of San Jacinto and Temecula in the west. 
 Dark rifts filled with boulders, pine, and snow-banks seam 
 the great heaving sides ; canons and gulches untrod by 
 man, the home of the grizzly bear and the panther, wind 
 their great green arms upward toward the fir-plumed head 
 of the mountain looming high in the southern sky. 
 
 Beyond stand the Cohuilla, Coyote, and Cuyamaca 
 mountains, high watch-towers on the great chain of rug- 
 ged guards that, fading far into Mexico, shut off the in- 
 habitable part of San Diego from the fiery breath of the 
 great furnace that yonder on the eastern side, a vast 
 shimmering sea of sand, stretches far away to where 
 Yuma lies broiling on its southern verge. To the south- 
 west, the eye ranges over a billowy swell of hill 'and dale, 
 table-lands and plains, mountains that in the East would 
 be blazoned in song and story all robed in russet yellow 
 and bluish green. Westward, the great valley of San 
 Bernardino merges in the far-off silver line that marks 
 the peaceful sea, the dreary leagues of barrenness relieved 
 by the refreshing oases of Riverside and San Bernardino, 
 with their rich meadows, fair groves of orange and lemon, 
 shining aqueducts, and embowered homes, all witnesses 
 to the wondrous power of water. 
 
144 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 And there to the north-west another mountain rises 
 from the plain far higher than any of the great moun- 
 tains of our country, except Grayback and San Jacinto ; 
 and far above the sunlit clouds its head appears, an 
 emerald island on a silver sea. This is Cocamunga, ten 
 thousand feet in height. Just beyond, old Baldy tries to 
 rival him, while over his base we catch a glimpse of the 
 orange-groves of the far-off City of the Angels. 
 
 And what are those objects looming so dimly huge in 
 the far-off north ? Can they be the outposts of the 
 Sierras ? Even so ; and there on the right are the 
 mountains around Death Valley, and, far off in the east, 
 the faint hazy blue of the mountains of Arizona. 
 
 This broad track of desolation to the north-east gleam- 
 ing with withering grimness is the Mojave Desert, large as 
 Massachusetts; and that one to the south-east is the ter- 
 rible Colorado Desert, large as Connecticut and Rhode 
 Island together. And those chaotic masses of weltering 
 desolation that divide the two are not such mountains 
 as welcome the parched and dying traveler. No streams 
 or groves will the thirsty sufferer find there, but only 
 dreariness doubly intensified by its vast extent. 
 
 Half an hour passed away while Belville was naming 
 to Laura the various points and landmarks in sight, 
 and at last, pointing down to the great waste of sand 
 below, across which stretched the Southern Pacific Rail- 
 road bearing a locomotive at full speed, and looking like 
 a cobweb with a gnat, he said : 
 
 " Miss Laura, as you see that desert, such is my life 
 a barren waste with but a single thread of hope reaching 
 across it, and that, I fear, a very slight one." 
 
THE SILVER TROUT AT HOME. 145 
 
 " I'm very sorry to hear it. I had supposed your life 
 must be a very happy one," said she after a pause. 
 
 " It was until I met you ! Until then I had known 
 nothing of love but a phosphorescent gleam or two, 
 dying as soon as born." 
 
 She sat speechless for a moment, gazing upon the 
 dreary expanse below with eye as vacant as the gray 
 sand itself; and then, as the blood mounted swiftly into 
 her cheeks, he looked full into her face and said : 
 
 "Miss Laura, are you surprised?" 
 
 "You know that I am engaged," she said softly. 
 
 "But is human love the growth of human will?" he 
 answered quickly. 
 
 She sat silent and looked away to the blue wavy line 
 of Arizona's hills. 
 
 " Miss Laura," said he, taking her hand in his, while 
 her pulse bounded at the touch, " I loved you at the first 
 sight, and for you alone I have staid away so long from 
 my home, and remain now a willing prisoner." 
 
 "Oh! why did you? Why didn't you go sooner?" 
 she asked most pleadingly, and turning her deep dark 
 eyes upon his with a look earnest and sorrowful. 
 
 He gazed into them a moment, and said, " Do I divine 
 the truth? You love me too?" 
 
 She was silent, and dropped her eyes to the ground ; 
 but there was a starry twinkle in them that was not the 
 flash of indignation. 
 
 "Is it not so, Laura?" he said. "Is it not so? You 
 love me too?" 
 
 " God knows how hard I have tried not to," she mur- 
 mured at length. 
 
146 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 " Oh thanks ! sweet one, for that confession. I too 
 have tried, but all in vain," he said with a long sigh of 
 relief. 
 
 And now what will become of her poor invalid lover 
 who lies eight thousand feet below, on a white boulder 
 beside a foaming pool in the shade of the glistening 
 leaves of the great alders, musing on his darkened life, 
 and thinking of the only star that twinkles through the 
 rifts of the heavy cloud that overcast his once brilliant 
 sky? 
 
 There is a silvery flash in the boiling water where his 
 line is whirling, a jerk, a tug, and up comes a struggling 
 curve of opalescence, describing an arc in air as it slips 
 back from the half-caught hook, and falls with a splash 
 into the bubbling pool again. Does this remind him of 
 any of the pearly hopes of life ? He alone knows. But 
 is there not a strange brilliancy in those sunken eyes that 
 is not entirely the sparkle of assurance ? And is not his 
 face at times like an April day half May, half March ? 
 
 But quickly the clouds disappear again, and a June 
 noonday spreads over his face as another gleam darts 
 through the green water. Swish ! goes the line, and a 
 flashing fish comes flopping and wriggling out. What 
 is there about the capture of that poor fish that can 
 so chase the sadness from his heart? Not over ten 
 inches long, its sides like mother-of-pearl with little 
 stars of jet, its back a bright olive green, its head and 
 mouth larger than those of the Eastern trout it is the 
 silver trout of California. Surely such a poor little in- 
 nocent cannot so stir the life-blood of a full-grown man ? 
 He who has felt the electric tingle of a "bite" needs no 
 
THE SILVER TROUT AT HOME. 147 
 
 answer. He who has not, and who weighs all pleasure 
 on the dull scales of utility, cannot be answered. The 
 only answer that can be made is that it is trout-fishing 
 inferior, indeed, to that of the East, but trout-fishing 
 nevertheless. 
 
 It is not without full deliberation that I say it is infe- 
 rior to the Eastern fishing, and I know that the state- 
 ment will outrage the feelings of some Californians. 
 
 Almost as immense as the difference between what a 
 Chinaman can live on when he pays for it himself and 
 the amount he can hold when his employer pays for it, 
 is the difference between these two trout. Like the 
 warm hand-shake of the anxious candidate is the strike 
 of the crimson-starred beauty of the Eastern brook, and 
 vigorously he hugs the dark water. When he comes out 
 at last, he flops and fights in death, and does not give 
 up even in the creel. He steers clear of seductive bait. 
 Although in his primeval innocence he may be caught 
 by the rustic lout with cotton string and worm, yet he 
 soon becomes wise, and it requires the cunning head and 
 skillful hand to take him with success. 
 
 But tell me not in lying numbers that our trout is like 
 to this. Like to the oystery palm of the defeated candi- 
 date is his grab at the hook, and he hugs the water more 
 like a bag of shot than like a slippery beauty actively 
 obstinate. He struggles and flops indeed on coming 
 out, but it is more like the nervous energy of instinct 
 than the desperate vigor that seems determined to con- 
 quer. 
 
 There are two varieties of this trout, though the dif- 
 ference is with much show of reason attributed to the 
 
148 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 different color of the bottom of the brook. Those found 
 in white or light bottomed brooks, where the water looks 
 green and the foam is snowy white, are said to be of 
 a light pearly color, with light olive-green backs ; while 
 those found in dark-bottomed brooks have the color of 
 tarnished silver on the sides and are quite dark on the 
 back. Sometimes, however, the dark ones are found in 
 the light-bottomed brooks. The flesh of these latter also 
 has sometimes a reddish tinge, and they are therefore 
 called by some the " salmon trout," while the other is 
 the "silver trout." 
 
 It is barely possible that both theories are' correct, 
 that there are two varieties, differing slightly, and that 
 their colors are also affected by the color of the bottom, 
 In the brooks of San Bernardino County the silver trout 
 is much the more abundant, and the brook bottoms are 
 nearly all very light, and in places nearly white. 
 
 But there is no perceptible difference in the action 
 of these fish on the hook. Both are decidedly defi- 
 cient in the gaminess and wariness which give such a 
 charm to the Eastern trout. Both can be caught in fair 
 quantity by the tyro, and need comparatively little skill 
 in either hooking or landing. But then they are trout, 
 after all, and though not entitled to the throne are 
 nevertheless of royal lineage. It is a dull soul that can- 
 not enjoy the society of this little beauty or appreciate 
 the wild splendors of his romantic home. 
 
 While Norton muses upon his gloomy prospects, as he 
 sees them, a little comedy is going on behind his back 
 that threatens his happiness more than he dreams of. 
 
THE SILVER TROUT AT HOME. 149 
 
 " How shall I tell Charley ? I can't bear to tell him," 
 said the faithless friend on whose devotion he had been 
 so long meditating with pleasure, without whose com- 
 panionship he would not have come so far from home, 
 and without whom he would not stay, even now. 
 
 " You need not," replied the other false friend, whom 
 he had chosen as a companion, physician, and guide to 
 pleasure and health. "You need not. Let the poor 
 fellow go down to his grave with all the comfort that 
 you can give him." 
 
 "Mercy! Why, you don't think he's going to die?" 
 she exclaimed with astonishment. 
 
 " I don't think it I know it ! I have watched him 
 carefully, and have seen all along that the poor fellow is 
 not long for this world; not long to be with us or to 
 part us!" said Bel ville, looking at Laura with mingled 
 sympathy and tenderness tenderness for her, and sym- 
 pathy for their suffering friend whom he pitied while he 
 robbed him of his love. " When he came last winter," 
 he added, "he was in that condition where one wavers 
 long upon the turning point, but where not to advance 
 is most decidedly to fall back." 
 
 "O Doctor! I hope you are mistaken. I could not 
 have him die ; for I did love him, and I do love him ! I 
 cannot put the old love out of my heart, although a 
 greater love has come into it." 
 
 " Well, he deserves your affection and mine, and we 
 would not wound him. Let us smooth his downward 
 pathway as much as we can. It would be a kindness to 
 keep from him what would grieve him perhaps hasten his 
 death and what is really not necessary for him to know." 
 
150 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 NOTE In laying the scene of the present chapter, the author has 
 been moved by a desire to call attention to a noble and lofty 
 mountain that has long been supposed almost inaccessible, but 
 which is, in fact, one of the easiest to climb in California, and 
 which commands a wider view than almost any mountain in the 
 country. 
 
 A year ago I started for its top with two companions. Most 
 discouraging accounts of its difficulties were given us from every 
 quarter, and we could find but one man in San Bernardino who 
 had ever climbed it, but plenty who had started and backed out. 
 We had not gone a hundred miles to be deterred from at least 
 making a desperate attempt. We climbed it on foot, camping for 
 two nights in a beautiful meadow three thousand feet below the 
 top. On our return we pronounced all the discouraging talk pure 
 nonsense, and declared that a horse could be ridden by a lady to 
 the very summit. 
 
 Our experience induced several other parties to try the ascent, 
 and, as we predicted, some ladies actually went to the top. One 
 comrade of mine, an old civil engineer, familiar with the highest 
 mountains of Colorado, pronounced this the easiest mountain he 
 had ever climbed, with the widest view from its top that he had 
 ever seen. 
 
 To the U S. survey Grayback is known as "Grizzly Peak." 
 The official measurement of its height is 11,723 feet above sea- 
 level, or about n ooo feet above the desert and plains around. 
 San Jacinto is 10,987 feet in height, while the desert, eight miles 
 from its top, is only 725 feet high, and the San Jacinto plains are 
 about 1,500 feet above sea level. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE GREAT AMERICAN TROUT-SWINE. 
 
 THE Indian, the Mexican, and the Spaniard long 
 held this land of which we write, yet the game 
 increased in their time rather than diminished. The 
 antelope slept within sound of the fandango, the elk flour- 
 ished among the ranchero's cattle, the trout flashed in 
 the brook by the Indian's rancheria, and the deer drank 
 by his temescal. Say not that these men knew nothing of 
 the chase, or were too lazy to follow it for pleasure or 
 for food. This can hardly be said of men who could 
 outride the elk or the antelope on the plain, and lasso 
 and bind the grizzly in his rugged hills. They were 
 ardent enough hunters in their way. They lacked only 
 the spirit of the Anglo-Saxons, who go to work at the 
 game of a country like a drove of swine at a pile of grain, 
 beginning at the top and trampling and destroying ten 
 times what would suffice for their real wants. 
 
 Why is it that even here, in this far corner of our 
 country, amid these beautiful and abundant streams, it is 
 necessary to toil for miles over great boulder-washes, and 
 penetrate the very heart of the mountain, to find plenty 
 of trout ? And why, even here, are they fast fading from 
 the places that knew them? Let the great American 
 trout-hog answer, for here he comes. 
 
 We see a rabbit-like complacency of countenance/ 
 
152 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA: 
 
 corn-silk locks, caterpillar mustache, butterfly necktie, 
 functus officio paper collar, and lark-heeled boots. He 
 has a small champagne basket strapped on his back, 
 a quart oyster-can of grasshoppers and worms, a line 
 with two or three hooks on a pole and half a dozen 
 extra ones in his pocket, a soul that would rattle in a 
 dried flea-skin, and an abysmal stomach that yearneth 
 evermore for trout. 
 
 He has already over fifty trout in his basket twice as 
 many as any man should catch in one day ; more than 
 would satisfy the most exacting of his four-footed brethren. 
 Yet he skips along from pool to pool and from riffle to riffle 
 under the elastic impulse of the only love he ever felt, 
 the~love of a poor little trout, debased to the worst and 
 last use to which game can be put cooking. He tosses in 
 his line with countenance eager as a cat's at a mouse's 
 hole, and his face is radiant as a newly made bride- 
 groom's when a little fish, a finger long, conies shimmer- 
 ing out of the water with feeble struggles. 
 
 But, surely, he will put that back ? 
 
 Of course back into the hole in the basket ! Doth it 
 not count one ? 
 
 Soon another comes out only a trifle larger. Too 
 small yet even for him who was made only a little 
 higher than the brutes, instead of (as has long been erro- 
 neously supposed) "a little lower than the angels." But 
 not too small for ihisflorcus. Joy elevates his snout as 
 he slides the fish through the hole in his basket. 
 
 But what good is such a fingerling? 
 
 Go to! thou ignoramus! Doth it n\ot count? Are 
 not its feeble bones tender ? Will it not, in the frying- 
 
THE GREAT AMERICAN TROUT-SWINE. 153 
 
 pan, sing celestial music to his soul ? And so, the live- 
 long day, he skips from pool to pool with tireless sole, as 
 if the great problem of life were to see how many of 
 these beautiful creatures could possibly be destroyed in 
 one day. What to him is the allegro of the swift-rushing 
 stream, the maestoso of the boiling pool, the andante of 
 the wind in the pines above ! He is deaf to all music 
 but the sputtering expostulation of a poor little trout in 
 the frying-pan. 
 
 What cares he for the ice-cold stream of crystal, dash- 
 ing itself into sparkling spray as it leaps down that cliff 
 from its high mountain home, then foaming away through 
 long ranks of stately alders, whirling around white boul- 
 ders, boiling in deep pools of green and white, glancing 
 through narrows, shimmering over shallows, plunging 
 down steep rocks ! Excuse me ; he does appreciate it, 
 too. It's quite convenient to wash his fish, to water his 
 horse, to make his coffee ! 
 
 What to him are the stupendous slopes above, the tur- 
 reted battlements and granite castles, floating like silver 
 islands in the morning's dissolving clouds or burning 
 with purple fire in the evening sun ! Or the grand old 
 forests, so refreshing to the denizen of the sun-baked 
 plains ; the pure, cool morning air or the view down the 
 great falling valley as the sun floods it with his last beams ! 
 His eyes are blind to all but a "nicely browned" trout. 
 
 The morning passes, and he has ninety in his basket. 
 He meets his comrade, who has about eighty. And now, 
 surely, they are done ; for the prince of swine could ask 
 no more than this. And see, too, they are taking off their 
 baskets and winding up their lines. 
 
154 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Yes, they are done. Done with such slow work as this! 
 Not thus can proper homage be paid to the idols of the 
 great American porcus the palate, and the score ! The 
 stream shall be turned, for trout must be had quicker 
 and with less work. 
 
 And now, mark how they dam up the stream and turn 
 its current aside ; and see the halo of delight that en- 
 wreathes each snout when the old channel is nearly dry 
 and the sordid fingers grab up the poor little flopping 
 silver-sides ! And see how they gloat over the struggling 
 opalescence and writhing green in the basket, while their 
 palates throb with joy as happy fancy hovers over the 
 sizzling frying-pan ! O Nature ! why dost thou not 
 whip such wretches around to thy kitchen door, instead 
 of allowing them to root in thy drawing-rooms ! 
 
 The next day Belville proposed a change of sporting 
 grounds, and suggested various desirable places to try 
 next. "The Santa Anna," said he, "just across this big 
 mountain, is the best fishing-ground in the country; but 
 for a change of scenery I think we had better go to the 
 middle fork of Lytle Creek in the heart of the Cucamunga. 
 We ought to go there, any way, if only for variety, and 
 though trout are not nearly so plenty -there as in the 
 Santa Anna, we shall still find all we want." 
 
 " Anywhere that we can ride," said Norton, languidly. 
 " I'm very much opposed to tramping among these boul- 
 ders." 
 
 " Our horses can go anywhere, and when we get to 
 Lytle Creek we can hire our things packed to our camp- 
 ing-place. We'd better start early to-morrow morning." 
 
THE GREAT AMERICAN TROUT-SWINE. 155 
 
 "All right, then, if the ladies are willing," said Norton, 
 as he stretched himself out for a nap on his bed of spruce 
 boughs, and Belville started to the creek where Laura 
 had gone to fish. He found her a little way above the 
 camp, in the shade of the shining alders, leaning over a 
 big white boulder, with her line and bait whirling in the 
 foaming water below. As he approached her, there was 
 a tug and a rush of the line as it tightened on the pole, 
 a silvery gleam for an instant at the surface as the fair 
 fisher raised the rod, and the bare hook came swinging 
 out. 
 
 "A big fellow, that !" said Belville, just catching a 
 glimpse of him as he came up. " You have too much 
 slack in your line to hook him in such a small brook as 
 this." 
 
 So saying, he took the pole and wound in half the 
 line, and said, " Now slip around to the other side, keep- 
 ing well out of sight, and rest your pole over that little 
 boulder. Keep it stiff, and let the fish hook himself." 
 
 Monstrous as this may seem to many an angler, it is 
 often the only way to hook these fish successfully. The 
 best fisherman in these mountains generally uses a stiff 
 pole with a very short line, which he pokes in between 
 the rocks or trees and allows the fish to hook themselves. 
 Unskillful and mechanical as it is, it has often to be 
 resorted to where the trees, branches, and rocks are very 
 numerous and close together. 
 
 Swinging around behind the boulders so as to keep 
 out of sight, Laura went to the other side of the pool, 
 and, stooping low as directed, she ran the rod through a 
 broad open space and rested it over a low boulder. The, 
 
156 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 line and hook whirled and danced upon the boiling 
 white water, which rested not from its last tumble, but 
 fumed and seethed in haste to reach the next fall. ' 
 Around, on all sides, were the glossy brown trunks and 
 shimmering green leaves of the alders, covering all with 
 shade. Laura then sat down upon an almost pure white 
 boulder, and, dipping her cup into the ice-cold water, ] 
 which hissed and frothed like a soda fountain, she ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " Fishing is splendid, isn't it ; whether you catch any- 
 thing or not?" 
 
 " Such fishing as this is. But when it comes to sit- 
 ting on a stump by a mill-pond on a hot day for five 
 hours without a bite, you " 
 
 The line tightened with a jerk that twitched the rod 
 off the boulder and elicited a dainty shriek from the fair 
 angler that cut short Belville's remark. She recovered 
 both herself and the pole in time to draw out the hook 
 again bare of either bait or fish. 
 
 " You must pay strict attention, you see ; fish incline 
 to be slippery," said Belville. " I guess I shall have to 
 give you another lesson." 
 
 He came and sat beside her and showed her how to 
 hold the pole, and in a moment more there was another 
 faint flash in the water and a quick heavy tug upon the 
 line. 
 
 " He's fast. Now pull him out !" 
 
 She gave a pull, but found "pulling him out" quite 
 another matter, for the fish dragged and jerked as 
 though the best pulling might be on the other side. 
 Summoning all her energies for the task, she gave the 
 
THE GREAT AMERICAN TROUT-SWINE. 157 
 
 pole a mighty swing, and landed the hook in a bunch 
 of drift six feet above the water, where it stuck in the 
 crotch of an alder ; while the struggling beam of silvery 
 light that accompanied it to the surface shot down again 
 in a shining curve to the bottom. 
 
 "I shall never learn it in the world!" said she in 
 despair. 
 
 "You must pull more steadily and not with such a 
 jerk. Try him again. These fish will bite a dozen 
 times and sometimes take hold again after being 
 dropped on shore and flopping back. Imitate their 
 perseverance, and you will succeed." 
 
 The hook was soon rescued, baited, and whirling in 
 the foam again. Soon there was a new tug at the line, 
 and the hook under the impulse of her nervous arm 
 went on another exploring tour among the leaves above. 
 A small fish followed it about half way up and went 
 wiggling and shimmering back to the pool below. 
 
 Belville again fixed the hook and laid his hand on the 
 pole to steady it for her. It was not long before there 
 was a heavy pull upon it, for these fish, like mining- 
 stock gudgeons, often return to the hook while their 
 jaws are yet bleeding from the former bite. Belville 
 held the rod firmly until sure that the fish was fast; then 
 steadily but rapidly he raised it and drew in a vigorously- 
 flapping beauty a foot long, showering silvery rays from 
 its thrashing sides of pearl. 
 
 "There are probably some more in there," he said, as 
 he took it off. "Try it again." 
 
 A few minutes passed, when a faint "jiggle" on the 
 line startled Laura from her composure, and in a twink- 
 
158 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 ling a tiny little fish was hung up to dry on an alder 
 limb. 
 
 "Is that the way you hang your victims?" said Bel- 
 ville, as he hauled it in and tossed it back into the next 
 pool below. " You must positively be more gentle, or 
 you will never catch a big one." 
 
 " I think I'll do pretty well if I catch a small one. I 
 haven't caught even one yet on this trip." 
 
 " Except the big one you caught yesterday," said Bel- 
 ville, significantly. 
 
 "Why, I didn't fish yesterday." 
 
 "No. The fish did all the work himself, and, like 
 these, hooked himself. But, Laura, it seems so like a 
 dream to me; I can hardly realize it." 
 
 "Oh!" said she, coloring, as she saw his meaning. 
 " Your simile is a bad one. People awake from dreams." 
 
 " But I never shall unless you wake me." 
 
 "Sleep on then, happy dreamer!" 
 
 " But you must be careful, too, not to wake your other 
 dreamer." 
 
 " I dread that more than anything, for I do love 
 Charley. It's an anomalous situation, I must confess, 
 to love two persons at once. And yet I do really love 
 Charley still, and could not bear to hurt his feelings." 
 
 " I can understand your feelings exactly, though, as 
 you say, the situation is anomalous. I really feel all the 
 more complimented by the strength of your regard for 
 him. His condition relieves us from any trouble about 
 breaking the news to him. You have only to soothe his 
 declining days with your love, and " 
 
 "What ! play the hypocrite?" 
 
THE GREAT AMERICAN TROUT-SWINE. 159 
 
 "Confound it!" thought Belville, "I'm always spilling 
 my words on one side or the other when I try to balance 
 them." 
 
 "No," said he aloud, "that's not what I mean. You 
 can still be as friendly to him as ever without being 
 hypocritical." 
 
 " And leaving him to infer that I am still " 
 
 " His own ? Yes, if he chooses. Are you responsible 
 for his inferences ?" interrupted Belville. 
 
 " I gall that hypocrisy." 
 
 " Possibly it is. But I think a deception is pardon- 
 able that is undertaken solely from kind motives. Were 
 he to live an explanation would of course be necessary, 
 but as it is " 
 
 A sound of some one coming interrupted them, and in 
 another moment Miss Norton joined them. She dis- 
 played a respectable string of fish with a proud smile 
 that outshone the silvery sides of the prizes themselves, 
 and said as she sat down : 
 
 " This is just delightful. What ! only one ? You 
 have not been fishing much, I guess." 
 
 "Oh, she don't catch anything but big ones," said 
 Belville, "and I'm not fishing at all." 
 
 " She's caught the biggest one yet, hasn't she ?" said 
 Evy, holding up admiringly the big fellow that Belville 
 bad landed. " I tried a big one down below here, but 
 could not catch him." 
 
 "They're very easy. Only let them alone and they'll 
 hook themselves. The larger they grow, the more they 
 exhibit this tendency," said Belville, with face as sober 
 as the pine-clad heights above. 
 
160 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 " I guess I'll go back and stay with Charley," said 
 Laura, " and leave you and the Doctor to catch fish 
 enough for breakfast." 
 
 "What a false position I stand in!" she soliloquized, 
 when alone. " May heaven help me ! I do not mean to 
 do wrong, yet how can I help loving both ; loving one 
 more than the other, yet loving the other too much to 
 tell him what I should. Heaven forgive me if I am 
 wrong. I do not mean to be." 
 
 # 
 
 " I'm so glad you have come, Laura," said Norton, 
 with a smile, when she had reached the camp. 
 
 "I knew you would be lonely when Evy left, so I 
 came right away." 
 
 " Yes, Laura, I was very lonely, as I always am with- 
 out you. And I have something I am very anxious to 
 tell you. Laura, I am dying!" He spoke in a deep, 
 solemn tone, and fixed his dark, sunken eyes, burning 
 with weird brilliancy, full upon hers. 
 
 " Why, Charley! How can you talk so?" 
 
 "Yes, Laura, dying. Dying by the day," he said with 
 the same tone and look. 
 
 "Why Charley, you are looking better every day." 
 
 " Yes," said he, with a tinge of bitterness, " the sun 
 and wind improve the color. But such skin-deep re- 
 covery does not deceive me in the least. The oil is 
 burnt out and it is only the fast-charring wick you see, 
 an4 soon its light will cease. Laura, there is just one 
 thing left for me now ; just one thing. It lies in your 
 power, and in yours alone, to brighten the few days that 
 yet remain for me." 
 
THE GREAT AMERICAN TROUT SWINE. 161 
 . ^ 
 
 "Charley, you have the 'hypo.' You are surely 
 stronger than when you came here. Let's go fish a little, 
 and that will cheer you up. To-morrow we start for the 
 Cucamunga Mountains, and they say the scenery there 
 is even finer than this. There is more variety there," 
 said she ; adding in a light gay voice, " and a little vari- 
 ety will send your spirits up, up, up!" 
 
 It produced no effect, however, and he continued in 
 the same tone and with the same look : 
 
 " There is one thing, Laura, for which I have tried 
 oh ! so hard to live. Otherwise, I should willingly 
 have staid at home and allowed death to work his will 
 with me. But for your sake I have come here and 
 tried to live. That hope has been vain, Laura, and 
 already I feel rising fast around me the dark tide that 
 will soon overwhelm me. Laura, must I die without 
 seeing the dream of my life fulfilled ?" 
 
 " I hope not, Charley. I hope you will recover," she 
 faltered. 
 
 " Laura, lay that out of the question. / know. But 
 whether I recover or not, why should we wait any 
 longer? Why not unite now our hands as well as our 
 hearts? And if I die " 
 
 "Charley!" she exclaimed in a half scream, "how 
 can you talk so ? Don't ! don't !" 
 
 "Well; if I live, then?" said he, earnestly. 
 
 "I hope you will. I know you will," said she, brushing 
 a tear from her bright eye. 
 
 " Then it will only anticipate what's to happen anyhow 
 before a great while." 
 
 A low " yes" slipped out before she knew it. She 
 
162 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA, 
 
 attempted to recall it; but a troop of strange feelings 
 filled her breast, and embarrassment strangled the half- 
 framed retraction before her tongue began to utter it. 
 
 " Then, Laura, let us be married when we get to San 
 Bernardino!" said he, quickly. 
 
 Again she decided to tell the truth; but the fire of 
 embarrassment withered the thought ere it could bloom 
 into words. 
 
 "Why be in such haste, Charley?" she said at length, 
 finding all other words stick on her tongue. 
 
 " Laura, can anything be haste for a dying man, for 
 one who is doubly dying, dying for your love as well 
 as" 
 
 He left the sentence unfinished, but his thought was 
 plainly interpreted by his agonized and pleading ex- 
 pression. 
 
 " But what will people say ?" 
 
 " They will say you did right, of course. What else 
 could they say?" 
 
 " Of course it would be right. I didn't mean that; 
 I mean, what will papa say ? I shall have to speak to 
 him about it first." 
 
 " I took care of that, and have his consent here in his 
 last letter. He says you may do whatever you think 
 best." 
 
 As a poor weary hare, cut off at every turn, sometimes 
 sits bewildered nor again attempts to run, so Laura pub- 
 sided into silence, which to her great relief was soon 
 broken by the nimble tongue of Belville, who came in 
 chattering to Miss Norton. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IN THE HEART OF CUCAMUNGA. 
 
 NEARLY ten thousand feet above the San Ber- 
 nardino plains, Cucamunga rears his dark green 
 head, a pyramid of spruce and fir rising from long pine- 
 clad shoulders, seeming when long cloud-banks lie along 
 his breast a floating island on a sea of foam. On th.e 
 south the rise is swift and unbroken, but on the north 
 the mountain tumbles away in tremendous ravines, val- 
 leys, gulches, ridges, and smaller peaks. In the heart of 
 this portion trickle from the snow-banks and the great 
 reservoirs of the rocks the three forks of Lytle Creek, 
 once the home of innumerable silver trout and still the 
 home of enough for any one but the great American 
 trout-porcus. 
 
 It was still early in the day when Belville drove his 
 friends over a divide and down into the little place of 
 Mrs. Glenn a bright oasis in a wild rolling desert of 
 granite, gravel, boulder, and hill, pine-clad heights, and 
 foot-hills robed in chaparral, with the north fork of the 
 creek sparkling through the long deep valley in the cen- 
 ter. 
 
 " You will travel many thousand miles before you see 
 another such cloud-cascade as that," said Belville, point- 
 ing upward toward the southern sky. 
 
 Driven by the sea-wind against the southern slope of 
 
164 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Cucamunga, miles of cloud had been carried up the 
 slope far beyond their natural level, and, sweeping over 
 the long shoulders of the mountain, came tumbling down 
 again into the tremendous gorge of the creek. Great 
 billowy masses flowed over the fir-clad crest of the vast 
 wall, and down hundreds of feet they rolled over each 
 other, till they reached the proper level. Then closing 
 up in orderly array they resumed their northward march. 
 Their backs of snowy white and edges of silver and 
 pearl, where the sun struck through, lent a deeper shade 
 to the serried ranks of pine or fir that showed here and 
 there through the rifts of the great fleecy flood, and a 
 darker tint to the soft blue sky out of which the snowy 
 cascade seemed to come. 
 
 By noon the tourists, with their camp equipage packed 
 on their horses, were making their way up the middle 
 fork of the creek. Like all creeks in these mountains 
 this one comes hissing down an immense boulder-wash, 
 with a fall of hundreds of feet to the mile, its course 
 marked by a long line of green alders amid a wild chaos 
 of boulder and gravel. Over all this the horses picked 
 their cautious way at the rate of a mile and a half an 
 hour. The cloud-cascade was no longer seen, and the 
 sides of the great ravine shone clear and bright in the 
 midday sun. The long white slides that furrowed the 
 walls, the great boulders hanging along them, the dark 
 pockets of serried pines that marked the heads of the 
 gulches, the gray castles of granite that rose here and 
 there from the forests of fir or spruce along the moun- 
 tain-tops, were all now close around. Before them five 
 vast pyramids of boulder, cliff, fir, and chaparral rose 
 
IN THE HEART OF CUCAMUNGA. 165 
 
 thousands of feet on high, crowding together like a 
 family of giants standing for a picture, and seeming to 
 bar all farther progress, while to right, to left, behind, 
 wheresoever one turned, great barriers shut out the 
 world. 
 
 Four miles were passed and the stream rushed and 
 roared more furiously, the boulders grew larger and 
 whiter, the sand that covered the bottom and edges of 
 the little pools became like snow, and the water seemed 
 greener and colder. The fall was fast becoming so 
 great, and driftwood and heavy boulders so numerous, 
 that it was decided to stop ; and soon a little alcove in 
 the hills was found where some campers had been before, 
 and here the camp was pitched. 
 
 The creek at this point spread out in a succession of 
 small pools of boiling green water over a white bottom. 
 Short cascades plunged over the white rocks in the dense 
 shade of the rank alders. Here was a part of the stream 
 that the great American trout-porcus could not turn 
 from its course a place where no net or other device 
 but the hook could be used ; and consequently there 
 was plenty of fish. 
 
 After luncheon Belville went to work to cut spruce 
 boughs for bedding, while the ladies went to the brook to 
 fish, and Norton lay down to rest after his tedious ride. 
 
 Laura took her seat upon a great boulder by the seeth- 
 ing pool and dropped in her line. In a moment it was 
 carried with a jerk to the bottom and a weight like ten 
 pounds of iron held it there. She pulled hard and 
 steadily, and the shining struggler came to the surface. 
 Still harder, and he is in the air, dancing with all sorts of 
 
16G RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 strange antics, and as the pole is swung, in over the 
 shore he hops up and down like a pea on a hot griddle. 
 With a chuckle of exultation, the fair fisher maiden 
 reached out to take the fish with loose and careless 
 hand ; and then an interesting shriek rang up the dark 
 pine-clad walls above, while pole, line, and fish fell upon 
 the sand among the boulders, the fish dancing the line 
 into a tangle. 
 
 The fish was still waltzing on its tail when Belville, 
 nearly breaking his bones over the boulders, arrived on 
 the spot, while Norton, roused from his rest, came pant- 
 ing and pale, scrambling along in the rear with the gun. 
 Laura was examining with great solicitude a mark in her 
 hand such as might have been made with a pin in the 
 hands of a six-months-old baby. 
 
 "The dreadful thing stung me!" she exclaimed, as 
 Belville began to laugh. 
 
 " Too bad, I declare ! I left my instruments in the 
 wagon. It may not prove fatal, though. Will you 
 please allow me to look at it?" 
 
 She held out her hand with such a smile as one makes 
 when conscious of doing something silly. 
 
 " Deep as the legal knowledge of a justice of the 
 peace!" said Norton, as he examined the scar with an 
 affectation of seriousness. 
 
 " An unfortunate simile," said Belville, " for sucli 
 knowledge is generally fatal to the party who ought 
 to win." 
 
 " Do you think it will be necessary to resort to ampu- 
 tation, Doctor ?" asked Norton. 
 
 "I can't answer for the consequences unless I do." 
 
IN THE HEART OF CUCAMUNGA. 1C? 
 
 " I never can take off another of the horrid things," 
 said Laura, provoked at their pleasantry. 
 
 "Then I'll stay and assist you," said Belville; and 
 Norton went back to lie down again. 
 
 The fish were as greedy as a public administrator, and 
 it was not long before there was another vigorous bite. 
 The line swirled around in the water for a second, and 
 then a three-inch fingerling hit Belville in one eye, as he 
 was peering over a boulder by Laura's side. 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to do that," said 
 she. 
 
 " Too bad to lose him ! That was a ten-pounder at 
 least, judging by the feeling of my eye. Let me know 
 when you are ready to sling another. I don't object to 
 catching fish in that way to please you ; but it's some- 
 times convenient to have notice," said Belville, with a 
 laugh, as he baited her hook for her. 
 
 She tossed in again and in a moment felt a quick 
 twitch ; one or two more twitches were followed by a 
 tug, and shortly a beauty, almost white below and light 
 green on the back, came lashing and thrashing up 
 through the shade. 
 
 " Now take a short hold of the line so and catch 
 the fish tightly so with the other hand. Their spines 
 are not strong enough to hurt you if you grasp them 
 firmly." 
 
 " That is the proper way to grasp any difficulty, I sup- 
 pose," said she, as with velvety touch she proceeded to 
 loosen the fish from the hook. 
 
 " I think the best way to avoid a difficulty is to dodge 
 it," said Belville. "That's what that fish evidently 
 
168 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 thinks," he added as it flopped from her loose grasp and 
 landed among the stones at her feet. 
 
 " Well, we have a new difficulty to practice on," said 
 she in a low voice, looking around to see that no one 
 was near. 
 
 " Eh? What is it?" said Belville in some alarm. 
 
 "Charley wants me to marry him as soon as possi- 
 ble." 
 
 " Saints defend us ! I had not thought of that," said 
 he, with much trepidation. " It will be apt to precipi- 
 tate a crisis." 
 
 " He says he's sure he cannot live long, and begs me 
 to make him happy as his wife during the brief time he 
 has before him. What is the best thing to do ?" 
 
 " The best thing to do ! Why, of course you don't 
 contemplate doing that?" said Belville in amazement. 
 
 " I would do anything in the world to make Charley 
 happy. But marriage is not a thing to be entered into 
 through pity ; nor at all, unless one loves the man bet- 
 ter than any other. And I do not see that the situation 
 is changed by the danger of his dying except that it is 
 worse." 
 
 "And suppose he should not die?" asked Belville 
 after a thoughtful pause. 
 
 " I wouldn't have him die for the world." 
 
 " Of course not. Neither would I. But he speaks 
 only too truly when he says he is dying. So you must 
 act upon that assumption, although it is a sad and un- 
 pleasant one." 
 
 " Perhaps I can " 
 
 " Sh sh ! Here he comes," interrupted Belville. And 
 
IN THE HEART OF CUCAMUNGA. 169 
 
 sure enough, in a moment more Norton appeared with 
 his pole and line. 
 
 " I felt too badly to sleep, and thought I would try a 
 little fishing," he said, with a sigh and a deep sepulchral 
 cough. He seemed very much out of breath, and took 
 a seat on one boulder, leaning against another to rest 
 before he cast in his line. 
 
 "I'll go back and finish cutting some bedding, and 
 then I'll join you and catch some fish too," said Belville, 
 starting back toward the camp. 
 
 A smile lit up the pale features of Norton as his line 
 was carried with a rush under a boulder ; he drew it out 
 with a gleam of silver and green wriggling at the end ; 
 and as he took off his catch and put it into his basket a 
 faint glow suffused his face and he seemed perceptibly 
 refreshed. 
 
 " If I had only had more of such life as this, what a 
 difference it might have made!" he said, sighing. Then 
 he looked about him and exclaimed : 
 
 " What could be grander than these great hills, what 
 softer and purer than this high, dry air, what sweeter 
 than this icy water, what more comforting than these 
 deep shades? I only wish I could live to enjoy it!" 
 
 " Oh, you will. I know you will," said Laura, looking 
 encouragingly at him. 
 
 "Bury that hope, Laura!" 
 
 " I cannot. I cannot think of your dying. It's too 
 dreadful too dreadful!" 
 
 " Laura, I once risked my life for you, and you promised 
 me then that when the test came you would show that 
 you could do anything for me. I am dying now as much 
 
170 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 for your love as for anything. It is a dreadful thing, I 
 know, to ask one to marry a dying man, but if anything 
 will save me " 
 
 " Oh come, Charley, you must not talk so." 
 
 ' Yes, I am sinking every week almost by the day. 
 If you were in my place and could feel the change that 
 is creeping over me " 
 
 " But Charley" 
 
 " Please don't deny me the last favor I shall ever ask 
 you" 
 
 "You must give me time, Charley. I shall have to 
 think it over a little," she said at length in a hesitating 
 tone. 
 
 " And meanwhile my brief days are passing. Time is 
 too precious to wait. Let me have your promise to be 
 my wife when we return to San Bernardino." 
 
 " It will be time enough then to say." 
 
 " Well, I suppose I can wait till then. We shall be 
 there in a few days," he replied, casting in his line 
 again. 
 
 "Isn't this delightful fishing?" she said as an eight- 
 inch wiggler illumined the dark shade with his flashing 
 sides, and came twisting out of the water. 
 
 " Yes indeed ! It's not so wild and exciting as hunt- 
 ing, but softer and more tranquillizing. What a pity that 
 such a place cannot be within reach of every overworked 
 mortal," said Norton, as he pulled another fish out of the 
 same hole. 
 
 And who that knows the influence of such recreation 
 on both mind and body does not echo Norton's opinion ? 
 You, my scientific friends, who go forth with cunning 
 
IN THE HEART OF CUCAMUNGA. 171 
 
 tackle and gaudy flies to catch the wild and wary old 
 warriors that still linger in the Eastern brooks, you who 
 love the skillful arm, the rocket-like rush and strike, the 
 struggle and the capture, despise not the simplicity of 
 these little silvery cousins of Salmo Fontinalis. Gladly 
 would I tell of wilder and larger fish, of deeper and 
 wider pools, of vain casts and fruitless experiments with 
 flies, of scientific drowning of fish that could not be 
 pulled directly out, of broken lines and sulking five- 
 pounders, if the facts would only bear me out. But my 
 duty is to be true to nature, whether the picture be 
 fine or not. Whether or not it be the proper thing to un- 
 derrate and depreciate our own game is not the question 
 with me. Northern California I hope can show larger 
 and gamier fish than these, but Southern California can 
 show nothing like the carmine-spotted prince of Eastern 
 fish. 
 
 Yet, I must repeat, these are by no means to be de- 
 spised. Their home is in nature's grandest houses, their 
 reception-rooms furnished in a style no art can imitate, 
 and on the walls hang pictures that confound the cun- 
 ningest pencil. Lie for a few moments on the luxurious 
 sofas of snowy rock fanned by the gentle air through the 
 green alders, with the fragrance of the water stealing over 
 your senses like a breeze over the flower-banks of Elysium, 
 lulling you to repose, and see what feelings come over you. 
 How fancy skips back over the milestones of the past and 
 pauses at each stopping-place in your piscatorial life ! 
 Quickly before you come up the boyhood days when 
 with up-rolled pants you waded the old country brook 
 with " gig " in one hand and torch in the other, and the 
 
RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 crunch of the iron teeth into a sucker scrambling over a 
 ripple thrilled your soul with electric fire. You recall 
 the smell of the sawdusted water below the old mill, and 
 seem to see again the foam that runs away from the dark 
 dripping wheel, the great pool below the dam where you 
 used to gig the fish among the big stones when the open- 
 ing of the gates stopped the sheet over the dam and left 
 the surface of the water still. And there, too, is the old 
 bridge in whose shades the sunfish used to lie, while 
 stretched upon the boards above, and peering over the 
 edge, you floated the bait toward him ; and, on either 
 side, the line of deep holes by the old stumps of over- 
 hanging trees where the cork disappeared ere the sinker 
 reached the bottom, and the greedy chub or golden sun- 
 fish came flickering out. Can you forget those soft, warm 
 nights when the " bob" jiggled on the bottom and the 
 writhing eels, their teeth fastened in the linen thread, 
 came squirming out and fell with a dull flop into the 
 scow ? Or how, in later days, the light skiff glided over 
 the smooth face of some little lake, while a fair friend 
 sat in the bow, the soft music of her words blending in 
 your boyish ear with the stroke of your oars, and the 
 glittering bait spinning just below the surface in the wake 
 of the boat lured the ravenous pickerel from his shady 
 lair ? Swiftly memory calls back the time when the first 
 bite of the speckled trout thrilled you and the bright days 
 spent by the wild-rushing streams in the deep old woods 
 or the dark mountain glen, with comrades whose mirth 
 outblazed the camp-fire at night and outsung the winds 
 by day. And when your soul is borne away on the 
 flood of such recollections as these it tarries not to in- 
 
IN THE HEART OF CUCAMUNGA.' 173 
 
 spect with too critical eye the swelling springs from 
 which it flows. 
 
 NOTE. In the lower parts of these San Bernardino County 
 streams are still a few trout of considerable size, but very scarce. 
 Some are said to weigh five pounds ; but this is probably fisher- 
 man's weight. In the only parts where trout are plenty enough 
 for pleasure even half-pound fish are rare ; and I have never seen 
 one that would weigh a pound. Of course the large ones would 
 fight pretty well, but I don't believe any of them are as gamey as 
 the Eastern trout. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TROUT AND TROUBLE. 
 
 " Oh, what a tangled web we weave 
 When first we practice to deceive." 
 
 SOON after daylight the next morning, Belville and | 
 Laura went to the brook to get the morning fishing, 
 which is always the best here. Eveline staid at camp 1 
 to cook breakfast, and Norton was still king of the realm 
 of dreams. 
 
 The fish were as ravenous as parishioners at a donation j 
 party where the parson's "spread" outvalues the do- j 
 nations, as they jumped, flashed, and darted at the bait, j 
 Laura had learned at last how to pull them out and take 
 them off, and many a glimmering beauty found its way 
 to her basket. Belville, throwing back all but the j 
 largest, soon had what even the great American trout- 
 porcus would call " a nice mess." So he soon wound 
 up his line, and having caught enough for the day, went i 
 up to the pool where Laura was and leaned over a boul- 
 der beside her. 
 
 " Any new developments in matrimonial prospects?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "I don't know what I am to do," she answered. "He's 
 so very urgent and seems to desire it so much. He is 
 certainly failing, and I am afraid this distress of mind 
 is making him worse." 
 
 "There is no mistake about his failing." 
 
TROUT AND TROUBLE. 175 
 
 " Perhaps then Oh, heavens ! isn't it horrible !" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " To even think of doing such a thing with such an 
 expectation." 
 
 " But you surely don't intend " 
 
 "What can I do? He's actually suffering about it. 
 And his state of mind is pulling him down faster than 
 disease. Oh ! Heaven forgive my deception ! Why 
 didn't I tell him the truth when he first spoke of it ?" 
 
 Her pole lay idle in the water, and a trout, after 
 breakfasting on the hook beneath a boulder, was trying 
 to work off indigestion by tearing around the bottom of 
 the pool. The crags far above, lit up by the sun's rays 
 softened by passing through thin clouds, shone like 
 silver castles. Down the valley the cloud-cascade was 
 rolling over in great fleecy billows with edges of gold 
 and backs of pearl, with green islands of pine or spruce 
 behind. Below, the manzanita spread its red arms and 
 bright green leaves in the morning sun, and the lilac, 
 still in bloom on the northern slopes, tinted the dark 
 chaparral with its soft purple. Here and there were 
 bushes hung full with golden bells, creepers with trum- 
 pets of scarlet and blue, vines festooned with orange 
 and pink. The shades seemed deeper and more solemn, 
 the boulders larger and whiter than ever. Yet Laura 
 saw nothing of it all. 
 
 Belville sat staring at her and said not a word. 
 
 " I'll do as you say," she said at length. 
 
 "No. Do as you think best. I cannot advise you. 
 Nothing will alter my affection, however you decide. I 
 look upon it only as a delay, anyhow." 
 
176 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 "Don't speak of such dreadful things," said she, 
 quickly. 
 
 " But how are we to help it ? There are times when 
 we must reason coldly upon things against which the 
 feelings rebel, and it seems to me this is one of those 
 occasions," said Belville. 
 
 " I no longer know what is right and what is not. 
 Why did I not tell him at first!" she repeated, in dis- 
 tress. 
 
 " Then why not tell him now ?" 
 
 " I can't I can't. He is suffering too much, poor fel- 
 low, and I can't bear to have him suffer. I love him yet, 
 and if I had never met you " 
 
 " He certainly is worthy of any woman's love, and I 
 don't wonder you wish to smooth his pathway to the 
 grave, whither he is so surely going. You are the best 
 judge of what to do." 
 
 " I hardly see any way but to do as he wishes. But 
 then comes in another dreadful feature of it all to be 
 the wife of one while my heart belongs to another. 
 
 ' Oh, what a tangled web we weave . 
 
 When first we practice to deceive.' 
 
 May God forgive me ; I do it only for his good." 
 
 A cheery call to breakfast rang from the rocky wall 
 
 behind them. 
 
 "Well, I'll leave my fate where it has always been in 
 
 your hands," said Belville with a sigh. 
 
 "It's safe enough, but I hate the idea most mightily," 
 
 said Belville to himself. " I'd stake my reputation 
 
 on her being a widow in three months at the farthest. 
 
TROUT AND TROUBLE. 177 
 
 Otherwise, I should object most decidedly. The plaguy 
 arrangement will cheat me out of her company, too, for 
 most of that time. But objecting is an extremely deli- 
 cate matter. However, mortality will soon eliminate 
 him from the problem, and until then I suppose I'll have 
 to consider it irreducible." 
 
 Breakfast passed quietly away, neither Belville nor 
 Laura talking any more than was necessary. After 
 breakfast Belville went to look after the horses, and then 
 returned to the brook and stretched out for a nap on a 
 huge boulder; for at this altitude and in this air one 
 can sleep at any time. Eveline took her line and went 
 up the brook, leaving Laura and Norton alone at camp. 
 
 What wonder that so many parties of ladies and gen- 
 tlemen, the most refined in the land, go out to camp in 
 Californiaj though they know nothing of the pleasures of 
 either hunting or fishing? What wonder that they thread 
 the passes of the high mountains and spend days and 
 weeks among the rugged hills or in the deep canons ? 
 For where has nature made another such country for 
 camping with so little work, so little discomfort, and so 
 much to see ; and where earth, air, and sky all combine 
 to produce such a delightful indifference to the flight of 
 time? Where is the land where one can dream time 
 away with a sweeter abandon than here ? To lie down 
 in the cool night air with no tent but the starry blue or 
 the glistening moonlit leaves of some royal oak, with 
 no fear of rain or dew, unsung to rest by the tuneful 
 Thomas or the festive mosquito, with no fear of the 
 tarantulas, scorpions, rattlesnakes, and other horrors 
 which the Californian rarely knows except in corre- 
 
178 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN ID CALIFORNIA, 
 
 spondence of Eastern papers written by the perfunctory 
 hand of some quill-hack who has spent a few hours in' 
 Woodward's garden ; to rise in the morning with the 
 certainty of a bright day, finding the hare perhaps play- 
 ing around you, the quail calling on every hand, the 
 mountain ringdove drifting past, the squirrel's bushy tail 
 whisking through the bushes, or the dove cooing in the 
 trees by the spring this, this is camping ! The moun- 
 tains are of course the best in summer, but even in the 
 foot-hills and lowlands there is attraction enough to call 
 out thousands every year for camping alone as well as 
 for hunting and fishing. 
 
 Though there was little or no game where our friends 
 now were, it was with no little regret that they packed 
 up that afternoon and threaded their way back to where 
 they had left the wagon, and got ready to start on the 
 morrow for San Diego's lower hills and drier valleys, but 
 no less healthful air. 
 
 " It's decided," Laura whispered to Belville, as he 
 helped her off her horse, when they reached the wagon 
 at Mrs. Glenn's. "It will be at San Bernardino." 
 
 - 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 JUNE SHOOTING. 
 
 WHERE can one shoot in June without violating 
 at least the law of propriety ? you naturally ask. 
 Even here. Perhaps no part of the country can show 
 such a continuous round of shooting as this, there being 
 no month when some kind of game is not in its prime 
 here. May, June, and July are here the palmy days of 
 the hares and rabbits. The young are full grown, and 
 both old and young are fat, sleek, and lively. The rab- 
 bits of this country need no frost to put them in good 
 condition, and the parasite of the Eastern bunny is 
 rarely or never found among them. 
 
 But why sneer at the idea of shooting rabbits at any 
 time ? You may indeed have outgrown rabbit-shooting 
 and concentrated your love upon nobler game. But can 
 you forget the time when the flicker of a woolly tail through 
 the frosted weeds of the old meadow, or the rustle of 
 scampering feet over the dead leaves of the woods, swept 
 like a thunder-storm through your boyish heart? Do 
 you forget when it snowed in the evening and you rolled 
 sleepless through the long, long night, waiting for the 
 first scouts of dawn to appear? How you outstripped 
 the daylight in getting up and out upon the snow ! How 
 the first glimpse of that four-dotted track thrilled your 
 soul with a strange fire ! How you followed it with 
 
180 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 tingling fingers and trembling knees along some bank, 
 across the brook, and up the meadow fence ; how the 
 shivers danced along your back when it led into some 
 brush and you circled the patch to see if it had gone 
 out; how you followed it to the old rail-heap back of 
 some one's barn, and felt a shower-bath of chills as, 
 stooping down and looking in at one end of the heap, 
 you saw a dark, fuzzy object through the opening ! Can 
 you\ver forget how with trembling hand you cautiously 
 pulled down the rails until at last the sheen of that little 
 black eye beamed on your soul like a meteor? Can you 
 forget how you carried that rabbit home by the legs, 
 although you had a game-bag with you ; how you hung 
 him up and for a week went a dozen times a day to look 
 at him, standing at all point of the compass so as to take 
 in all his various splendors ; how you thought over him 
 at night and bored your father, uncle, and cousin about 
 him by day; how at last he was served before you at 
 table in becoming state, and with a thrill of pride you 
 helped your mother to a piece; and how in spite of its 
 rank taste you persuaded yourself that the dish was 
 superb ? Talk not of the first deer, the first bear. The 
 glory of the first anything pales before the memory of the 
 boy's first rabbit. 
 
 And what but a boy is the oldest sportsman when in 
 the field what but a boy slightly modified? And is it 
 not the very life and soul of the field's attractions, that 
 it does thus make us boys again ? However this may 
 be, I defy one in whom any love for the field has ever 
 been fully awakened, and who values hunting not for 
 the game but for the skill required to get it and the 
 
JUNE SHOOTING. 181 
 
 associations connected with it, to stroll with rifle, pistol, 
 or bow at evening or early morning along the edge of 
 the plains where rabbits and hares are plenty, where the 
 walking is as dry as in your parlor, where he does not 
 have to tear and swear his way through briers,, brush, 
 or long grass, where he is neither baked with heat nor 
 benumbed with cold, and say that it is not first-class, 
 scientific shooting and exciting sport. And even if a 
 shot-gun be used, such a one will quickly admit a 
 total eclipse of Eastern May or June shooting which 
 really amounts to nothing. 
 
 Our party had camped at the Vallecito, between 
 Temecula and Fall Brook, on their return to San Diego 
 County, and, about an hour before sundown, started 
 out from camp, Laura with bow and arrows, Norton and 
 his sister with shot-guns, and Belville with his rifle. 
 
 A few traces of the tristful visage which Belville had 
 worn at San Bernardino, while playing the part of im- 
 promptu groomsman at the wedding, still lingered under 
 the mask of good-humor he had worn ever since ; while 
 Norton's face was bathed in a perpetual smile and 
 beamed with joy ; and he evidently had not failed 
 enough in the last two days to prevent the short walk 
 that is necessary to have good sport with rabbits in this 
 locality, in places where they are plenty. 
 
 " Now, remember," said Belville, " that the larder is 
 not suffering, and that we are out only for amusement. 
 So don't shoot at anything unless it is running ; with 
 the exception of Miss Lau excuse me, Mrs. Norton, 
 who of course will take sitting shots with the bow. 
 And there is a chance for her already !" 
 
182 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 He pointed as he spoke to a ball of brown fur between 
 two low bushes of chemisal on the edge of the open 
 ground, and some sixty yards away. 
 
 Laura walked to within twenty yards of the spot, and 
 a head and a pair of ears suddenly appeared above the 
 rest of the object, with black sparkling eyes turned 
 inquiringly at her. 
 
 Tang! went the bowstring, and with a faint chiff ! 
 the arrow sheathed itself in the carpet of dry alfileria 
 upon which the rabbit was sitting, a little on one side. 
 She placed another arrow on the string, and as it hissed 
 just over the rabbit's head, touching an ear as it passed, 
 the ball of fur in a twinkling became instinct with life 
 and took on an undulatory motion as it disappeared with 
 a zigzag flash of white bobbing in its immediate rear. A 
 ball from Belville's rifle tore up the dry dirt just behind 
 as the rabbit passed an opening in the bushes, and Nor- 
 ton's gun sowed the seed of a black sage-bush about two 
 feet above where Belville's bullet had struck. 
 
 " Well, there's another for you," said Norton, shortly, 
 pointing to a little knoll about seventy yards away. 
 As they went toward it a young hare darted out from 
 behind a projecting tongue of chemisal^ and, like a cir- 
 cus performer running into the ring with a half skip 
 and jump, he hopped proudly and inquisitively out 
 into the open, stopped not far off, reared up on his 
 hind legs, and with long ears perpendicular, fore legs 
 hanging at rest and hind legs ready for business, sur- 
 veyed the party with his little black eyes flashing in 
 the sun! Meanwhile, preparations for his annihilation 
 were in progress. 
 
JUNE SHOOTING. 183 
 
 " Let the bow have first shot ; then we'll try him if 
 he runs," said Belville. 
 
 With trembling hand Laura loosed an arrow from 
 the string, but forgot about giving .enough elevation. 
 The shaft struck about three feet short, snaked its way 
 through the light, dry grass, and glided out just in 
 front of the living target. Quick as a bat he wheeled 
 and dashed off in a twinkling, making for the brush 
 some eighty yards away. 
 
 " Can't I hold far enough ahead of him ?" exclaimed 
 Belville, as the first bullet made the dirt fly behind 
 him. He held about six feet ahead, and the next ball 
 sent up a shower of dirt just in front of the scudding 
 hare. Almost like the rebound of a sunbeam was the 
 reversal of that swift engine, and back it went the 
 other way with the shot-guns belching harmless thun- 
 der behind. Another ball from the fast-repeating 
 Winchester struck just below the rabbit as it rose in 
 its rapid course, and like a flash it shot away at an- 
 other angle, with another ball hissing just over it. 
 And now it was running on a quartering course, when 
 the rifle, aimed some three feet ahead, cracked again, 
 and a rolling somersault of yellow and brown took 
 the place of the swift-darting hare, even before the 
 thud of the ball came back to the ear. 
 
 Rabbits were as thick as friends in prosperity, and 
 before the hunters got through the point of brush out 
 of which this last hare had run, they started three 
 more, one of which stopped just in time to catch a load 
 of shot from Eveline's gun that would otherwise have 
 gone behind him. 
 
184 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 " Is that what you call shooting on the run ?" said 
 Belville. 
 
 "Yes ; I shot on the run and hit it on the stop," she 
 replied. 
 
 "I presume stoppers are jour forte. But you did 
 very well. Now, Mrs. Norton, your rabbit still stands 
 on yonder knoll, idly waiting, and looks as if he needed 
 the stimulus of a shaft in his ribs to put him in proper 
 running order for the guns." 
 
 She walked up nearer to the rabbit and sent an ar- 
 row whisking just over its back into the weeds and 
 grass beyond. It jumped, turned around, shook its 
 head and pricked up its ears for some more music. 
 Twang ! went the string again, and with a dull chug the 
 arrow anchored in its ribs. 
 
 " Beautifully done !" exclaimed Belville. " Isn't that 
 far better than shooting it with a shot-gun ?" 
 
 "I always told you the bow was the "best," she re- 
 sponded. 
 
 " And I always admitted that it was for rabbits ; 
 especially in this country, where it is so easy to get 
 sitting shots. These rabbits, too, unlike the East- 
 ern hares, are worth something when killed. They 
 are, as you already know, vastly ahead of the Eastern 
 rabbit in flavor, and are quicker and more gamey in 
 action. To get sitting shots at the Eastern rabbit at 
 ten or twelve feet is very easy for one who knows 
 whereto look and has a sharp eye to see them in their 
 forms. But these fellows you can seldom see in their 
 forms, and when feeding or playing in the open it is 
 hard to get a closer shot than fifteen or twenty yards 
 
JUNE SHOOTING. 185 
 
 unless they are running; and often you cannot get 
 closer than thirty yards." 
 
 Some two hundred yards away from where they 
 stood a pair of long ears now came into view, just 
 over the edge of some chemisal. 
 
 " There's a chap we must keep out of sight of, and 
 get behind so as to make him run on the open," said 
 Belville. "Let's slip down this old road here and get 
 behind that strip of brush and be as quiet as possible, 
 keeping our heads down until we get close to him." 
 
 A few minutes brought them to about thirty yards 
 in the rear of the animal. 
 
 " Now enliven him a little," said Belville to Mrs. 
 Norton. 
 
 Twang ! went the string, and chiff 7 went the shaft 
 through the edge of the chemisal, close beside the 
 hare. He stood not upon the order of his going, but 
 started across the open with the speed of a rocket, 
 and his pace was soon materially accelerated by a 
 shower of dirt thrown up by a Winchester bullet, 
 which fell a little short and bounded over him, and by 
 a stray grain of fine shot from Norton's gun, which 
 acted as a very efficient stimulus to his muscular sys- 
 tem. Another bullet sang through the tip of his long 
 ear, causing him to whirl partly about and hop along 
 half dazed for a few yards, flopping his long ears and 
 looking very foolish. But he immediately started out 
 again, quietly, on tiptoe. Another bullet clipped a lit- 
 tle unnecessary fur from under his belly as he rose 
 in a spring, and in a twinkling he let out another 
 length of his long body and darted away at right an- 
 
186 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 gles to his former course, with two more bullets whiz- 
 zing vainly behind and above him. 
 
 Meanwhile another hare, standing erect on the open 
 ground some two hundred yards away, had been 
 calmly "taking in the show." 
 
 "Let me try that fellow as he stands," said Norton, 
 who first caught sight of him. Belville threw up the 
 globe-sight and adjusted the peep-sight of his rifle to 
 two hundred yards. 
 
 " Get the little ball square on the center," said Bel- 
 ville, as he handed the rifle to Norton. " You had 
 better stoop down and rest it on your knee." 
 
 Norton did so, and at the report a puff of dust flew 
 from the dry ground, fifty yards beyond the hare. Mr. 
 Hare took down his ears and gathered up his hind legs 
 with exemplary expedition ; but before he had run 
 fifty yards his curiosity overcame him, he suddenly 
 stopped, took a look from a sitting position, and then 
 raised himself on his hind legs, with his ears pointed 
 towards the zenith. 
 
 Bang ! went the rifle. The dust flew at that side of 
 the hare that was towards the rifle ; he jumped three 
 feet heavenwards, and, turning in the air, landed on 
 his back, struck in the neck by the glancing ball. 
 
 "A splendid shot, that!" said Belville, who would 
 not spoil Norton's pleasure by telling him that the 
 ball had first struck the ground a fact which the 
 smoke had kept Norton from noticing, although it 
 was by no means a bad shot as it was. 
 
 The light of the fast-sinking sun turned into misty 
 carmine as it poured along the great valley leading 
 
JUNE SHOO TING. 187 
 
 up from the San Luis River ; the gray uniform of the 
 great host of giant boulders that stood guard along 
 the gateway through the high hills towards Temecula 
 changed into purple, and the dark-green of the chap- 
 arral-covered hills towards Montserrate shaded into 
 blue ; and with these changes of the face of nature 
 the rabbits and hares (to preserve throughout for 
 clearness this unscientific distinction) appeared more 
 and more numerous. At single points along the edge 
 of the brush might be seen half a dozen at a time. 
 
 Here is one just stepped out of bed, still uncertain 
 whether it is yet time to get up. He looks dubiously 
 around, then draws himself up until he looks like a 
 little ball of brown fur, and sits between two bushes 
 of white sage, looking out upon the world as uncon- 
 cerned about you as an Eastern friend who owes you 
 money when you get buried in the wilds of Cali- 
 fornia. A wavy glimmer of brown with a flickering 
 attachment of white, fading in the sage almost before 
 it can be seen, is all that remains of the serene little 
 bunny if you approach a step or two closer. 
 
 Here is another, a callow youth of only a few weeks. 
 He is nearly full-grown, however, and very naturally 
 feels his importance. As the party approaches, he 
 hops out farther on the open ground, sits up and 
 scratches one ear, neglects even the precaution to turn 
 his head towards the brush, and nibbles a little dry 
 alfileria. He will prove an easy prey, this fellow. 
 
 Yes; to him who hunts only for nutriment. But not 
 to those who care not for the contents of that little 
 brownish-gray fur coat, but give him heavy odds for 
 
188 RIFLE, ROD AND GUM IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 his little life. Zip ! goes an arrow into the dry grass 
 beside him, and swifter than " the rainbow's lovely 
 form evanishing amid the storm" of shot, arrows, and 
 bullets, he scuds into the brush. 
 
 But never mind. In a country where a rabbit-proof 
 fence is often as necessary to a garden as is the soil 
 one need not wait long at this time of day for a shot. 
 Here is another already, an old and sage one. Wis- 
 dom sits enthroned upon his brow as he surveys the 
 party, turns about and hops a step or two into the brush, 
 pricks up his ears, and, like some other smart folks, 
 watches the enemy from behind a blind of two or 
 three sage-stalks which he imagines they cannot pen- 
 etrate. He might have changed his opinion, per- 
 haps, if he had had a chance, but the chiff of an arrow 
 through the sage was followed too suddenly by an 
 impairment of his abdominal functions to permit good 
 brain-work, and he remained as firmly of the same 
 opinion as man often does when floored by an op- 
 posing fact. 
 
 "At eve the beetle boometh 
 Athwart the thicket lone." 
 
 So doth the evening gun of the San Diego bee- 
 keeper as he taketh in his daily rabbit. Bang! comes 
 the echo of a gun from down a long cafion that leads 
 to Montseratte. Whang! goes another off toward 
 Fall Brook. The roar of another in the Vallecito 
 itself rattles along its boulder-studded hills, and is 
 answered by the boom of still another far away on 
 the San Luis River. 
 
 "Thank God for the rabbits! I'd have been busted 
 
JUNE SHOOTING. 189 
 
 long ago without J em," an old settler once said as he 
 rose from his matutinal mastication cf cotton-tails. 
 The remark came from the depths of his heart, and 
 can be fully appreciate)! only by the country resident 
 of Southern California. The bee-keeper's staff of life, 
 the stockman's relaxation from the arduous labors in- 
 cidental to the deglutition of "jerky," the joy of the 
 cactus ranchero, the mainstay of the tarweed or mus- 
 tard ranch, the great relief of the soul that is weary 
 of bacon or too poor to buy it the cotton-tail of 
 Southern California stands without a peer among the 
 useful animals of this world. 
 
 After going on a hundred yards or so, as the hun- 
 ters rounded a point of brush, a huge hare shot out 
 with a rush from beyond it, and, turned from his 
 straight-away course by an arrow striking ahead of 
 him, he sped away directly across the face of the 
 party. Bang! goes Norton's gun, but still he holds 
 his rapid way. Whang! goes Eveline's, yet still that 
 old hare's days go on, go on. Crack! goes the rifle, 
 and the dirt flies just beneath him as he rises a 
 pretty good shot nevertheless, for no human skill can 
 allow for that rapid rise and fall. Bang! goes another 
 barrel of Norton's gun, and one hind leg dangles in 
 the air. The rifle cracks again, and the dirt flies just 
 over his back; again, and he spins over and over in a 
 whirling somersault. 
 
 NOTE. Since the wonderful discovery that glass balls may be 
 hit with a rifle when practically at rest, and at a distance so short 
 that a mere child could hit them if really at rest, such absurd ideas 
 
190 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 have grown up about rifle-shooting at moving marks that Belville's 
 shooting at hares may to some seem to be very poor. But until 
 some of the great rifle-shots dare to give an exhibition on balls 
 tossed across the line instead of straight-away fire, and at fifteen 
 yards instead of fifteen feet, it will not be considered necessary to 
 show why Belville's shooting with all its misses was first-class. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A JUNE BUCK. 
 
 THE next morning, just as the last star on the 
 western verge had ceased its winking at the 
 brightening east, Norton and Belville might have 
 been seen winding up an ancient cattle-trail that led 
 up the side of one of the boulder-bespattered hills 
 that inclose the green amphitheater of the Vallecito. 
 Norton soon discovered that there was plenty of room 
 among the boulders, -and here and there the gulches 
 terminated in heavily lined pockets of dark chaparral. 
 
 The trail led to a little plateau filled with boulders, 
 brush-patches, and strips of meadow-grass, breaking 
 all along the edges into small benches with brush- 
 filled gullies, and pockets between. 
 
 " There is a highly exuberant old buck up here 
 somewhere," said Belville, pointing to a print of two 
 sharp-toed hoofs in the hard ground of the trail. 
 " This track was made last evening, and he is some- 
 where ahead of us. We must go up to that ridge 
 before us and take a look." 
 
 They rode up to the top of the ridge, and, after 
 tying the horses, climbed quietly to the top of a pile 
 of granite rocks and peeped cautiously over. Belville 
 took first a cursory glance over the several hundred 
 acres of wavy ground that lay before and below; then, 
 
192 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 taking his opera-glass, he began a cautious survey of 
 each particular part. Like all tyros, Norton gave a 
 general glance at the whole, and not at once seeing 
 anything that looked like a deer in a picture, con- 
 cluded there was nothing there and began to look at 
 the scenery. 
 
 Long and thoroughly Belville scanned the sides of 
 every gulch and pocket, the sides and back of every 
 ridge, and the broad top of every bench. And surely 
 he must be looking for rabbits, or mice perhaps, by 
 the way he examines every little spot of brown, yellow, 
 gray, white, and even black. What have such spots 
 to do with deer? 
 
 Ah! my friend, pictures of field-sports to the con- 
 trary notwithstanding, nothing in the whole line of 
 hunting is more difficult, nothing in still-hunting is so 
 important as to see a deer before it sees you. 
 
 And this is the hardest and slowest of all rules of 
 hunting to get into the beginner's head; and even 
 many successful hunters, by losing sight for a moment 
 of its supreme importance, often, in a second of haste 
 or carelessness, throw away the fruits of hours of 
 patient toil. 
 
 Be not too ready, then, to blame Belville for wasting 
 ten or fifteen minutes in scrutinizing objects that 
 turned out to be stones, patches of bare ground, 
 stubs of burnt chaparral, bits of dead brush, and 
 so on. 
 
 And now what so suddenly catches his attention in 
 yonder small patch of chaparral some three hundred 
 yards away? Only a faint motion in a top of a bush; a 
 
A JUNE BUCK. 193 
 
 bird, perhaps, or even the rising breeze. It will bear 
 watching, nevertheless; and Belville knows that the 
 bush is choke-cherry; rather stiff for either a bird or 
 the faint morning breeze to stir, especially without 
 stirring any other bushes. 
 
 It moves a few times and stops for several seconds. 
 Then, again, a slow wavy motion and another pause. 
 Yet there is nothing else to be seen even with the 
 glass, and that brush is both low and thin. And now 
 the top of the next bush moves with a twitch, and 
 Belville whispers to Norton, " There he is, browsing 
 in yonder brush. Now you stay right here, for if he 
 runs he will be just as likely to run this way as any. 
 When I signal to you from the rocks or whistle to 
 you, do you take the horses and follow that trail. 
 But don't leave here or show yourself until I do signal 
 in some way." So saying, he pointed out the place 
 where the brush was, backed off the ridge and disap- 
 peared. 
 
 With rapid but quiet tread of moccasined foot, Bel- 
 ville soon reached the base of a rocky ridge that ran 
 out to within fifty yards of the place where the deer 
 was, and some forty feet above him. Along the side 
 of this ridge, out of sight of the deer, Belville slipped 
 with cautious step, taking care not to snap the brittle 
 brush that lay along his path. He soon reached a 
 pile of rocks such as crowns the end of nearly all such 
 ridges, peered cautiously over, and saw nothing. 
 Nothing but half an acre of blackish-green brush, 
 the everlasting Adenostoma fasciculata of the Southern 
 California hills and mesas, mingled with small patches 
 
194 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 of the sea-green lilac and the pea-green choke-cherry. 
 This half-acre formed the top of a little bench which 
 rolled into the main plateau in front, on the sides into 
 chaparral-filled gulches, and behind into masses of 
 frowning boulder chinked in with wild waving arms 
 of the scraggy cercocarpus. Away to the right he could 
 see Norton's hat just over the rocks where he had 
 left him; in the valley, a thousand feet below, he could 
 see the distant bug-shepherd going from his rabbit 
 breakfast to his apiary; around him the honey-bugs 
 of the said shepherd were already humming at their 
 morning toil; but of other sight or sound of life 
 there was none. 
 
 And what, then, is the matter? Has Belville for- 
 gotten the very important point of locating the exact 
 place where he saw the motion? No, he has doctored 
 too many deer to make an error in marking so plain 
 a symptom. Then the deer must have departed while 
 he was coming around. Quite possible. Perhaps it 
 heard, smelt, or saw him, and was sufficiently amused 
 without his company. Possibly. But Belville evi- 
 dently has another theory. It is just possible, you 
 know, that a deer might stand still in that brush, thin 
 as it appears, without your seeing him. And by the 
 way Belville leans over the rock and looks he must 
 think it highly probable that the deer is still there. 
 He has lost too many good shots by the too hasty 
 assumption that a deer had left the place where he 
 had last seen it. So he stays and looks one, two, 
 three, five minutes and yet nothing moves. 
 
 And now, Doctor, why with all your experience will 
 
A JUNE BUCK. 195 
 
 you get up on that stone to sit down ? Is not your 
 present position behind it just as good to examine all 
 the ground ahead ? But how the deer-hunter loves a 
 seat ; especially after scrambling among San Diego's 
 rugged hills ! So he rises up to take a seat on the top 
 stone, when a sudden smash, bump ! is heard below and 
 a. bright yellowish-brown animal with graceful neck, 
 long gray ears, white buttocks, and light trim legs 
 gathered close beneath it, bursts upon his sight. With 
 easy grace it rises, throwing itself above the brush at 
 every bound, descending with a smash of brush and a 
 resounding bump of its four stiff legs as they all strike 
 the hard ground together, then bounding upward 
 from the touch of the ground as though it were a 
 spring-board, making it seem as though the great dif- 
 ficulty were to stay on the ground instead of in the 
 air. 
 
 As BeWille raises the rifle a most touching "maaJ" 
 comes from the brush ; the bright brown animal stops 
 a moment, turns around its gray head and black fore- 
 head and utters a husky but plaintive " chaaa!" in reply, 
 then ricochets away, as Belville takes down his rifle 
 again. For a moment the deer is nearly out of sight as 
 it bumps along in its billowy flight down the slope ; 
 and then, again it comes into full view over a smooth 
 open place in the plateau, bounding as high as if there 
 were a fence every ten feet. In a moment it reaches 
 the opposite side of the plateau, stops, and throws 
 itself into the attitude of the artists' deer, and sends 
 back a penetrating " chaaa /" to the heart-rending cry 
 that follows it from the starting-place. 
 
196 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 And now two little brown objects are dimly seen 
 flickering like hares through the brush, and appear 
 shortly out on the open ground. There they stand 
 for a second, their bright little mottled coats shining 
 in the just-rising sun, look inquiringly around and 
 send forth another distressing " maa /" It is answered 
 by a responsive cry from the old one on the other 
 side, and with heads up, one on a trot, the other 
 on a half-bound and half-canter, they cross the open 
 ground and join the old dame, who sends forth 
 another "chaaa!" and goes bounding away over the 
 rocks and through the brush. 
 
 " What's the matter with you ?" said Norton, as he 
 came up with the horses in answer to Belville's signal. 
 
 " Fawns entirely too small to get along alone, and 
 I wouldn't shoot," said Belville. " Look, here is that 
 old buck's track again in the trail. He's gone down 
 into the cafion yonder, for water probably, and the 
 question now is whether he has come back yet. He 
 certainly has not come back this way, and, as this 
 track was made last night, it is not very likely he will 
 return this way at all now. It would be of little use 
 to follow this track, for it will lead too far and will 
 become too hard to follow as soon as it leaves this old 
 cattle-trail." 
 
 Half a mile beyond where they are standing, and 
 several hundred feet below, is a basin in the rugged 
 hills, a great hollow or pocket with sides of ragged 
 chaparral, huddled boulders, and a few gnarled and 
 scattered oaks. A small spring trickles from the rocks 
 in a gulch, and around it a hundred quails, little and 
 
A JUNE BUCK* 197 
 
 big, old and young are running, calling, and drinking. 
 There is a sudden flutter among them, a scrambling, 
 squealing, and running. Some fly up into the bushes, 
 others hop upon stones or run up the slopes and under 
 the bushes. But they all quickly stop and look behind 
 with a low "k-wook, k-wook, k-wook" and some steal 
 timidly back again, as a huge deer steps to the spring 
 and dips in his black nose. How quickly he drinks 
 without stopping for breath or even to look about 
 him a thing the deer rarely neglects to do ! He 
 lingers not a moment after drinking, but walks away 
 with that slow-looking, but really rapid gait that so 
 often deceives the hunter. One hundred, two hun- 
 dred, three hundred yards he goes, up one of the many 
 old cattle-trails that lead to the spring. But not up 
 the one he came down. He passed last night on 
 yonder slope where the scrubby live-oaks have 
 elbowed their way among the boulders, and to-day 
 he will hie him to a cool sumac bush on the breezy 
 heights a mile in the other direction. 
 
 And now he stops, nibbles off the tender leaves of 
 a live-oak, then squares around and with up-raised 
 head takes a long and careful look. His neck is thick 
 and arched like that of the pictured war-horse, his coat 
 has a tawny gloss, his forehead and nose are black, 
 his branching horns are covered with dark brown 
 velvet, his rump, round and bulging with fatness, is 
 white behind, and in the center of the white is a little 
 stubbed black tail which he wiggles with considerable 
 complacency. 
 
 Satisfied with his inspection, he stamps a fly from 
 
198 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 one of his trim gray legs, wiggles his paint-brush tail 
 again, and walks on to another bush and takes a nip. 
 He evidently does not care much about this particular 
 bush, so he steps along to another, takes two or three 
 bites from its tender twigs and leaves, then raises his 
 head and takes a long look all round, takes another 
 bite or two and another look, wiggles his tail again 
 and moves on a few paces, then stops again and strikes 
 an attitude. 
 
 He is evidently of the opinion that he is pretty smart. 
 And he is quite correct, too, although he is appallingly 
 ignorant of the limits of his knowledge a failing 
 which some people should be charitable enough to 
 forgive. Like old Wisdom, who discovers a trick or 
 two in mining-stock swindling, he thinks because he 
 can see a few hundred yards beyond his nose that he 
 sees the whole horizon ; and consequently he does not 
 observe a head rise slowly above the rocks on the 
 high ground that forms the opposite side of the basin, 
 some five or six hundred yards away. 
 
 " Do you see that chap yonder ?" said Belville to 
 Norton, pointing to what at that distance showed only 
 a spot of brown through the bushes. After a long 
 and careful look through the glass, Norton concluded 
 that he did. 
 
 "He's mighty small," said he. "It looks like one 
 of those fawns." 
 
 " Not quite as big as an elephant, but big enough 
 to worry two stout men to put him on a horse," said 
 Belville. 
 
 "Can you hit him from here?" 
 
A JUNE BUCK. 199 
 
 "No; nor any other man, except by accident. I 
 shall make a surer thing of it than that, and if we 
 lose him at all it will be through those natural diffi- 
 culties that there is no avoiding, and not by deliber- 
 ate folly. We'll wait here first and watch him, for he 
 is not going to stay long where he is, and it would be 
 nearly impossible to get a good shot at him there, 
 anyhow. He is on an old cattle-trail, you see, and 
 he will not lie down until he gets all the way to the 
 top of the hill." 
 
 They stood and watched him through the glass and 
 saw him lounge in elegant leisure up the hill, now 
 stopping to bite off some leaves, or take a look at the 
 scenery, to watch for danger, or to gratify that inordi- 
 nate propensity a deer has for being slow when 
 you want him to hurry, and in a hurry when you 
 want him to be slow. But on he went, along the 
 brushy hill-side, now a dim moving glimpse of white, 
 now of brown, now of both; but little of the head 
 visible except when he stopped to browse and look 
 around. Soon he reached the high ground on the 
 same level where the hunters were, and disappeared 
 in a little sag of brushy ground that led to an open 
 plateau. 
 
 Quickly they mounted their horses and rode to with- 
 in two hundred yards of where the deer had last been 
 seen. 
 
 " We'll have to wait now for the breeze to turn," 
 said Belville. " You see, the land-breeze is still blow- 
 ing and we can't follow him in; for that will take our 
 scent directly toward him. And if we swing around 
 
RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 USrjARY, v/-Jr 
 
 the other end, we will not have time enough to 
 worTToifHim before the sea-breeze begins, which will 
 also carry our scent to him. In the mean time I will 
 go around to the side and climb that rocky ridge and 
 look over into the flat." 
 
 He was gone nearly half an hour, but could see 
 nothing. About an hour later the sea-breeze began 
 to come in, and they rode amogg rocks and brush on 
 their tough mountain-horses to where the deer had 
 disappeared. 
 
 "You may keep on your horse for the present, 
 while I go afoot," said Belville, handing his reins to 
 Norton, after which he went some distance ahead. 
 "Deer are not hunted enough here to make them 
 watch their back track more than other directions. 
 But you had better keep well behind, so as to be safe 
 in case he should look back." 
 
 The track was plainly visible in the old trail, and 
 Belville followed it some two hundred yards, when it 
 was suddenly lost. He looked quickly from side to 
 side, and then dropped suddenly on his hands and 
 knees and executed a retrograde movement that would 
 have done credit to a blind crab. After going in this 
 manner a few yards he got up, and, slipping softly 
 back to Norton, said: 
 
 " He came mighty near seeing me. He is up that 
 gulch, but a little too far off for a sure shot, and he 
 was moving, too. Now do you please go up this trail 
 'to where I rose up off my hands and knees, and lie 
 down there behind that little bush; and don't move 
 unless he comes near enough to shoot. If he runs 
 
A JUNE BUCK. 201 
 
 out you will get a shot, and I will swing far enough 
 around behind him to make him run this way if he 
 gets a chance to run at all." 
 
 Tying the horses, Belville started up a little gulch 
 next to the one in which he had seen the deer. A 
 cattle-trail led up the middle of it, where quiet walk- 
 ing was an easy matter. Reaching the head of the 
 gulch, he wound cautiously out of it and upon the 
 ridge that lay between him and the gulch where the 
 deer was hidden. Slowly and cautiously he raised 
 his head, while his heart throbbed and his hands 
 trembled; yet he saw no sign of venison. Higher and 
 higher he raised his head until more and more of the 
 bottom of the little gulch came in view. Yet all was 
 still. The cercocarpus looked darkly green as usual, 
 the sumac and fusica reared their arms full of glisten- 
 ing leaves, and the manzanita fairly smiled in the 
 warm sun. The other side of the gulch was bounded 
 by a barrier of boulders, and over their tops he saw 
 the silver face of the far-off Pacific, and the black 
 wavy hills, yellow slopes, and orchard-like oak groves 
 of Santa Rosa. On the right, nearly two thousand 
 feet below, lay the great gorge filled with green tim- 
 ber, where, like a shining serpent embroidered on green 
 velvet, the Santa Margarita winds its swift way to the 
 sea. Far off to the left the hills rolled away in great 
 ridges with bright green timbered cafions between, 
 and were lost in the high-frowning hills that gird the 
 rancho of Montserrate. Behind, the rugged chain on 
 which he stood stretched away, and far beyond lay 
 the brown plains of Temecula and San Jacinto; while 
 
202 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 the far-off looming blue with cloudy crowns marked 
 the sites of Grayback and San Jacinto. 
 
 Yes, all was there except the thing he wanted a 
 luxury that never fails in San Diego's bountiful stores 
 of rock, brush, mountain, plain, and canon. Long and 
 eagerly Belville gazed; but all was still, except the 
 soft whispering of that unfailing daily breeze from 
 the shining sea which makes summer in this southern 
 land much less uncomfortable than in higher latitudes 
 on the Atlantic coast. 
 
 In the bottom of the pocket into which he is look- 
 ing is a large sumac with bright green leaves, full 
 blown with blossoms of yellowish white. The sea- 
 breeze that here searches almost every canon, gulch, 
 and pocket breathes a grateful coolness through the 
 verdant shades. What a fine place to loaf away the 
 longest day of the year, far above earthly cares and 
 earth-born jars ! 
 
 So Belville thinks, as he tries with his glass to 
 pierce the heavy verdure; when a thrill of delight 
 shivers through him as he catches a glimpse of brown 
 at the bottom of the gulch. He raises his rifle; but 
 when he looks through- the sight he finds the mark 
 too dim and uncertain for a sure shot. So he backs 
 quietly out of his present position, shifts around some 
 twenty yards to one side, and cautiously raises his 
 head again in time to discover that he had come within 
 an ace of shooting at a piece of brown rock in the 
 bush. 
 
 He looks a little sharper and raises his head a lit- 
 tle more, when a sudden crash of brush by the shady 
 
A JUNE BUCK 203 
 
 side of a big rock some thirty yards to one side of the 
 bush reminds him of a highly important fact which 
 he had in his haste overlooked that deer do not 
 always appreciate the hunter's kindness in selecting 
 good places for them to lie down in, but sometimes 
 prefer to make their own selection. 
 
 He also discovers another important fact that deer 
 do not always run just where you want them to ; an 
 idiosyncrasy highly developed in the deer of Southern 
 California. Thus, instead of running down the gulch 
 so as to offer a good open shot, with a run past Nor- 
 ton in case he should escape Belville's rifle, the 
 brown beauty now in question bounds up the hill 
 among great boulders and bushes so thick that it 
 would seem difficult even to walk among them. Yet 
 little cares the buck for either ; rough ground is his 
 delight ; he rises, falls with a crash and a bump, and 
 swings again on high like a thing of air rather than 
 of earth. 
 
 Bang! goes the rifle as he sweeps through the 
 shrubbery, and the ball, whizzing through the place 
 he has just left, hisses harmlessly away over the great 
 Temecula canon far below. Bang! goes another 
 shot aimed to catch him as he rises ; but he never 
 rises twice alike, and as he clears a bush with slant- 
 ing spring the ball splashes itself to pieces against a 
 rock by his side. Vainly Belville tries to hold the rifle 
 on the point where the buck will touch ground ; for 
 now he springs fifteen feet ahead, sinking out of 
 sight among the brush and rocks; now ten feet ahead 
 and five to one side; now five feet ahead and five to 
 
204 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 the other side; now going down behind some rock, 
 from the top of which the ball sings over the depths 
 beyond; now flashing full on high with his whole 
 shining body in the bright sun, clear above brush 
 and rocks, falling as the ball spins over him, and 
 glancing up again from the hard ground as he strikes 
 all the time fast nearing the top of the ridge. Over 
 he goes in a high curve, clear-cut in outline against 
 the western sky, a beautiful mark if it only stayed 
 long enough. The rifle cracks as the figure clears the 
 climax of its bound, a plain whack! is borne back on 
 the ocean breeze, and a fore-leg dangles useless on 
 the buck. 
 
 Thanks to the light moccasins, which never slip, 
 Belville skipped along the tops of the boulders and 
 reached the farther edge in about a minute. A wild 
 mass of steep confusion, chaotic with rocks and 
 scraggy brush, lay before him, and the buck stopped ? 
 Yes, as the rocket when it is once fairly started stops 
 when the stick breaks. Fast as before, but more 
 erratic in his twist, he went down the rocky slope, 
 smashing through brush like a circus rider through 
 papered hoops, bounding as high as if he had gained 
 another leg instead of losing one. Bang! whang! 
 bang ! whang ! went the swift repeater with desperate 
 energy. The bullets sank glancing from the rocks 
 into the bluish-green abyss below, or spattered into 
 leaden spray against their granite sides. Bang! bang ! 
 bang! in quick succession sounds the rifle; and at 
 last a faint spat is heard ; the bound changes to a 
 lumbering canter ; the buck no longer clears the brush, 
 
A JUNE BUCK. 205 
 
 but smashes headlong through it with his momentum ; 
 he still steers clear of the rocks and bushes, crashing 
 onward for several yards, when suddenly he lunges, 
 staggers, rolls heavily through a bush, which is 
 crushed beneath his weight, and the dust rises from 
 his scuffling feet as he turns a somersault on the dry 
 ground among the rocks. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CORRALING ANTELOPE. 
 
 ALAND bare and sere, swept by clouds of dust, 
 oppressed with unrelieved heat, its weary exist- 
 ence enlivened only by hosts of tarantulas, centipedes, 
 scorpions, fleas, snakes, and other reptiles and vermin 
 such is San Diego County in summer, according to 
 the imaginations of many who have had no opportu- 
 nity to know better, and according to the report of 
 many who do know better but fear that the harbor 
 of San Diego may some day take away a few dollars' 
 worth of trade from some northern port. 
 
 Yet never was a falser picture drawn. The sun is 
 indeed at times too loving, and at rare intervals the 
 desert's breath overleaps its high mountain barriers 
 and pays a visit to the coast. And the same is true 
 of all Southern and of portions of Northern California. 
 The dust on those very few roads that are much 
 traveled with heavy teams is bad enough ; and bad 
 enough are the fleas if you carpet your floor with 
 cats and dogs. Tarantulas, centipedes, scorpions, and 
 such like, may be found in the cabinet of the bug- 
 hunter, and if you spend a season in camping and 
 hunting you may see, perhaps, a dozen rattlesnakes- 
 the only poisonous snakes here. 
 
 But for him who has nothing to do but make himself 
 
CORK AUNG ANTELOPE. 207 
 
 comfortable and knows how to do it, there is hardly a 
 part of the Union where the summer is more free from 
 insect and reptile pests, from dust, heat, mud, rain, or 
 other climatic discomforts, than the western half of 
 San Diego. The desert is, of course, nearly intolerable 
 with heat, but the mountains cut this -off almost com- 
 pletely. Although there are three kinds of winter 
 here, there is but one summer a long chain of sap- 
 phires in settings of gold and ruby. Weeks glide into 
 months and months roll into seasons, yet the long pro- 
 cession of cloudless days rolls on so swiftly and so 
 smoothly that one forgets the day of the week and 
 almost the month itself. . . 
 
 Come hither, my young friend who hast taken a few 
 primary lessons in philosophy, and let me catechise 
 thee. 
 
 What is the effect of air so dry that a piece of meat 
 nearly an inch thick hung in the air will dry up and 
 cure without salt or smoke ? 
 
 The direct rays of the sun would be hot ; the shade 
 cool ; and the evaporation of perspiration would be so 
 rapid that the body would feel much cooler at the same 
 temperature than in damper air. Like the gentle 
 breeze or the well-plied fan, it produces faster evapo- 
 ration on the skin. 
 
 Very good. And what would be the effect at night ? 
 
 Rapid radiation of heat from the earth, and cool 
 nights in consequence. 
 
 Suppose the heated air that rises from the land 
 could not flow over eastward because of the hot 
 
208 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 deserts of this country and Arizona ; where would it 
 go? 
 
 To the west, out to sea. 
 
 And suppose it there met the cold current of air 
 that, sweeping down the northern coast, makes San 
 Francisco so cold in summer, and which passes this 
 country several miles out at sea greatly modified by 
 the difference in latitude. What would be the effect ? 
 
 It would quickly cool and descend. 
 
 And from whence, then, would the vacuum caused by 
 the rising of the air on land be filled ? 
 
 By this same air that has thus flowed over and 
 become suddenly cooled. 
 
 So that the daily sea-breeze which, searches every 
 nook and cranny of the hills, instead of being a damp 
 sea wind, is what ? 
 
 The dry land-air, tumbling over seaward from above 
 and coming back again on the same principle as the 
 undertow on the shore. 
 
 Correct. And that is why meat that would spoil 
 in the driest part of Illinois will cure here on the coast 
 almost as well as in the interior. Then there would 
 be a daily breeze of cool dry air from the sea, and a 
 cool land-breeze descending from the mountains at 
 night. And now if ninety-nine per cent of the surface 
 of the country were as dry as a fresh-baked brick, how 
 about the malaria that is deemed inseparable from 
 southern climates ? 
 
 There could not be any. 
 
 And now you see how easily one can deduce the 
 
CORRALING ANTELOPE. 209 
 
 summer climate from the unquestioned conditions. 
 And such experience shows it to be, all these effects 
 being heightened, of course, by the thinner air and 
 better shade of the mountains. 
 
 But surely the land is dreary and bare ; for no 
 vegetation is possible under such a steady sun-bake ? 
 
 Yes. The fern-like leaves and bright pink stars of 
 the alfileria are gone, and dead and brown are the 
 bright green clovers with their little golden and bluish- 
 purple flowers. But in their places is a thick mat of 
 hay and seed all ready for your horse, on which he 
 can travel farther and keep fatter than on the best 
 of high-priced timothy and oats. Gone, too, is the 
 bright green grass that glowed along the sunny slopes, 
 and in its place is the yellow glare of the ripened fox- 
 tail, abundant and worthless. The bright scarlet of 
 the orthocarpus is gone ; the blaze of shooting stars, 
 poppies, buttercups, and daisies has burnt out ; and 
 the glittering host of violets and pinks that lately 
 spangled the land with such prodigal splendor have 
 trailed their bright banners in the dust. 
 
 Some of our fair friends of a few months ago have 
 changed to enemies. The fedlias that beamed with 
 such wealth of purple are now hateful with fine dry 
 " stickers;" the soft moss-like little creeper, so tenderly 
 pink, is now too "stimulating" to sit down upon; the 
 delicate little clover, that spread such a thick green 
 carpet over meadow, plain, and hill, has sown its 
 burry seeds by the myriad the joy of your horse, 
 but the terror of your blanket; and the silken grass, 
 
210 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 that shone so bright beneath the aged oak along the 
 mountain's breast, is now the hateful " tickle-grass" 
 that hankers ever for your stockings. 
 
 But perhaps you think all color has faded from 
 the land. You very natually forget that nature is 
 prodigal of vegetation that would flourish best on the 
 southern slope of old Pluto's ash-heap. With the 
 exception of grass and small flowers, the land is 
 nearly as green as ever. In the canon and river 
 bottom the sycamores, the oaks, the cottonwoods, 
 willows, alders, and other deciduous trees, are all in 
 the noon of life. Over their tops the rank grapevine 
 clambers and hangs in showers of foliage, and around 
 their trunks or over the piles of old gray rocks the 
 poison oak beautiful serpent twines its shining 
 green leaves, now rapidly turning to crimson. In 
 thick-matted jungles the wild rose and sweet-brier, 
 which are now in full bloom, line the paths through 
 the creek bottoms; on the more open flats the elder's 
 green wealth and berry clusters still shine on every 
 hand; all over the low ground the wild gourd spreads 
 it great green leaves; and on those lands that are low 
 enough to be still wet the agna mansa, the title, and a 
 score of rank grasses and reeds are struggling to sur- 
 pass each other. 
 
 The hills are less changed than the plains and 
 cafions. The bayonet's proud plume of purple and 
 white no longer waves. The myriads of colored 
 creepers have shed their gaudy robes; the cardinal 
 flower, the larkspur, the painted cup, the Indian pipe, 
 
CORRALING ANTELOPE. 1 
 
 and their thousand and one comrades have folded 
 their starry flags. But the fusica is more green and 
 shining than ever; the sumac is in its fullest glory 
 of leaf and bloom; the wild gooseberry has indeed 
 shed its crimson trumpet-flower, but its leaves and 
 those of the currant are as bright as ever; the wild 
 buckwheat shows it reddish snow on every hand; the 
 cedary arms of the baccharis are tufted with white 
 feathery plumes; the lilac, manzanita, cherry, cercocar- 
 pus, chemisal, and other chaparral bushes are all in the 
 heyday of life; the tall stalks of the white sage are 
 still bright with blossoms for the busy bee, and 
 around the ever-green ramiria, the buckwheat, and 
 other bushes, is twined in endless mazes the silken 
 orange-colored floss of that fairest of parasites, the 
 dodder (Cuscuta Calif ornica). 
 
 The quail that last winter was so wild now nods 
 its black plume from the rock by the roadside, or 
 leads its band of half-fledged young trotting swiftly 
 along in front of your horse or scrambling up the 
 rock pile by his side. The linnet and the lark still 
 pour a flood of song, though it is a flood that is fast 
 ebbing; the road-runner or chaparral cock scuds along 
 the edges of the plains; the mocking-bird, humming- 
 bird, oriole, swallow, and all birds except the robin, are 
 still here at home in summer as in winter, and never 
 leave for northern fields; ground-squirrels, about the 
 size of eastern gray squirrels, run and scamper on 
 every hand, very pleasant to look at if you are not in 
 any agricultural or horticultural business; while at 
 
212 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 evening and morning rabbits and hares play around 
 the brush more numerous than ever. 
 
 This much, not by way of praising the country a 
 business gladly left to those who live in this country 
 from choice or own real estate here but to show that 
 the invalid who stays here for the summer, instead of 
 fleeing as he would from Florida and most other 
 sanitary retreats, is not such a " pluperfect pancake" 
 as his wiser brethren might imagine. 
 
 It was not strange, then, that Norton said, as he and 
 Belville with the two ladies early on the day follow- 
 ing the capture of the buck rode down through the 
 heavy oak grove of Montserrate, " I really believe 
 we are going to enjoy the summer here as much as 
 the winter." 
 
 They were bound for Miner's ranch again, where 
 they were to prepare for a trip to the Cuyamaca 
 Mountains. Over many a weary mile they rode; but 
 the horses were good, the roads were hard and free 
 from dust, and the breeze was in their faces nearly all 
 the way. So they soon cleared the bouldered heights 
 and oak-clad hills of Montserrate, the billowy slopes of 
 the San Luis River, covered with sage and sumac, and 
 the rolling plains of Buena Vista and San Marcos, pass- 
 ing the wheat-fields of San Bernardo and Poway and 
 descending the Sycamore canon of El Cajon just as 
 the sun went down. 
 
 "Look at those goats! Are they wild ones?" ex- 
 claimed Mrs. Norton, as they went down the canon. 
 
 Some three hundred yards away were eight or ten 
 
CORRALING ANTELOPE. 213 
 
 light, trim little creatures, white beneath and half- 
 way up the sides, and light cinnamon shade above. 
 They were stringing along, one behind the other, up a 
 gentle slope that broke away from the hills, apparently 
 little concerned about the wagon, yet watching it as 
 they advanced on a walk so swift it seemed a half-trot. 
 -A large one with two short curved horns led the line, 
 and three little kids closed up the file. 
 
 "Antelope!" said Belville, reaching for his rifle. 
 
 " I didn't suppose there were any antelope in the 
 country," said Norton. 
 
 " There are three or four bands still left in this part 
 of this county, and this is one of them. California 
 was once the leading country of the world for ante- 
 lope, but the demand of the almighty palate has 
 nearly closed them out. Still, for sport's sake, I must 
 have one of them." 
 
 He took out his rifle, raised the sight, looked at the 
 slowly-retreating antelope, and after a while said, 
 
 "If I shoot from here, the chances are all against 
 touching them, for they are now over four hundred 
 yards away. I stand little chance of getting closer, 
 for it is too late to make the circuit that would be 
 necessary. If I try to get closer by going toward 
 them, they will be quite sure to run, and when they 
 once start they will probably go several miles. They 
 are not scared now, and if left alone will be very 
 near here in the morning. So I will let them go till 
 then." 
 
 So they continued on to Miner's, at which hospi- 
 
214 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 table place they received a hearty welcome, and 
 secured a good night's rest in preparation for the 
 morrow's sport 
 
 At daylight the next morning they set out from 
 Miner's, Norton and the ladies riding along for amuse- 
 ment, since they had no rifles and were told it was 
 quite idle to take shot-guns. Miner, who was always 
 ready to help his guests to have a good time, went 
 along, taking two of his best vaqueros, or herdsmen 
 to help "corral the band," as he and Belville said. 
 
 Over two or three dreary miles along the bluffs and 
 over hills hideous with Turk's head, prickly-pear and 
 cholla cactus, cobblestones and rough ground, the 
 patient horses picked their way. All eyes were scour- 
 ing the plains below, while far down along the river 
 Belville, with Miner and his men, was searching the 
 low slopes that ran away from the hills. Over an 
 hour was thus spent before one of the men, pointing 
 to the broad bottom of the valley, said, 
 
 " There they are !" 
 
 A mile away, five or six little whitish animals were 
 descried, and with the aid of the glass a few more 
 were discovered lying down. 
 
 "I don't believe I shall have to use the red flag at, 
 all, but can sneak on them down yonder barranca" 
 said Belville. 
 
 "All right," said Miner. " They are not very wild, 
 and are very little hunted nowadays. But to make 
 sure, you had better go around about two miles and 
 strike into the left branch of the barranca, for you can- 
 not get into the other* branch without passing over 
 
CORRALING ANTELOPE. 215 
 
 open ground where they may see you. In the mean 
 time we'll spread out and get on the courses they 
 will be apt to take, if you should let any get away 
 from you." 
 
 As Belville departed, one of the men started for a 
 bush on a ridge a mile across the valley with a rifle 
 that would occasionally hit a deer if the sights were 
 not held too closely on it. Another took the center 
 with a riata, or lasso, and a horse that would charge 
 on anything he was turned at, from a cactus patch to 
 a grizzly bear. Miner took one of the slopes on the 
 hither side of the valley, armed with an American 
 navy revolver warranted to overshoot an elephant at 
 ten paces unless the shooter aimed at his toes. Nor- 
 ton and the ladies remained on the hill with the glass 
 to see the fun. As the antelope were on the extreme 
 end of their range, which ran from the Tia Juana 
 River to El Cajon, about fifteen miles, and there were 
 nothing but brushy hills to the north, in which these 
 animals will not go, while Belville was to be on the 
 east of them, there was almost a certainty that those 
 on the hill would get a good view of the show, what- 
 ever it might be. 
 
 It took Belville over half an hour to get into the 
 barranca, or gully, and when he had accomplished 
 it he found the antelope had moved a hundred 
 yards or more, and were now standing around a 
 little knoll. He came cautiously a little way on to 
 the open ground with a strip of red flannel tied to a 
 stick, and, lying flat v in a little depression in the 
 ground, gave an upward flip of the rag. Several 
 
216 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 times he waved it at intervals of a few seconds, allow- 
 ing it to remain in sight only an instant. 
 
 This performance he had read of and heard 
 talked of by hunters ; but as usual, both quills and 
 tongues had omitted about the most important part 
 of the instruction to have plenty of patience. He 
 had not waved the stick three minutes before it 
 seemed half an hour, and he could not resist the temp- 
 tation to take a cautious look extremely cautious, he 
 thought. 
 
 He took it, but it was at a dissolving view of an 
 " arrangement in white and brown," lithe and easy in 
 movement, spirituelle in grace, only cantering with 
 gentle rolling gait, but vanishing oh how fast ! 
 
 He sprang to his feet and sent a bullet after them. 
 In his haste he aimed at the bunch with the usual in- 
 variable result a miss. Ball after ball went hissing 
 among them or past them, or, glancing from the 
 ground behind, went singing over them. But still 
 they held the even tenor of their way, not like the 
 high - bounding deer, but with low, easy canter, 
 scarcely seeming to rise or fall, yet fast fading 
 away. 
 
 They take the low open slope lying between the hill 
 where the spectators are and the brushy middle of the 
 valley. The horseman who had gone across the val- 
 ley mounts, and, riding down the back side of the 
 ridge out of sight, starts to head them off. Miner 
 cocks his pistol, and rampant murder gleams in his 
 usually mild eye. The man in the center begins to 
 coil his riata, and to reflect on the possibility of lasso 
 

 CORRALING ANTELOPE. 217 
 
 ing two at one throw. Meanwhile the victims come 
 rolling gracefully on into the very jaws of death. 
 
 Yes, here they come, the old buck ahead, the kids 
 stringing along in the rear, not a bit in a hurry; run- 
 ning quite slowly, in fact. So thought Norton and the 
 ladies as they watched them from the hill; but then 
 they were not behind them, even with good horses, or 
 they might possibly have thought otherwise. On they 
 come, right toward the waiting murderers. If the 
 other man with the rifle were only there too, to lie 
 down in the path! But fortunately he is not, so that 
 two shall escape to keep up the band; for Miner's 
 pistol has only six shots, the lasso can catch only one, 
 and there are nine in the band. 
 
 " Whoop-ahT Now they go for them, one from each 
 side, right for the leader of the band, the herdsman 
 swinging the riala furiously around his head, and the 
 horse snorting with joy at the prospect of roping 
 something ; for a good lasso-horse likes the fun as 
 well as his rider. 
 
 And still the antelope come ambling on with the 
 same easy grace, and without swerving to right or 
 left. Alas! how can the poor things swerve, when to 
 swerve is only certain death ? Would you swerve, 
 reader, with hanging on one side and shooting on the 
 other? And how could they turn back, with a battery 
 in their rear, the hills lined with frightful cholla cactus 
 on one side, the middle of the valley nearly barricaded 
 with the almost equally frightful prickly-pear cactus ? 
 With all deference to friend Miner's opinion, corraling 
 antelope is, to say the least, a mean trick, and every one 
 
\ 
 
 218 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 must feel his finer sensibilities outraged by such a 
 gross advantage taken of such Ipvely and innocent 
 creatures. But still, here we are, and we must look. 
 
 Bang! goes Miner's latest model American breech- 
 loading navy revolver, and the ball aimed at the toes 
 of the leading buck shivers the skull of a Turk's head 
 about two hundred yards up the slope and ten feet 
 above the line of the buck. Wizzoo, wizzoo, wizzoo, 
 wizzoo, wee-oo! goes the riata, and the noose, shooting 
 out some thirty feet, encircles with its deadly embrace 
 the stubby tail of a terrified doe. 
 
 Both the horsemen get turned around in time to see 
 the white rolling waves rippling away over a wide 
 expanse of cobblestone and little mounds ; and the 
 other horseman comes charging through the brush 
 in the middle of the valley, reaching a bit of rising 
 ground just in time to catch a glimpse of the fading 
 white caps and say, 
 
 "Yes, that's 'em." 
 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MOUNTAIN GAME. 
 
 CAN this be in San Diego, this place where our 
 friends are now camped? One whose observa- 
 tion was confined to a few miles along the coast, as is 
 the case with nearly all visitors, would hardly think 
 so. Around them stand trees as large as any seen in 
 Eastern forests, pines with great thick trunks and 
 stupendous cones, oaks that bear acorns thrice the 
 size of any Eastern acorns, and other trees of various 
 kinds, standing shoulder to shoulder as they have 
 stood through long ages. Softly sighs a cooling 
 breeze through the tree-tops and the dark arcades 
 beneath. It is a hot day in the lowlands, warm even 
 here out in the sun ; but what do these wanderers 
 know of heat, as they lie stretched out in hammocks 
 beneath the shady trees, with a crystal spring of ice- 
 cold water so different from the flat warm stuff of 
 the lowlands trickling close at hand. Along its 
 edge the ring-dove of the mountains .bathes his coat 
 of burnished lavender, then flits to the dead limb 
 above and bobs his glossy head and white collared 
 neck, and inspects the visitors with his golden eye. 
 The bluejay and woodpeckers of varied hue flit here 
 and there through the shades, while far above through 
 the heavy screen of leaves one may see the black eagle 
 
220 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 (we have him at last !) wheeling his dark form against 
 the blue dome. 
 
 And here, too, trailing his gray brush swiftly over 
 some limb, up some trunk, or over the carpet of pine 
 needles, is another dear companion of early days. Ah, 
 thou dear old friend of childhood's happiest hours, 
 though long since I ceased to enliven thy peaceful 
 existence, I love thee yet. Who that has known thee 
 in those bright days can ever forget thee ? Who can 
 forget those early morning hours when, with stealthy 
 tread, straining eye, and listening ear, he threaded the 
 old oak and hickory woods in constant hope of catch- 
 ing sight or sound of thee ? Does not the heart bound 
 again as memory hears the distant patter of the crumbs 
 from thy lofty breakfast-table, the snapping of some 
 distant branch beneath thy spring, thy rapid bark 
 slow-sliding into a sleepy " cha-a" or the patter of thy 
 swift-bounding feet over the dead leaves toward thy 
 favorite tree ? 
 
 Does not the life-tide start again as recollection 
 sees the little strip of gray swift-flashing through 
 the green shades above, dodging around the heavy 
 trunk, flattened on some limb, rolled into a fuzzy 
 ball among the highest leaves, or ensconced in some 
 big crotch? And when did it ever burst into a wilder 
 flood than when he flung his graceful form in head- 
 long haste from tree to tree while you, trying to load 
 that old single-barreled muzzle-loader as you ran, 
 perspiring and burning with anxiety and afraid to 
 take your eyes off the fast-scudding gray, stumbled 
 and tumbled along below ? Then you recall that 
 
MOUNTAIN GAME. 221 
 
 great day, a land-mark on the journey of childhood, 
 when you ran him into a hole, climbed the tree and 
 stopped it with leaves, and ran home for an axe and a 
 bag. You remember how your father and brother 
 and the hired man came back to help and look, how 
 the bag was fastened over the hole and the squirrel, 
 smoked, punched, and scared by hammering outside, 
 went with a bound into the bag. Do you not recall 
 how you took him home and tried to get him into that 
 revolving cage, how warm his teeth or claws felt when 
 you tried to take hold of him, how you got him in at 
 last, how he lingered there several days, uttering an 
 occasional melancholy " cha-a" until one day he rolled 
 up his bushy tail and died, and with quivering lip and 
 flooded eyes you carried him out and buried him in 
 the best little box you had ? 
 
 Nor is this merry fellow to be despised even by the 
 full-grown boy. Where finds the eye a prettier short- 
 range target for the rifle, or one that takes more skill 
 to hit, than that little head, seen against the sky over 
 some high limb or darkly visible in some dusky 
 crotch ? Nor is he altogether unworthy of the shot- 
 gun, when he runs up one long limb that reaches out 
 toward another, bridging the space with, crashing 
 spring, and scuds as swiftly down that limb and up the 
 next one almost as fast as one can follow from below. 
 
 "There's a fine chance for a lady to try the rifle," 
 said Belville, pointing, as he lay smoking in his ham- 
 mock, to a squirrel that with energetic twitch of his 
 bushy tail was barking on a limb about sixty yards 
 away. " Or you can try the head of that pigeon on 
 
222 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 that dead limb above the spring. Only we want 
 nothing hit but the head. Body-shots dont coun't." 
 
 He set the globe-sight, and Mrs. Norton, walking 
 up to within forty yards of the squirrel, closed out 
 the business of a flourishing young pine-cone about 
 two feet from his tail, while the prospective victim 
 twitched his brush away to the tree-top with remark- 
 able expedition. 
 
 "Never mind him; there's another," said Belville, 
 pointing to another gray-coat running up a tree per- 
 haps eighty yards away. " Rest the rifle on that 
 fallen tree-top." 
 
 She did so, and the ball, glancing from the limb be- 
 side the squirrel, went singing up into the air, while 
 the squirrel effected his disappearance again without 
 stopping to sing. 
 
 "I haven't seen much of you alone lately," said 
 Belville to Laura, as they strolled on toward a pigeon 
 that sat bobbing its head on a dead limb, some dis- 
 tance beyond. "I have been quite lonesome." 
 
 " Oh ! I have to be more attentive to Charley now, 
 you know," she answered lightly. 
 
 "He don't seem to be failing as fast as he was." 
 
 "Why, no, indeed! I think, on the contrary, he is 
 improving. He seems so much happier too." 
 
 " Laura I cannot call you Mrs. Norton," said Bel- 
 ville, after a long silence " I see now that I have let 
 my prize slip away from me irrevocably." 
 
 She made no answer. 
 
 "Laura," he said, after a pause, " do you not pity 
 me ? Have you no part in my regrets ? Did I really, 
 
MOUNTAIN GAME. 223 
 
 in my too hasty considerateness, give away the heart 
 that I had as well as the hand that I hoped for?" 
 
 "Dr. Belville," replied Laura, "you must not talk 
 to me so now. I am another man's wife." 
 
 "I know I am saying strange things; but the cir- 
 cumstances are also strange." 
 
 " I shall make every allowance for that," she re- 
 sponded, " but you must never refer again to that wild 
 episode of our lives. When I married Charley I loved 
 him only a little less than before. I married him 
 without regret. I love him now more than ever. I 
 am his wife, and you must treat me as such." 
 
 Belville stood abashed for a moment at her firm 
 and decided tone, and said, with suppressed feeling, 
 " Forgive me if the pain of losing you has made me 
 forget the respect that is due you." 
 
 "Why do you laugh?" he asked solemnly, as with a 
 smile she turned to go again to the camp. 
 
 "Why, Doctor," she answered, "with all that is 
 awful and sad in this unhappy affair, there is still 
 something very absurd in the entire situation." 
 
 " It is anything but absurd to me. It is digging my 
 grave," said he with quivering lip, as he left her side 
 and strolled silently back to his hammock. 
 
 Mid-day came, and the ring-doves began to come 
 into water. And now and then a squirrel came hop- 
 ping along the ground toward the little stream that 
 ran away from the spring. Belville seemed indisposed 
 for shooting, and lay in his hammock smoking. Eve- 
 line Norton had brought a novel with her verbum 
 
224 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 sat. And Norton and his wife took their guns and 
 strolled off beyond the spring and sat down on the 
 soft carpet of pine needles to watch for pigeons coming 
 in to drink. 
 
 " You are feeling a great deal better, ain't you, Char- 
 ley?" said Laura, with a glad sparkle in her eyes. 
 
 " I surely am improving and I feel much better in 
 this high soft air." 
 
 "I am so glad!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "You may thank yourself, then. You have saved 
 me.'" 
 
 " I meant that I was glad any way," she murmured, 
 with faint, hesitating tone. 
 
 "And I too. It would have been the same if I had 
 been well." 
 
 " Perhaps not, Charley. I am afraid I should not 
 have been so happy." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " There's a secret that I cannot keep. I know you 
 will forgive me, because you know how glad I am that 
 it has turned out all right. Charley, I have been a 
 very naughty girl, and came near losing you oh, how 
 near!" 
 
 " Of course I forgive you. I could forgive you any- 
 thing. But please explain. I am in the dark." 
 
 "There was a time thank Heaven it passed so 
 quickly! that I liked him" with a glance toward 
 Belville "too much. Yet I loved you too." 
 
 Norton smiled. " Laura," said he, " I too have a 
 secret to tell, and I believe you will as readily forgive 
 me as I do you, when " 
 
MOUNTAIN GAME. 225 
 
 He was interrupted by hearing a light step on the 
 ground at one side, and turning, saw that the noise 
 was caused by a big yellowish-brown doe with glossy 
 sides, followed by two little dark-brown fawn?, all 
 mottled with white spots, which walked to within 
 twenty yards of where they sat, and stopped at the 
 little spring run to drink. The fawns lagged behind, 
 and one of them, straggling off to one side, came to 
 within ten feet of Norton and his wife. Petrified with 
 amazement, both sat perfectly still, when suddenly the 
 doe raised her head, uttering a hollow-toned "phew /" 
 long-drawn and penetrating. In another sesond she 
 sprang several feet into the air, landing on the other 
 side of the rivulet, bounded like a ball from the touch 
 of the ground, and was ricocheting rapidly towards 
 the camp, with the fawns springing rapidly after her, 
 when she caught sight of Belville scrambling out of 
 his hammock. Quick as a hare she turned at an 
 acute angle to her course and went back directly to- 
 wards Norton and wife, whom she had not yet seen 
 but only scented, without knowing their exact direc- 
 tion. But now she went no longer with the high-glanc- 
 ing curve, but lay down and hugged the ground like 
 a scudding hare. Straight towards them she went un- 
 til within twenty feet, when they made a very expedi- 
 tious removal of physical obstructions to her further 
 progress. This turned her a little, and she fiew past 
 them slightly to one side, and with the small shot from 
 Norton's gun pattering harmlessly on her tawny coat, 
 she vanished down one of the dark vistas of pine and 
 oak. 
 
226 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The fawns, on account of some brush in the way of 
 sight, had not seen the mother turn, and ran on the 
 course they had first taken, straight into camp, where 
 with a dismal "maaJ" they stopped until they sawBel- 
 ville, when they turned and scampered off in the di- 
 rection the mother had taken. 
 
 " Don't shoot ! don't !" said Norton, as they came 
 on, seizing Laura's gun, which she was raising, de- 
 ceived by the appearance of the fawns, which always 
 look much larger than they really are. 
 
 They went past in safety, just in time to run into 
 the loving embrace of Belville's dog, which was com- 
 ing back from a fruitless dash he had made after the 
 old one. One of the fawns uttered a piteous " maa /" as 
 he grabbed it by one of its long ears and it went roll- 
 ing over on the ground, kicking like a little fury. The 
 dog let go with a yelp as one of the little sharp hoofs 
 struck him in the head, but grabbed again as soon 
 as the fawn got up. Norton was soon on the scene 
 and seized a hind 'leg, which he held about as long 
 as a man can hold an electric flash. Although, like 
 the dog, he was useless to hang on, he was equally good 
 at grabbing again, and between them they managed 
 to keep the- fawn from getting away until Belville 
 arrived on the double quick. Belville seized both 
 hind legs at once, one in each hand, and at the same 
 time lifted them clear of the ground. A few swift, 
 tremulous kicks were given with the hind legs, but 
 there was not force enough in them, and the capture 
 was complete. A rope was soon brought and fastened 
 around the captive's neck, and after half an hour's ca- 
 
MOUNTAIN GAME. 227 
 
 ressing it followed its new friends back to camp, where 
 it was christened " Doc," and henceforth became the 
 most contented and familiar member of the party, 
 until the time came to leave and they tried to get it 
 in the wagon. Then ensued a scene such as can be 
 appreciated only by one who has tried such a job as- 
 sisted by one invalid who is afraid of his lungs, and 
 by two ladies who are not. 
 
 Then came " Doc's" day of 'triumph, and after a long 
 struggle he was left in his native home, with many 
 farewell caresses and regrets from the ladies and va- 
 rious remarks from his breathless and exhausted name- 
 sake, who had left all his court-plaster at El Cajon, 
 and had not even a needle along to mend the rents in 
 the only coat he had left with which to pass through 
 the fashionable city of Julian. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN QUAIL. 
 
 LET us follow Belville and Eveline as they start 
 after breakfast one morning to go to the top of 
 the Cuyamaca. It is only a short walk, not over a 
 thousand feet of elevation, and we will see where we 
 are. 
 
 Half a mile up a pine-covered slope and we reach a 
 shoulder upon which rests a rocky, pyramid-shaped 
 head, about three or four hundred feet high and 
 easily climbed. A few minutes' time brings us to the 
 top of this, and we stand upon its loftiest rock. A 
 vast sea lies far below on the west, with tumbling 
 waves of snowy white rolling like great masses of 
 carded wool; with long shafts of golden light, touch- 
 ing, as they are shot through the eastern mountain- 
 gorges from Apollo's fiery bow, the crests of these 
 .billows; with its hundred islands of different heights 
 looming up here and there, some in a full blaze of 
 light, others just tipped with gilded spires, others 
 standing dark and somber in the shade of greater 
 peaks. Even as we gaze upon this sea its masses be- 
 gin to break. Great rifts of bluish green with edges of 
 gold and pearl begin to yawn along its rolling sur- 
 face, and through them appear the dark blue chaparral 
 of the hills, the long green winding strips of river 
 
THE MOUNTAIN QUAIL. 229 
 
 bottoms and cafions, and the silvery-gray heads of 
 rocks and cliffs. And now through the farthest rifts 
 shimmers the distant Pacific, with its high rocky 
 islands looking like small ant-hills. Soon the great 
 white sheet is entirely broken up and is scudding 
 away to sea in a thousand rolling clouds, the whole 
 western slope is bathed again in sunlight, and the far 
 ocean shines like a lake of quicksilver. 
 
 Rising thousands of feet below, in the yawning gulf 
 in front, the San Diego River winds its green way to 
 the sea through immense rocky walls. Far to the 
 right the serpentine bottoms of the San Bernardo and 
 San Luis, and on the left the verdurous trails of 
 the Sweetwater and Tia Juana rivers, gleam among 
 plains of brown or yellow, or thread the gorges that 
 lie between the dark bluish hills of chaparral and the 
 bare, dreary heaps of rock and boulder. Towards 
 the south roll in wild confusion the ragged moun- 
 tains of Mexico, and for hundreds of square miles 
 the eye wanders over a tumbling sea of rock, cliff, 
 chaparral, boulder-studded peaks all cleft with deep 
 valleys, and canons shining in their winding courses 
 with bright green timber. Here and there the eye 
 rests upon a bright little valley like ,the emerald 
 lake of Pine Valley, sunk in the mountain's back and 
 eternally green with timber and grass or the golden 
 stubbles of Viejas; but nine-tenths of it all is primeval 
 wilderness that will remain so forever, broken only 
 by the tread of the herdsman's or the hunter's horse. 
 
 Westward, the eye rests upon more pleasant scenes, 
 though here, too, it is nearly all boulder, chaparral, 
 
230 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 towering heights or yawning canons ; yet many a 
 fair valley or broad open plain, nestled in a girdle of 
 hills or sunk in some mountain-gorge, greets the eye. 
 And nearer by and more to the north the mountain 
 chain breaks away into smooth rolling hills, clad 
 with golden carpet of dry grass and studded with 
 oaks like some old Eastern apple-orchard. At various 
 points one sees many a little vale, pocket, or flat, 
 where the corn nodding along the road and the little 
 house embowered in heavy live-oaks or surrounded 
 by a garden, still green in midsummer without irri- 
 gation, bring up sad memories of a land better loved 
 than this. One hundred miles to the north, the bald 
 pate of Grayback looms high through the hazy blue, 
 and around him are clustered his smaller brethern, our 
 former friends San Jacinto and Cucamunga rising at 
 his side. Scores of lesser peaks, that in the East would 
 be considered "Cloud-Cleavers" or "Sky-Splitters," 
 lie between and all around, but they are so numerous, 
 and so overshadowed by their more aspiring brethern 
 that they here pass unnoticed and unnamed. 
 
 As the eye naturally wanders around to the east, it 
 ranges over more crag and cliff and scar with a few 
 fine valleys between, descrying the fair meadows of 
 Treat's ranch almost beneath; until in a few miles the 
 country tumbles rapidly away in dismal desolation, 
 without a gleam of green or blue or golden yellow, or 
 other sign of life, into the wide-reaching ghastly 
 gleam of the Colorado Desert. 
 
 In all this vast circuit of the eye, sweeping a space 
 larger than Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Con- 
 
THE MOUNTAIN QUAIL. 231 
 
 necticut combined,* the eye rests not upon a single 
 city, town, or even hamlet, except the far-off town 
 of San Diego and the little pile of culled lumber 
 struck by a whirlwind that lies nestled in the fairest 
 part of these mountains and goes by the name of 
 Julian. No churches, no railroads, no anything is 
 seen except a few ranches at wide intervals and little 
 school-houses still more widely scattered, with here 
 and there an Indian rancheria, or group of huts. Yet 
 nowhere in all this country are property and life safer 
 or health and comfort more secure. The judiciary is 
 not excelled in the State; in few places are taxes as 
 low; nowhere is there a better set of county officers, 
 nowhere less stealing among officials. And many 
 a day, and far and wide over the United States, 
 may one travel before he will find people more 
 cultured and refined or better educated than the 
 upper half of the white population of this county. 
 Few indeed they are, and scattered; but among them 
 one will look in vain, even among the many " forty- 
 niners," for the Californian of the novelist, half fool 
 and half scamp, or the typical murderous character 
 of fiction, or the "galoot" of the Eastern scribbler who 
 writes of California life. 
 
 What mellow tones are these, like the taps of the 
 leather hammer on the glass plates of the harmonicon, 
 that arouse Laura from her novel, and her husband 
 from his after-breakfast nap a thing so easy to take 
 in this mountain-air. " Quoi, quoi, quoi, quoi, quoi!" it 
 
 * This county alone is about as large as these three States. 
 
232 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 goes, seeming far yet near, half plaintive and half 
 joyous, half calling and half answering. The sound 
 is evidently made four or five times by one bird, and 
 then taken up and carried along by another. 
 
 Taking their guns, Norton and Laura went slowly 
 toward the sound, which grew louder until they 
 reached the little spring run, a hundred yards below 
 the camp, when it suddenly stopped. While waiting 
 for it to sound again, they heard a " queeah, queeah, quit- 
 quit-quit-quit, queeah, queeah /" so tender and plaintive 
 in tone that they stopped in wonder. This new sound 
 came again, accompanied by a faint rustle in the dry 
 grass and weeds some twenty yards ahead. Upon 
 their walking closer, the "queeah, queeah!" became 
 more distressingly anxious, and out walked in plain 
 sight, almost in single file, two dozen or more graceful 
 little birds a trifle larger, but of about the same shape, 
 plumpness, and easy motion of that dear little friend 
 of the Eastern stubbles, "Bob White." 
 
 The leader hopped upon a low stone, the next one 
 mounted a log, another fluttered upon a rock, while 
 the rest walked about with sober visage and dignified 
 pace ; all with frequent cries of " quit- quit- quit- quit, 
 queeah, queeah /" or a simple "queeah, queeah!" and a 
 mild inquisitive gaze at the strangers, in which curios- 
 ity and not alarm was plainly predominant. Their 
 colors were not those of any Eastern game-bird. With 
 coats of brownish gray, vests of brilliant cinnamon 
 mottled with white below a full open bosom of blue, 
 four white bands along the back and sides and around 
 the throat, a broad white collar of antique cut tied 
 
THE MOUNTAIN QUAIL. 233 
 
 with a wide cinnamon cravat, a jaunty cap of grayish 
 brown upon the neat little head, from the center of 
 which nodded two long sable plumes, they walked 
 and wheeled, cocked their heads from side to side to 
 survey their visitors, and repeated steadily their pe- 
 culiar and plaintive note. 
 
 But though they showed little alarm, evanescence 
 was most decidedly a part of their programme, and 
 all this while there had been a manifest purpose to 
 steal away gently. Now they began to vanish in ear- 
 nest. But not with the buzzing wing or active leg of 
 Bob White or the little valley-quail of California. 
 There was only an easy grace smacking both of po- 
 liteness and impudence, as the "dead leaves rustled to 
 the patter of their little feet and they began to fade 
 in the grass and brush. 
 
 " Hold on !" came a voice from behind the amateurs, 
 as they raised their guns to shoot before the birds 
 should get away. " We'll have better fun than that 
 with them. Put up that murderous gun and bring 
 forth the plaything of the immortals, Mrs. Norton. 
 You, Norton, keep your gun, but don't shoot at any- 
 thing until it flies." 
 
 " Why, when did you " 
 
 "Just dropped," said Belville. "And just in time 
 to prevent sacrilege, I see. I'll show you some sport, 
 however, for compensation." 
 
 Old Prince stood by his master's side as he spoke, 
 the very incarnation of business. His tail no longer 
 hung, but projected. Stiff as an icicle, it fairly qui- 
 vered at the tip with rigidity. One fore-leg was bent 
 
234 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 double, and the other three trembled with his efforts to 
 keep still ; while his body was firm as a garden statue 
 in a Minnesota winter. On his aged brow sat grave 
 importance, and mighty wisdom shone from his star- 
 ing bright eye. His nose was wrinkled with serious- 
 ness, while his chaps quivered and watered like those 
 of ye city epicure what time he beholdeth on one of 
 Delmonico's plates a June woodcock, killed while 
 feeding its helpless young. 
 
 The bow and arrows were soon brought and the 
 party moved on, Mrs. Norton ahead and Prince wad- 
 dling along in the rear with the anxious solemnity of a 
 circus elephant walking over his master. His legs 
 rivaled his tail in stiffness, and he looked up occasion- 
 ally at his master with intense satisfaction, licked his 
 chaps and sniffed the air, which was laden with that 
 fragrance the dog so loves. 
 
 The birds were soon overtaken, and as they huddled 
 up with inquiring "quit-quit, queeah, queeah !" about 
 fifteen paces before, an arrow decimated the feathers 
 upon the brownish-gray tail of one of the number and 
 sent half a dozen of his immediate neighbors towards 
 the four points of the compass. They went hardly 
 twenty feet away, however, just flying up and alight- 
 ing again. One of them lit upon a stone, another on 
 a piece of dead brush, while the others stole back to 
 their companions who still mingled with the soft 
 rustle of gently vanishing feet a steady and dolorous 
 " quit- quit, queeah, queeah! quit-quit-quit-quit, queeah, 
 queeah /" 
 
 Whizz! went an arrow over the head of the bird on 
 
THE MOUNTAIN QUAIL. 235 
 
 the dead brush. He cocked his head, nodded his long 
 dark plumes, and said "quit-quit, queeah, queeah !" Zip] 
 went another arrow through the brush just by his 
 side. He said again, " quit-quit-quit-quit !" hopped lei- 
 surely off the brush, and started off with a "queeah, 
 queeah /" to join his companions. The bird on the stone 
 also made some remarks about " quitting," and was 
 preparing to suit the action to the word, when another 
 arrow skipped gayly from the string, and Mortality 
 knocked at the lattice-door of his little ribs in a way 
 that invited an immediate response. 
 
 An arrow that scattered the pine-needles among the 
 rest of the flock caused a decided increase in their 
 pace, and as shaft after shaft flying wild from the 
 archer's now trembling hand hissed over the birds or 
 scattered the dirt around them, they broke into a run 
 and some flew a few yards, alighted, and then ran 
 again. 
 
 " Now we shall have to scatter them," said Belville. 
 ' You had better keep quiet and let me do it. Hold 
 Prince back." 
 
 Belville started on a run after the birds, while Nor- 
 ton collared Prince and tried to hold him. He dis- 
 coursed most touching strains " to the rocks and rills, 
 touching the tender stops of various quills," as his 
 master ran ahead without him. The quails quickened 
 their pace as Belville charged on them, and stuck to 
 their legs with provoking pertinacity for a few mo- 
 ments, until Belville made a "spurt" and got within 
 ten paces of them, when suddenly the air was filled 
 with buzzing wings and wheeling and darting streaks 
 
236 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 of blue, white, and cinnamon. Quickly his gun came 
 to his shoulder and covered the dark green shrub- 
 bery of a manzanita behind which a bird had flown. 
 The gun cracked ; a shower of blue and cinnamon 
 feathers puffed out from behind the bush ; a dull 
 sound of a falling body was heard; and Norton lay 
 prone upon the earth ! 
 
 As he picked himself up and brushed the pine- 
 needles out of his sleeves, he announced to the uni- 
 verse at large his intentions of sub-letting all future 
 contracts to hold a dog while his master goes ahead 
 to shoot. 
 
 Prince didn't seem at all inclined to object to this 
 arrangement, but displayed remarkable equanimity 
 as, nearly wagging his tail off, he went in to pick up 
 the fallen bird. He then trotted away over the 
 ground ahead with his nose in the air and his tail 
 vigorously whipping his sides. He had not gone 
 a hundred yards when his pace slackened. So did 
 his tail. The tail got slower in motion. So did the 
 legs. The legs seemed to slacken the tail and the 
 tail to react upon the legs, until he had settled down to 
 a pace suitable for a fashionable mourner at a snail's 
 funeral. Then he stopped altogether, stood for a 
 minute with his eager eyes fixed in a stony gaze; then 
 he turned his head and glanced at his master. 
 
 " Come on quick, now, with your guns," said Bel- 
 ville. " These birds do not lie long." 
 
 As Norton came up, three birds rose from the dead 
 brush ahead of Prince, and almost at the first buzz of 
 their wings his gun went off and rent the raiment of 
 
THE MOUNTAIN QUAIL. 237 
 
 a flourishing young manzanita about three feet to one 
 side of them. One of the birds went to Belville's side 
 and came whirling down out of a shower of feathers, 
 while another plunged like a wet rag into a pile of 
 rocks at the crack of the second barrel. The birds 
 were soon picked up, and the dog sent on. 
 
 He at once began to stiffen and crawl, sniffing the 
 air and straightening out occasionally into a dead 
 point. But no birds rose. 
 
 " Too slow for these chaps, Prince. You will have 
 to go faster," said Belville, as he started ahead of the 
 dog on a rapid walk. " Hie on ! boy, or you'll get 
 left !" 
 
 But Prince had not been trained upon California 
 quails, and followed along behind as if he had a bag 
 of shot on each foot and his tail was spliced with a 
 poker. By running and cheering him on, Belville 
 soon got him pretty well stirred up, and he over- 
 took a little bunch of birds that had hidden in a 
 fallen tree-top when they saw him coming. Belville 
 went to one side of the tree and Norton and his sister 
 to the other, while Mrs. Norton was to look for the 
 game and flush it with an arrow when visible. Care- 
 fully she looked into the brush, but there was no 
 sound or sign of life for two or three minutes; then 
 Laura suddenly drew back, and with a vigorous pull 
 at the bow-string sank an arrow half way to the 
 feathers in the white and brown mold on a rotten 
 stump beneath the brush. As the arrow chugged into 
 it, a " quit-quit, quee-ah /" was heard within, and Prince, 
 who had been standing off at some distance ran close 
 
238 RIFLE. ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 up, turned his head to one side, crouched low, and, 
 looking intensely anxious, settled down stiff as marble. 
 
 Belville kicked upon the opposite side, and out 
 came four birds, whizzing in various directions. One 
 came down before the combined effect of a heavy bat- 
 tery opened by Norton and his sister, and another's 
 machinery was deranged by a shot from Belville. 
 
 These birds were soon picked up, and the hunters 
 started for the rest of the covey, the trail of which the 
 dog soon struck. But Norton and the ladies were un- 
 able to follow at the rate required to overtake them 
 with the start they had now gained, and Belville went 
 swiftly on alone. 
 
 NOTE. The mountain quail of the Pacific slope seems to be 
 little known to sportsmen. I have seen some very absurd state- 
 ments about it by those who have attempted to describe it. 
 
 It is not " twice as large as Bob White." 
 
 It is not "very fine eating." 
 
 It is not " extremely rare." 
 
 It is not "extremely wild and difficult to shoot." 
 
 It is not " found only in the roughest or most inaccessible places." 
 
 It does not " run faster than the valley quail." 
 
 I am fully aware that it would have made a far better subject for 
 a good chapter if these things had been true. But while not averse 
 to good subjects, my main object is accuracy, and I describe these 
 birds just as I have found them. 
 
 I have seen them only in their natural state, and not as they 
 might become if much hunted. But I have not only hunted them 
 with a shot-gun, but have time and again met them when deer- 
 hunting, and have sat down and watched them until the last one 
 had stolen softly away. I have seen them often so close and uncon- 
 cerned that a good archer could kill half a dozen with a bow, and 
 it is no trick for a good rifleman to decapitate three or four before 
 
THE MOUNTAIN QUAIL. 239 
 
 they leave. I do not know what they may be in the North; but 
 in Southern California, when not hunted, they are the very em- 
 bodiment of guileless simplicity. 
 
 Owing to fuller feathers this bird looks much larger than Bob 
 White, but is only a mere trifle larger in body, if at all. In flavor 
 it is almost exactly like the valley quail, which is about equal to a 
 tolerable grade of chicken. Though by no means plenty, it is 
 not extremely rare. In the Cuyamaca Mountain I once saw four 
 coveys without leaving the road, yet they are by no means abun- 
 dant throughout the country generally. 
 
 It is not quite so swift a flier as the valley quail, although swift 
 enough. I have found it in good easy ground to hunt, though it 
 generally likes rougher ground than the valley quail. I have 
 found it at altitudes as low as one thousand feet above the sea; 
 though I believe these were the increase of escaped tame ones. Its 
 habitat seems to be above four thousand feet. 
 
 It does not run as fast as the valley quail, though it will depend 
 upon running much longer, and is much harder to force into flight. 
 
 It is very easily domesticated and makes a charming pet, though 
 I do not know whether it will breed in confinement. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 DEER-HUNTING. 
 
 IS this a hunt, or only a stroll through some old 
 English park ? Head to head in silent conclave 
 stand the grand old oaks as they have stood for cen- 
 turies. The shady ground below them is laid with a 
 golden carpet of fine dry grass. Here and there the 
 ground rolls in wavy swells, then spreads away in 
 little flats, then sweeps again into billowy form. On 
 either side it undulates more than in the middle, 
 and finally breaks away into little bluffs, tables, and 
 benches, with gulches, pockets, and ravines between. 
 On these benches and tables the large oaks begin to 
 dwindle away into scrubby oaks, which in turn fade 
 into oak-brush, and this again into chaparral of vari- 
 ous shades of green, running up the sides of the 
 mountains which inclose the little park. In various 
 directions run paths well beaten and smooth, on one 
 of which Belville may be seen strolling lazily along, 
 while Norton is tying his horse a little way behind. 
 
 Norton has very much recovered since the time last 
 chronicled in this narrative; but he still keeps his 
 horse near him in hunting, a precaution no invalid 
 should neglect, and one that even a well man soon 
 adopts when he gets acquainted with the magnificent 
 
DEER-HUNTING. 241 
 
 distances of California and its vast proportion of out- 
 of-doors to the acre. 
 
 " Do you see that track ?" asked Belville, pointing 
 to a track in the trail like a cross between an enor- 
 mous human foot and a huge misshapen pancake. 
 
 Norton looked for a moment, and a cold sweat 
 started all over him as he looked up in undisguised 
 dismay. 
 
 "You needn't be alarmed. He's far off by this 
 time, tucked away in the thick brush of some howl- 
 ing cafion that it would be impossible to travel through 
 except on hands and knees. There are a few grizzlies 
 left in Santa Rosa, and this is one of the biggest, but 
 it is almost impossible to get sight of them. But here 
 are the tracks I care most about," he added, pointing 
 to some sharp-toed-foot prints in the dry old cattle- 
 trail in which they were walking. 
 
 San Diego is not a " deer country," as that term is 
 generally understood; and, from all that can be gath- 
 ered from the old Spanish residents, it never has been. 
 There are too many acres to the deer, and too much 
 land to the acre. Yet for him who knows how and 
 where to hunt them, deer are abundant enough to 
 furnish good sport. And it is doubtful if the world 
 can show easier or more pleasant still-hunting than 
 in the oak canons of the northern part of San Diego 
 County, at the time of year when the deer are most 
 numerous in them. 
 
 This favorable time is generally the Autumn, when 
 the acorns are ripe on the scrub-oak along the edges 
 
242 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 of the canon, and hang thick on the low sweeping 
 branches of the large trees in the middle of it, or fall 
 pattering from their tops. 
 
 Autumn in this country is only a palace-car on the 
 long train of summer days. On, on, on, the season 
 rolls until about the middle of December, when, with- 
 out jolt, jerk, or jar, the traveler is suddenly swung 
 into Spring, for that is what Winter really amounts 
 to here. Nature dons no gorgeous burial-robes. The 
 drowsy ear of night remains unvexed by endless dis- 
 putes as to whether Katy did or didn't. No bobolink 
 pipes his sad farewell above our heads. No bloody 
 sun struggles down through smoky air. No maple 
 or gum tree flames in crimson; no beech or hickory 
 wears a golden crown; no oak puts on its russet man- 
 tle. Here and there at the extreme end of the season 
 the sycamores or cottonwoods along the river-bottoms 
 begin to furl their green banners for a few weeks, and 
 the grape-vine's bright green fades for a while. But 
 the hills hang out no gaudy standards of decay, and 
 their velvet vests of checkered green show no sign of 
 change. The serpentine trail of the canon is still 
 filled with glistening green ; the old oaks shine as 
 brightly as ever ; the sun rolls daily through un- 
 clouded skies; the air grows even drier than in sum- 
 mer; the crimson of the sunset deepens in the valleys, 
 and the peaks glow at evening with a deeper purple. 
 If Nature has not spilt her paint-pots over our land- 
 scape, she has also sent no blustering scouts of Win- 
 ter to buffet our ears; and if she has withheld the 
 sentimental haze of Indian Summer, she has at the 
 
DEER-HUNTING. 243 
 
 same time withheld the scowling sky and chilly breath 
 that in other lands too quickly arouse the Indian- 
 Summer dreamer. 
 
 Norton had been wise enough to stay and finish off 
 the recovery that had plainly begun, and Belville, ap- 
 pearing to be as glad as any one about his improve- 
 ment, had still remained with the pajty. 
 
 With easy sauntering pace, but with keen and rest- 
 less eyes, they strolled along the smooth paths, peer- 
 ing around the corners of the gulches and scrutinizing 
 the dark green recesses of the pockets. Suddenly 
 Belville stopped, and, pointing far away down a vista 
 among the trees, exclaimed, as he dropped out of 
 sight, 
 
 " There is a deer lying down under yonder big live- 
 oak ! Take off your hat and rise up carefully, and 
 see if you don't make out a pair of ears." 
 
 A cautious inspection showed Norton two dark 
 points like fine inverted " V's " in plain relief against 
 the yellow background of grass. Presently, what at 
 first glance appeared to be a piece of dead log de- 
 veloped into a head with trim tapering nose and a bit 
 of graceful neck beneath it. And what had seemed 
 to be only a dark shadow turned out to be a body ; for 
 these deer at this time of year are dark gray in color. 
 While Norton and Belville were still looking, the head 
 was suddenly turned directly toward them. 
 
 " Keep still and don't move !" said Belville. " They 
 cannot make out our heads from so far if we don't 
 move them." 
 
244 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The turning of the distant head brought into view 
 another trim little nose and the delicate point of one 
 ear, just visible on the other side of the first one, and 
 lying near it. 
 
 " There is a big fawn beside her," said Belville. 
 " Now there is as fine a chance to shoot a deer as you 
 will be likely ever to get. You take my rifle and try 
 hen Do you see yonder little ridge that juts out 
 toward them, and is covered along its back with 
 scrub-oak brush ? If you can make the point of that 
 you can get a splendid shot. You can reach it easily, 
 but it will take you some time to do it with the care 
 that is necessary to make sure of a shot. So the first 
 thing to recollect is that there is positively no haste. 
 Those deer are good for two hours where they are, and 
 even if they were not, you might lose more by haste 
 than you would gain. Back out of here now, and 
 swing around into that next little canon to the right. 
 Go to the head of it, and there you will undoubtedly 
 find an old cattle-trail that leads over the next ridge 
 and around the head of the next little cafion. But, 
 whether you do that or not, cross the heads of the 
 cafions until you get on to the ridge that leads out to 
 where the deer are. Get on the back side of it, keep 
 out of sight, and go as quietly as you can possibly 
 move until you get behind the last bush on the point. 
 Then lay your rifle under the bush, and try and shoot 
 from under it without showing any part of yourself. 
 If you do this carefully, they will be more sure to 
 stand in case you miss the first shot or two. But 
 whatever you do, remember above all things to take 
 
DEER-HUNTING. 245 
 
 a fine sight and shoot low down on the body, or you 
 will be apt to overshoot." 
 
 Taking Belville's rifle, Norton started, and going 
 slowly, so as neither to tire himself nor make a noise, 
 he reached in about half an hour the point of the 
 ridge that ran out towards the deer. Raising his 
 head very cautiously behind the bush, he at length 
 saw, about sixty or seventy yards away, the old one 
 with head raised, her long ears pricked up atten- 
 tively, and chewing her cud. The young fawn by her 
 side was still in the same position as when first seen. 
 But Norton now discovered another fawn beyond the 
 deer lying with its head turned over upon its side, 
 apparently dozing. 
 
 From the time Belville first showed him the ears 
 and suggested his trying their owner with his rifle, 
 Norton had recognized some serious demoralization 
 in his capillary harmony. But when he looked 
 through the bush and saw the shapely forms of 
 glossy dark gray, the long mulish ears, and the trim 
 black and gray noses pointed towards him, every 
 hair on his head felt as though it were raging in 
 deathly struggle with its neighbors. 
 
 " Pshaw ! I have plenty of time. I will be cool," 
 he thought. 
 
 It is very easy for the mind to legislate for the 
 nerves. But it is quite another thing for the mind to 
 enforce its edicts. Norton discovered this when, 
 after waiting about five minutes to cool down, he 
 began to raise his rifle. As he brought the sights up 
 in line with the glossy chest that, with the legs folded 
 
246 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 beneath it, formed so plain a mark, a deluge of 
 shivers flooded his back and his hand trembled so 
 that he could not shoot even with the rifle rested on 
 the ground. 
 
 But Norton was naturally cool and collected ; he 
 cared nothing for the nonsensical, imaginary glory of 
 killing a deer, and he had none of the base sensations 
 that thrill the ordinary meat-hunter. 
 
 He remembered what Belville had said about hav- 
 ing time enough, and resolved not to throw away a 
 good chance by a little excitement which would soon 
 pass off. He therefore lay and watched them some 
 fifteen minutes, trying all the time to persuade him- 
 self that he would not give a cent to shoot the whole 
 three. And in this he so far succeeded that his 
 nerves soon reached a delightful state of composure. 
 
 Again he looked along the sights, and now at last 
 he was cool. What in hunting is more delightful than 
 that calmness, born of confidence and not of indiffer- 
 ence, with which the rifle-hunter raises the sights 
 upon large game, knowing that success is dashed with 
 sufficient uncertainty to require the best of care, yet 
 exulting in his own skill to accomplish it ? Yet what 
 in rifle-hunting is more brilliantly illusive than that 
 same confidence when it first begins to dawn after the 
 dark night of uncontrollable nervousness ? 
 
 Norton now saw the sights full and clear upon the 
 shining breast of the mother-deer, and with exultant 
 soul he pressed the light trigger. Swift as the ham- 
 mer falls under the loosened spring, so swiftly under 
 the spring ot three sets of steel-like legs, loosened by 
 
DEER-HUNTING. 247 
 
 the report of the rifle, the three gray bodies bounded 
 fifteen feet into the air at the first jump. They landed 
 at the three points of a triangle, and the graceful 
 forms stood for a moment, the bright eyes and ears 
 all attention, as they looked at the trees and hills 
 around them, and then at each other. 
 
 Again Norton drew the sights upon the doe's breast 
 and pulled. Bang! went the rifle, and bump ! went 
 the simultaneous stroke of twelve hoofs upon the hard 
 dry ground, as from the three points of the triangle 
 in which they stood the three jumped at one bound 
 to the center. They stood there together, one fawn 
 looking over its mother's back and the other standing 
 under her neck, but all looking and listening with, 
 trembling curiosity. 
 
 Again Norton drew, as he supposed, a cool sight 
 and fired; the ball like the others whizzed harmlessly a 
 foot or two above the mark, and again the three deer 
 shot outward with simultaneous bound. One stopped 
 at the first jump; another took three or four jumps; 
 the third a dozen; and then all stopped again. 
 
 Thus deer often act that have never seen man or 
 heard the music of his rifle. And thus often acts the 
 man who makes his first effort on them with the rifle. 
 The deer were confused by the echo from the hills, 
 and, seeing nothing, knew not which way to run, even 
 if they thought there was any necessity for running 
 at all. And Norton, getting more and more confused 
 by the consciousness that he was doing his best and 
 yet failing, yielded more and more to that fatal delu- 
 sion which often makes even experienced riflemen 
 
248 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 uncertain on a down-hill shot. And as faster and 
 faster he dispensed the singing lead at the retreating 
 deer, higher and higher it flew above them, until the 
 last bullet of the repeater was gone, and the last gray 
 rump was undulating away in the edge of the cha- 
 parral on the other side of the valley. And then for 
 the first time he happened to recall Belville's last ad- 
 vice about shooting low And taking a fine sight a 
 caution he had utterly forgotten. 
 
 "Never mind," said Belville consolingly, as he came 
 up with Norton's horse. "It will all be the same a 
 hundred years hence. And you will have another 
 chance before we are through with this country." 
 
 They sat down and took a smoke in the breezy 
 shade, and then, with Norton riding well in the rear, 
 so as to make no noise, and Belville well ahead as 
 scout, they started on. 
 
 For an hour or more they sauntered along the old 
 trail, looking with eager eyes down the shady vistas 
 of yellow and green, and into every opening in the 
 hills on either side. Already the slope upon the west- 
 ern side of the valley was shading into a bluish 
 haze, the air began to feel cooler, the breeze began to 
 fail a trifle, and a shadow crept slowly up the slope on 
 the east. Evening was coming on ; the deer would 
 soon be afoot; a sharper watch must be kept. Some- 
 thing must also be done pretty soon unless they 
 wished to return empty-handed to camp. 
 
 The mountain-peak on the right was purpling fast, 
 and they had decided to turn back toward camp when, 
 at Belville's suggestion, they decided on a last look 
 
DEER-HUNTING. 249 
 
 around the corner of a little projecting ridge that lay 
 before them. 
 
 " Thanks to the man who invented the last chance ! 
 It's the last slippery log in the slippery path of the 
 still-hunter from which he often slides head first into 
 a perfect mire of good luck," said Belville to himself, 
 as, peering cautiously around the ridge into a gulch, 
 his eye caught sight of a small white spot in a bush, 
 a dark gray bit of shiny fur a few yards farther on 
 and a few feet to one side, and he saw a couple of 
 glistening points rise from the chaparral, and below 
 them several more similar points. 
 
 He backed down and returned to Norton as quickly 
 as possible, and said, 
 
 " There are three, and perhaps more, in there. One 
 is a big buck and must be absorbed by all means. Tie 
 your horse here and slip up this little cafion and hide 
 on the end of this side ridge, and don't move unless 
 something comes. I'll go around on the other side 
 and let them know we have arrived. They will prob- 
 ably come this way, and you can have a good chance 
 to bid them farewell." 
 
 Keeping in the dry bed of a little creek, Belville 
 passed the mouth of the canon in which the deer were, 
 without danger of being seen by them. He then 
 passed into the next little cafion, and up the ridge that 
 lay between it and the one in which the deer had been 
 seen. Moving cautiously up the ridge, he came at 
 length in sight of the bottom of the cafion, and his 
 eye rested at once upon the lithe body and dandy legs 
 of a sleek young " spike"-buck (a yearling buck) that, 
 
250 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 with head erect and ears pricked forward and out- 
 ward, seemed to think he discovered something. At 
 the same time, just beyond him, the glistening points 
 that Belville had noticed before came surging up out 
 of the chaparral, accompanied by the gray tips of 
 another pair of ears. 
 
 The reader has seen that with all his faults, Belville 
 was not swinish about game or fish. But as there is 
 a little strabismus in the straightest of moral optics, so 
 is there an ineradicable tarnish of greed on the bright- 
 est shield that culture and a native sense of propriety 
 can throw before our brute nature; and we must all 
 plead guilty to the weakness of preferring a big buck 
 to a small one. This weakness captured at the first 
 dash the sound principles that Belville approved most 
 thoroughly in the abstract: never to take a shot with 
 the rifle at a dim or. uncertain mark when you have 
 a clear and distinct one, even though the latter be 
 inferior game. With a contemptuous glance at the 
 spike-buck, he drew a sight about six inches, as he 
 thought, below the tips of the second pair of ears, 
 which he could easily see must belong to an unusually 
 fine buck, and fired. 
 
 A distinct whack such as a bullet would make on 
 a heavy skull came back to him; there was a heavy 
 crash and smash, together with a bump, bump, bump 
 the spike-buck, a doe, and two large fawns went 
 plunging out of the head of the gulch ; while a vigor- 
 ous kicking and thrashing of brush went on in the 
 place where the big buck had stood. Belville hasten- 
 ed the speed of the others with a wild bullet or 
 
DEER-HUNTING. 251 
 
 two, and then dashed down the hill and into the 
 brush where his buck had fallen and had now ceased 
 struggling. In he walked with rifle on his shoulder ; 
 yet all was still but the echo of Norton's gun bellowing 
 back and forth among the hills. Belville felt spread- 
 ing over him a glow of happiness such as he only 
 knows who has been in his place. 
 
 But suddenly there was a long-drawn hollow-toned 
 "phew!" about twenty yards from him, a crash of 
 brush and the stroke, not of bounding, but of fast- 
 running hoofs, moving with stumbling and erratic 
 pace, but still running and smashing rapidly away 
 through the brush. Belville fired a vain shot or two 
 in the direction of the sound, and then went to look 
 where his buck had fallen. There were the marks of 
 scuffling feet, the signs of a fall and a struggle on the 
 dry ground, but no sign of blood. 
 
 Belville stood for a moment, puzzled, and was 
 about to go, knowing how vain is the pursuit of a 
 wounded deer in chaparral without a good dog, and 
 sometimes even with one, when he suddenly saw 
 something among the bushes. He stooped and drew 
 out the single horn of a large deer. It was shivered 
 to pieces at the very base, and told the story too 
 plainly. 
 
 The buck, hearing Norton's shots, had turned and 
 gone down the ridge toward the main valley. About 
 this time, Reche of Fall Brook and another hunter, 
 whose name, in modern Latin, is nullum tui negotii, 
 were coming down the valley. Reche had a yellow 
 Scotch terrier tied to his waist with a bit of rope a 
 
252 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 good way to keep a dog from " breaking shot " pro- 
 vided he is not big enough to break his master. Hear- 
 ing the shots, they had naturally hastened to get in 
 the way of being run over by anything that might 
 feel inclined that way. They had just reached a point 
 opposite the end of the ridge, and, hearing the crack- 
 ling of brush, had stopped, when the buck burst 
 from the brush along the top of the ridge and, with 
 its head laid back, came tearing at full speed down 
 the slope directly towards them. 
 
 Diego, the dog, straightened the -rope and gave a 
 yelp ; the waist-band to which the rope was tied gave 
 way with a rip ; a bullet plowed the hill-side behind 
 and above the deer, another fanned his tail with its 
 cooling breeze just as he turned short around with 
 dog and rope flying towards him. Reche recovered 
 the symmetry of his back-bone just in time to scollop 
 the bark of a live-oak monarch behind the fast-scud- 
 ding racer at the same time that a ball from his com- 
 panion's rifle sped through its lungs. 
 
 The lungs of the tree, that is. For the deer's white 
 rump dissolved in the chaparral 
 
 " Like the snow-flake in the river, 
 A moment white, then gone forever," 
 
 with Diego yelping far in his rear, leaving Reche and 
 tne other, each declaring that he had shot off a horn, 
 but both taking particular pains not to look for it. 
 
 Then there came a call from Norton. While the 
 other deer were bounding through the chaparral up 
 the hill, he had disencumbered himself of two buck- 
 
DEER-HUNTING. 253 
 
 shot cartridges that he had got weary of carrying and 
 putting in and taking out of his gun. And though it 
 was a long shot he made, he was sure he saw a deer 
 stumble. 
 
 Belville went to look, and found marks of a fall and 
 a few drops of blood, and called to Reche to bring the 
 dog. Diego was finally retrieved from a bush in 
 which he had tangled his rope, and taken to the place 
 where Norton's deer had fallen. In a moment he had 
 the scent, and bounded away up the hill with sharp 
 yelps. He had gone a hundred yards or more, when 
 the yelps doubled in intensity and frequency, a crack 
 and crash of brush was heard, and soon the chaparral 
 was parting and smashing in a line down the hill, 
 towards another gulch. Down, down, down, goes 
 the racket, not with the regular bump, bump, bump of 
 springing legs, but with a crashing discord of break- 
 ing brush, yelping dog, and stumbling hoofs 
 
 Down they go into the bottom of the gulch, where 
 the nimble terrier seizes by one of his long ears the 
 deer, which now turns out to be the spike-buck that 
 had first been seen. In a twinkling the dog is shaken 
 off, and as he is thrown against the side of a bank he 
 narrowly escapes impalement by one of the sharp 
 spike-horns. But Diego is like hope in the bosom 
 of a mining-stock verdant. He bounds again and 
 again anchors his teeth in the ear. The sharp hind 
 hoof of the deer tickles his ribs with a thump that 
 sends him whirling to earth once more. With hair 
 erect and bright green eyes glaring savagely, the buck 
 stands at bay, and, as the dog gathers himself, he 
 
254 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 makes a thrust with his sharp horns that would 
 suffice to finish a much larger dog. But the plucky 
 little terrier dodges and, before the deer can recover 
 for another charge, catches him a third time by one 
 ear. And there he dangles for a moment as the buck 
 tries to shake him off, lets go with a yelp as another 
 hoof fondles his ribs, then grabs again just as a rifle- 
 ball pacifies the savage buck forever. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 DEER IN THE OPEN HILLS. 
 
 IN the north-eastern corner of Don Juan Forster's 
 great ranch the Santa Margarita winds its way 
 through high and rugged hills. Their sides are cleft 
 with cafions and gulches, and their tops break away 
 into basins, pockets, ridges, and small peaks, more or 
 less begemmed with the solid granite jewels of the 
 land and half-dressed in tattered robes of chaparral. 
 
 Up one of these canons, on a trail made by cattle 
 that had never felt the riata or the branding-iron, and 
 that surpassed the deer in wildness, Belville and Nor- 
 ton on horseback were winding their way. Reaching 
 the top, their eyes wandered over miles of rolling 
 rubbish, green, gray, brown, yellow, black, and bluish, 
 everything lying in wild disorder, stacked, packed, 
 jammed, and crammed as if Nature knew not how to 
 get it all stowed away. Here and there the vast area 
 was cut by long cafions, filled with winding green, 
 which, splitting into branches, encircled the waist of 
 some somber peak ; and deep ravines yawned with 
 bottoms also of timber or chaparral. Everywhere 
 was the everlasting boulder. Yet almost every point 
 and pass, basin and gulch, was connected by the trails 
 of cattle ; for the California breed are at home on the 
 wildest and most rugged hills, 
 
256 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 " Here, you see, are deer-tracks," said Belville, point- 
 ing to several in the trail. 
 
 " I declare ! There are about a dozen," exclaimed 
 Norton. 
 
 "Yes," said Belville, "just a dozen hoofs. But 
 only three deer : a doe and two fawns. You make 
 the common mistake of counting a deer to every foot- 
 print." 
 
 The trail wound around the heads of two or three 
 little gulches and the breast of a little peak, and then 
 descended into a basin about two hundred yards wide 
 and a hundred feet. deep. The bottom of the basin 
 was cut up into little ravines and pockets, with an 
 abundance of boulder, brush, and chaparral. 
 
 " It is too early in the day for deer to be on foot 
 yet," said Belville, after a careful survey of the bot- 
 tom and sides of the basin. "And it is extremely 
 probable that those deer whose tracks we saw are 
 lying down in there. Or they may even be standing 
 up ; for they can almost keep out of sight in brush a 
 yard high, unless they move or the sun happens to 
 shine on their jackets. We had better leave our 
 horses here, for if they are in there they will be sure 
 to hear and see us when we go down into the basin ; 
 and if once they start, they'll stop for nothing." 
 
 They tied their horses, and Belville went around by 
 a circuitous route to the opposite side of the basin, 
 and took a position on a rock commanding the 
 two trails, on one of which he thought the deer were 
 most likely to come out. Norton then began a 
 cautious descent into the basin through a gulch at 
 
DEER IN THE OPEN HILLS. 257 
 
 the side. He reached the bottom and took an old 
 trail leading up the middle. With the stealthy tread 
 he had seen Belville use, he sneaked along with watch- 
 ful eye, thinking himself a pretty smart chap, after all, 
 - for a city verdant, who knew a trick or two about 
 hunting, wheji his blood was suddenly curdled by an 
 unexpected apparition. 
 
 About twenty yards from him, on a quite open 
 slope, all at once he saw a big gray doe, with a fawn 
 on each side above and below and a little behind her. 
 Six great flaring ears of light gray, six eyes of 
 bluish black, and three black muzzles were all aimed 
 directly at him. He was shot through and through 
 with amazement. "Where in the world did they 
 come from so suddenly? How could I have missed 
 seeing them before ? Aren't they beauties?" These 
 questions skipped through his mind without waiting for 
 answers ; for all were swamped in the great and 
 delightful thought : "And how close !" 
 
 The two fawns took a step ahead of the mother and 
 stopped. Norton raised his gun. It was loaded with 
 buckshot wire cartridges, and a faint pang flitted 
 across his tender heart as he thought of the havoc 
 they would make among those pretty innocents. 
 Better feelings almost triumphed as he thought that 
 the camp could not use such an immense amount of 
 meat after he had killed them ; but then he thought 
 of some rabbit-fed settlers near by, and concluded 
 that he might play almoner of Heaven to advantage. 
 
 One of the great beauties of hunting is the grand 
 opportunity it gives to the play of the highest facul- 
 
258 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 ties. Norton might have passed through life without 
 thinking of the stupendous paradox that one may 
 often bag more by aiming at nothing than by aiming 
 at something. But no sooner did he see the two 
 fawns step out ahead of the mother, with a strip of 
 light between the back of the lowest and the belly of 
 the highest one, than he saw, with that transcendent 
 power of judgment which only such occasions can 
 develop, that he could bag both by aiming between 
 them. For this delightful contingency Messrs. Eley 
 & Bros., of London, neglected to provide when they 
 made their buckshot wire cartridges a very great 
 piece of carelessness on their part which once cost a 
 hunter three wild turkeys he hoped to get at one shot 
 by firing at a hole between them and hit it ! 
 
 So Norton, like that brilliant and greedy youth (as 
 the aforesaid hunter then was), was ignorant of the 
 fact that these cartridges often go like a bullet for 
 many yards before breaking. And when he took a 
 cool aim at that strip of light between the fawns, and 
 sent a cartridge whizzing straight at it, he very natu- 
 rally looked astonished as he saw the dirt fly from the 
 dry bank beyond, and beheld the three deer spring 
 unharmed high into the air and ricochet with airy 
 lightness up the slope. 
 
 But then, what of it ? We don't want but one, any- 
 how. They are still within easy distance ; and who 
 ever missed a deer with buckshot? Something like 
 this flashed through his mind as he raised the other 
 barrel on the big doe, and saw the curl of her white 
 and gray rump just in line with it. He pulled the 
 
DEER IN THE OPEN HILLS. 259 
 
 trigger and sixteen buckshot whizzed directly to 
 where the doe was, while she struck the ground some 
 distance beyond, after leaping through the space 
 nearly a yard above where she had stood when he 
 pulled the trigger. The trio waltzed over a ridge 
 near by, the last little black tail fading out of sight 
 just as the discomfited Norton got his gun snapped 
 shut on two more cartridges. Whereupon he deliv- 
 ered himself of some wisdom to the effect that a deer 
 is accompanied by more circumambient space than 
 anything else in creation. Which the same is here- 
 with most cordially indorsed. 
 
 Belville's face was illumined with joy as he heard 
 the two shots from Norton's gun, and fairly blazed 
 with delight as he heard the inspiring bump, bump, 
 bump on the hard ground coming closer. He looked 
 out from behind his rock and saw a beautiful fawn, 
 large and sleek, come bounding up the trail. Just as 
 he raised his rifle, the old lady herself leaped into 
 view with the other baby skipping high behind her. 
 With magnanimity unparalleled Belville let the fawn 
 pass, and raised his rifle on the old dame. It is sad 
 to find the brilliancy of apparently noble motives turn 
 out to be only the tinsel of a false pretense. Yet can- 
 dor compels the statement that Belville meant to 
 invert the old one, in order that when her heels 
 should kick at heaven instead of spurning earth, her 
 loving offspring might tarry to see what was the 
 matter, and thus give him a good chance to inform 
 them. 
 
 On came the doe, glancing so high from the ground 
 
260 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 at each touch of her fairy feet that Belville, after a 
 few vain attempts to tell where she was going to 
 strike next and get his sights trained on that spot, 
 took down the rifle and said, " Maa!" 
 
 This did not appear to be any news to her; so she 
 kept on, and he called out " Maa!" again, in a louder 
 tone. This stopped the foremost fawn, and as Belville 
 raised his rifle on that one so as to make sure of 
 something, the old one stopped to see what the fawn 
 was doing. She looked so much larger that Belville 
 shifted the sights upon her. Just as he pulled the 
 trigger she rose, and the ball shaved the hair of her 
 chest just back of the fore-legs. Full fifteen feet she 
 went at the first spring, bounded four or five feet into 
 the air at the next touch, and landed in the head of a 
 little brushy ravine; when, before Belville could load 
 again his swift-firing repeater, the lofty head and 
 graceful neck were lowered, the high rolling rump 
 vanished, and in the head of this little ravine, scarcely 
 two feet deep, and in brush scarcely three feet high, 
 the billowy beauty had disappeared. 
 
 But the hindmost fawn was still in sight, curving 
 high among the rocks and bushes and fast careering 
 towards the place where the mother skulked away. In 
 another moment he too will reach it, and he too 
 knows right well how to sneak out of sight in brush 
 hardly big enough to hide a rabbit. But Belville is 
 following his course, with the rifle held well ahead of 
 him, and now, as he descends from an arching spring, 
 the sights are held four or five feet ahead of him and 
 fully two feet below. The bang! lump ! spat! are 
 
DEER JN THE OPEN HILLS. 261 
 
 simultaneous; for the deer reaches ground just as the 
 bullet gets there and his shoulders are square in its 
 path. 
 
 Two more hours slide down the hill of time, never 
 again to draw up their sleds, and Belville, half a mile 
 from the scene of his last performance, is trying to 
 slide himself down a sloping face of rock so as to get 
 into a trail that will bring him fifty yards nearer to a 
 dark shiny spot in the brush three hundred yards 
 away. The silver sheen of the still visible ocean is 
 changing fast into burnished gold ; the distant peaks 
 of gray and green are reddening fast into carmine and 
 purple; the tide of crimson haze begins to flow up 
 the western valleys; the soft green of the chaparral 
 on the eastern slopes begins to darken into blue, and 
 on the western slopes to glow with brighter green; 
 the bee is humming on his homeward way; and the 
 roaring wings of hundreds of quail flying to roost 
 resound from the canon's depths a thousand feet be- 
 low. Evening is fast falling, and something must be 
 done soon if that shiny spot is to be investigated and 
 camp reached before dark. 
 
 So thinks Belville, and he proceeds to commit that 
 supreme folly of being in a hurry after a deer that is 
 not in haste. Why does he not send Norton to camp 
 on this trail, and take time enough to reach that hill 
 that commands the object in question at so short a 
 distance? Or why does he not let the quarry go un- 
 disturbed to-night and come again early in the morn- 
 ing? Either course is surer than the attempt he is 
 now making to approach it while in sight of it. He 
 
262 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 gets into the trail, and by stooping low keeps out of 
 sight until at the end of a few yards the trail turns 
 down a slope, and brings him into plain sight of that 
 shining spot, on one side of which several fine points 
 now glisten in the light of the sinking sun. 
 
 Sure as man who is falling behind the world thinks 
 himself ahead of it, so sure is the hunter to think he 
 is outgeneraling a deer just when the deer is out- 
 generaling him. And Belville chuckles with satisfac- 
 tion as he finds himself drawing closer to the game 
 and yet it does not move. He has hunted much, but 
 not before now has he seen a deer stand in the brush 
 with his head down but turned to one side, quietly 
 watching something at a distance. And yet he has 
 hunted enough to have seen it. 
 
 Still he creeps quietly on, and still the spot moves 
 not. Soon he is within two hundred yards of it, and 
 concludes to try a shot; for he doubts the chances of 
 getting any closer. He adjusts the sight in a second, 
 raises the rifle, and the spot is gone! No jump, no 
 crash of brush, no sign of anything. And yet the 
 brush seems scarcely three feet high, and thin at that. 
 The fellow had only dropped his head, crouched a 
 little, and sneaked away. This is only one of the 
 many pleasing little idiosyncrasies of this kind of 
 deer. 
 
 As the stars were paling in the blue strip above 
 the river-gorge, Belville and Norton finished their 
 breakfast at their camp beneath a royal live-oak, on a 
 little bench of land by the water's side. And before 
 the sunlight began to skip along the topmost boulders 
 
DEER IN THE OPEN HILLS. 263 
 
 they were mounted and off ; for this morning they 
 were to ride the river cafion to find a deer or two 
 before they went into the hills for the day, perhaps to 
 find some deer that had decided to spend the day in 
 the cool shades of the breezy gorge itself. Breakfast 
 over, they mounted their horses, which carried them 
 along through the mica sands of the river-bed, which 
 sparkled like gold in the whirling water, over little 
 strips of rank green grass along its sides, around big 
 boulders, through green groves of sycamore, cotton- 
 wood, and willow, under the limbs of great live-oaks 
 and the heavy tangles of grape-vines, while the sides 
 of the canon, clothed with evergreens of dozens of 
 varieties and besprinkled with a most liberal assort- 
 ment of rocks, ran through a hundred hues and shades 
 as the light grew stronger. Here and there on the 
 sandy bars or along the wet margin of the river they 
 saw where deer had crossed the bed of the stream 
 or stopped at its edge to drink. And wherever a 
 gulch or cafion broke from the hills into the main 
 canon, tracks were generally to be seen on the trail 
 that wound up its side or along its bottom. There 
 was a line through a patch of grass that was of a dif- 
 ferent shade from the rest, and Belville said, as he 
 pointed it out, 
 
 " There has been a deer through that this very 
 morning. That difference in color comes from the 
 slight bending of the blades of grass, which makes the 
 light strike them differently. We must be quiet now." 
 
 They went in the direction indicated by the line for 
 a few yards, when suddenly they heard a long-drawn 
 
264 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 "phew /" which was repeated at intervals of several 
 seconds like the snort of a Mississippi steamer, and 
 
 the sound was getting farther away. <^et there was 
 no cracking of brush, no bump of feet, no sound upon 
 the ground. Quickly Belville sprang from his horse 
 and ran. But not towards the sound; and Norton 
 stood for a moment in wonder to see him run back- 
 ward and directly away from it. Through the water 
 and over its bars and shallows he dashed, until he 
 reached the trees on the other side of the river, when 
 he stopped, turned around and cocked his rifle, look- 
 ing at the hills on the side whence the sound had 
 come. In a moment he saw, stalking deliberately 
 with kingly coolness up the hill, a splendid buck, with 
 broad branching horns and body round and sleek as 
 that of a mule with fatness. Stopping a moment 
 to look, the buck caught a glimpse of Belville, who was 
 raising his rifle, and' in a twinkling he was in the air. 
 How is it possible for a deer to run up such a hill? 
 And even if that is explained, the greater difficulty 
 remains of explaining how one can bound up such a hill. 
 Yet up he goes nevertheless, much as a ball would go 
 down the side of the pyramid of Cheops. Boulders, 
 bushes, barrancas, and ledges stand thick in his path- 
 way, yet he ricochets along, on a slanting course 
 indeed, yet still up, up, up, rapidly up. Bang ! goes 
 the rifle, and the dirt flres from the place he has just 
 left. Bang ! it goes again, held higher, and the shot 
 goes too high. Bang ! goes another, held a whole jump 
 ahead, and this time it strikes too far ahead, for no 
 two jumps are alike. Bang! goes still another shot, 
 
DEER IN THE OPEN HILLS. 265 
 
 held closer to him to avoid the cause of the last miss, 
 and the dust flies from the bank just in line with his tail. 
 
 And now he has continued his swift career to where 
 the sunlight, six hundred feet above, shot through a 
 canon on the other side, makes the rugged hill smile 
 with morning freshness. 
 
 O Nature, why dost thou ever mingle some alloy 
 of weakness with thy greatest strength ? Yet when 
 we ourselves so often in the very moment of triumph 
 allow some infirmity to dash to earth the victor's 
 plume, how can we blame that buck for yielding to 
 that strong curiosity for seeing what is below him 
 that a deer always exhibits when running up hill ? In 
 charity let us forgive his weakness for pausing after 
 such a splendid escape. He stops, rears his proud 
 head with all its tines glistening in the morning sun, 
 turns his thick massive neck and points his black 
 muzzle and forehead downward. He shines all over 
 as the sun lights up his dark jacket and slim legs, 
 and stands there, the picture of. grace and strength. 
 
 He starts as the rifle cracks again; but not with the 
 former ease as of a spring released from coil. He 
 starts forward with a crouching convulsive jerk, and 
 runs, not with the high spring or the low scudding 
 gait he well knows how to take when in haste, but 
 with the lumbering gallop of an old cow. And alas! 
 no longer upward goes he, but this time he turns 
 downward, and with a plunging crash, among the 
 brush. He reels, struggles and stumbles, turns a 
 somersault and comes tumbling down as fast as he 
 went up, and rolls dead to the foot of the hill, 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 TRACKING DEER ON BARE GROUND. 
 
 A FEW miles from the ranch-house of Santa Marga- 
 rita is a huge basin or amphitheater of several 
 thousand acres, sunk deep in the great dark hills of 
 Santa Rosa. A brook of pure cool water traverses it, 
 winding through heavy arcades of alder, sycamore, 
 ash, cottonwood, and grape-vines. Low hills, sprink- 
 led with white-oaks, roll away on the one side into 
 the heavy chaparral of the mountains, which tower 
 thousands of feet above; low meadows or little plains 
 thick set with live-oaks spread away towards the hills 
 on the other side. Tremendous gulches filled with 
 bright green timber break here and there into the 
 mountains, winding upward towards their tops until 
 the timber is lost in the wild chaos of boulder and 
 bristling chaparral. 
 
 In a grove of live-oaks close by the brook our hunt- 
 ers were now encamped, and as they looked at the 
 cool shades and listened to the bubbling water, as 
 they heard the quails calling all around and the doves 
 with whistling wing scudding in arrowy flight, as they 
 saw the rabbit's white tail flicker along the edge of 
 the brush at evening, and found the deer's track by 
 the brook in the morning, they concluded they had 
 found a pretty comfortable place. And who that drank 
 
TRACKING DEER ON BARE GROUND. 267 
 
 of the pure cool water, lounged in the deep shades, look- 
 ed up at the soaring hills robed in dark chaparral, 
 cleft with stupendous cafions, and fringed along their 
 tops with oaks; or bathed in the warm sulphur spring, 
 and felt the cool air descend at sundown like an angel 
 of sleep, would have thought that this place was not 
 fifteen miles from the bare and dreary coast, and but 
 a few hundred feet above sea-level ? 
 
 For several days Belville had been trying to get 
 sight of an immense buck of the burro, a large " mule- 
 deer" variety that is found on the desert slope of the 
 mountains, and only at rare intervals on the coast 
 slope. Thus far he had been able to find only his 
 tracks, and occasionally an abandoned bed; and he 
 now determined to try another plan. 
 
 Floods of inky twaddle have been shed from the 
 goose's quills about the difficulties of tracking game 
 on bare ground. There is not a vaquero of twenty in 
 California who would not laugh to learn, as many 
 have from books and magazine articles, that the abili- 
 ty to do this was an almost superhuman power re- 
 served by nature to the gifted Indian alone, grudg- 
 ingly bestowed even upon him, and refused to the 
 white man. It is not to be denied that in the case of 
 animals as light as a deer it is no easy matter to fol- 
 low them upon bare and dry ground, which is nearly 
 always hard; and on some kinds of ground, impossi- 
 ble; and even the keenest Indian finds this difficult. 
 But, on the other hand, there are places where a deer 
 may be tracked on bare ground, not as easily, indeed, 
 but almost as surely as upon snow. And this, too, 
 
268 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 upon ground so dry, so hard, and so covered with 
 grass or brush, that to the tyro it would seem a hope- 
 less task. Yet it requires no natural gift, no lifetime 
 of schooling, none of the qualifications we generally 
 read about as indispensable; but only patience, a 
 sound and tolerably well practiced eye, and, above all, 
 a knowledge of the deer's habits and movements. 
 
 "The chap has been here early for water," said 
 Belville, one morning about sunrise. He pointed to 
 a large clear foot-print in the sandy margin of the 
 brook, half a mile above the camp. 
 
 Norton looked at the track, and took Belville's word 
 for its age; for to his untrained eye the freshness, 
 plain as that of a newly-plucked rose, was not quite 
 apparent. 
 
 But where is the next track ? The bank behind 
 shows along its edge a light fresh scrape, where the 
 dew-claws of a hind foot had touched as it came down 
 on to lower ground, and between that and the track 
 in the sand was a pebble the size of a walnut, one 
 side of which was moist, showing that it had been 
 lately displaced. But no other sign of a foot was 
 visible on that side of the brook. The rocky and peb- 
 bly bed of the brook showed no trace of anything, 
 and the rocky ledge on the other side, closely bounded 
 by dead weeds, grass, and brush on the bank, gave 
 slight prospect of finding any indications. 
 
 " He has gone across, that's certain," said Belville, 
 looking in vain for any trace of backward tracks. 
 "And as deer very seldom spend much time around 
 water in this country, he is probably several hundred 
 
TRACKING DEER ON BARE GROUND. 269 
 
 yards, perhaps half a mile or more, away by this time. 
 So we won't waste any time hunting the tracks here, 
 but will depend upon picking up the trail farthef 
 on." 
 
 Outside the timber a cattle-trail ran parallel with 
 the brook on the other side. Belville walked up and 
 down this trail for fifty yards each way, looking care- 
 fully in it for tracks. It was not traveled enough to 
 make its bottom dusty, so that nothing was very plain- 
 ly seen; but here and there was a faint scrape on some 
 bare spot, a faint ridge of fine dust coming to a point 
 with a slight opening in the center, and occasionally 
 the clear imprint of two sharp toes upon some spot 
 more dusty than the rest. Air these were of the width 
 of the track he had seen in the sand. There was, how- 
 ever, no clear outline, only a smooth appearance to it 
 all, as though ants had been traveling or the breeze 
 blowing over it, and in the shade the color was the 
 same as the rest of the ground. So Belville decided 
 that these were yesterday's tracks, and not what he 
 was looking for. 
 
 Across the trail, the ground stood thick with white 
 sage, dead grass, dead weeds; scarcely one twentieth 
 of the bare ground could be seen. Running through 
 the weeds in places there were faint lines of different 
 shades of color, but the sage and grass showed none, 
 the sage being too scattered and the grass too low and 
 fallen. And even the traces left in the weeds were of 
 no use; for dead weeds, when pushed aside and so 
 deflected as to indicate a different shade, do not re- 
 cover as they do when green; so that the animals that 
 
270 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 made those lines might have passed there several days 
 previously. 
 
 Must then the romancer's Indian triumph after all? 
 Must the pale-face give it up ? especially a pale-face 
 who is plainly city born and bred, and not a profes- 
 sional hunter, reeking with whisky, tobacco, bad Eng- 
 lish, buckskins, long hair, flop hat, and the rest of the 
 novelist's regulation outfit ? 
 
 The Indian would not waste a moment in trying to 
 pick out tracks on such ground. Neither does Bel- 
 ville. Though only an amateur hunter, he knows the 
 habits of deer too well for that. Two hundred yards 
 ahead he sees where the ground rolls up into swells 
 with "sags," or little passes, between them. He 
 knows that deer do not feed on this kind of ground; 
 that they rarely lie down in it by day; that it is still 
 much too early for a deer to lie down anywhere; that 
 through each of those sags is probably an old cattle- 
 trail; and that traveling deer, like men, will take to a 
 path almost every time when it is convenient. He 
 knows, too, that half a mile farther on the ground 
 breaks at the foot of the mountains into higher hills, 
 clad with chaparral and with timbered vales or 
 brushy gulches between the very kind of ground in 
 which deer most love to spend the day. He knows 
 also that it is time for the buck to be nearing this 
 ground, and that he is undoubtedly on his way there 
 now. He will, of course, lounge and browse a little on 
 the way, but there is not much time to throw away if 
 he is to be caught standing or in ground open enough 
 to offer a good mark for a running shot. 
 
TRACKING DEER ON BARE GROUND. 271 
 
 So Belville went straight and swiftly for the deepest 
 of the little sags among the hillocks. There in the 
 bottom, as he expected, was an old trail, little used but 
 still a plain trail, in which grass had grown and had 
 been long since trampled flat and cut up by cattle- 
 hoofs. Quickly his eye ran along a few yards of this 
 and caught sight of a faint scrape on a hard bare 
 spot. There was no outline of a track, no print of 
 toes, no dust thrown up, no grass or weeds bent, no 
 leaf moistened on the under side by being pressed 
 down, no fresh side of a stone or chip or moss turned 
 up; only the faintest change in the shade of color on 
 a spot of hard dirt as large as a quarter of a dollar. 
 Could there be a wilder flight of fancy than calling 
 this a track ? 
 
 Yet the eye that was used to reading the ground 
 decided in a second that that mark was positively 
 made that morning; that nothing but a hoof could 
 have so ground the fine particles of dust as to make 
 them show such a different shade of color, and con- 
 sequently that the mark was not made by panther, 
 wild-cat, coyote, or other soft-footed animal. Just as 
 quickly it was decided that this track was not large or 
 heavy enough for the track of cattle. 
 
 But where is the next track ? Little Belville seemed 
 to care, for he traveled rapidly on in the trail almost 
 without looking for any further sign. And behold, it 
 led through dead grass, weeds, and white sage, ground 
 for which a deer could have no use at this time of 
 day. And it only went one hundred and fifty yards 
 before it turned over a little rising tongue of low 
 
272 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 chemisal which ran out from a large patch on the left. 
 And in this chemisal the ground was almost bare. 
 When Belville reached this, he found the bottom of 
 the trail both bare and dusty, and in the very first 
 foot of it was a print as distinct as if made by the 
 point of a flat-iron. Two or three more were beyond 
 it, beside which no more were seen. But a moment's 
 glance at the ground on either side showed on the 
 left a bright spot with a little fine ridge of dust cast 
 up ahead of it; a yard beyond it was another, and just 
 beyond that a slight spot of grayer shade on a bit of 
 friable granite. Yes; the deer had turned that way. 
 
 And now, you see, it is comparatively easy to follow 
 the track. And that is just what the tyro would do. 
 But Belville does quite the contrary. He knows that 
 this bit of brush is too low, too open, too near the 
 Santa Rosa trail for a deer to pass the day in, and 
 that he will leave it at the other end, or at the side 
 that lies towards the higher and more broken hills. 
 But he also knows that at this early hour of the morn- 
 ing a deer may have stopped at any point on his way 
 from water back to the hills. Hence he quickly 
 reasons thus: 
 
 1. If he has passed on, I can pick up the trail where 
 he left this chemisal patch quite as easily as I can fol- 
 low it through; perhaps* more easily. 
 
 2. If he is still in here (and he may possibly be behind 
 those rocks or among those higher bushes), it will 
 take all my eyesight to find his fur without wasting 
 any time or attention on his tracks. 
 
 He now motions to Norton to sit down, and then 
 
TRACKING DEER ON BARE GROUND. 273 
 
 reflects how best to inspect the ground. Four things 
 he considers in this order: 
 
 1. The wind. 
 
 2. The best ground to travel without noise. 
 
 3. The best ground from which to see the game; 
 that is, the highest. 
 
 4. The sun. 
 
 The wind question is quickly disposed of, for the 
 land-breeze has just stopped and the sea-breeze has 
 not yet begun; so that the deer can scent a person no 
 better in one direction than another. 
 
 The question of noise in walking vanishes as, easily, 
 for the brush is about equally dense and brittle in 
 every direction, and on the outside the dry crackly 
 sage-stalks are so disposed about as to leave little 
 opportunity for selection. 
 
 There is also little choice of elevation of ground, 
 certainly not enough to counterbalance the advantage 
 of having the sun fall right. - 
 
 So he takes the course that will give him the sun 
 on his own back while it shines on the deer's coat and 
 horns an advantage sometimes worth all the rest 
 put together. 
 
 Futile are all these manceuvers, however, for 
 neither glossy fur nor glistening tines nor crash of 
 brush nor bump of hoof greets eye or ear, as Belville 
 passes over the ground. But then, more than three 
 fourths of the painstaking of good still-hunting is 
 care thrown away. It takes Belville but a few 
 moments to find where the deer left this brush, 
 which seems to be on a course that leads over another 
 
274 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 ctiemisat-crowned ridge two hundred yards away 
 This ridge is so thin and low that Belville at once 
 decides that the game is not there, and he therefore 
 goes straight to it without looking a moment for 
 intermediate tracks in the dead grass and weeds. 
 For not only does the ridge lie in the direction of the 
 last track, but it is directly in the course of the broken 
 hills and brushy vales mentioned before, and so long 
 that a deer would not go around it; and it is, more- 
 over, on a kind of ground that deer like to travel 
 through, though they seldom lie down in it. 
 
 Reaching the ridge, Belville finds the track readily 
 by making a short tour along the edge; and it proves 
 to be a simple matter to follow it across, as every 
 other track shows quite plainly on the bare ground. 
 Reaching the other side, the track is found to lead 
 towards a large piece of low ground covered with dead 
 grass and sage and liberally sprinkled with white- 
 oaks. 
 
 And now, be careful, Doctor. This is the time 
 of year for acorns those white-oak acorns the deer 
 loves more than any other kind; he has undoubtedly 
 stopped to get some, and is probably eating them 
 yet. Remember, too, that those tree-tops shut out 
 much of the view, and that if you try to enter that 
 place from higher ground he will be almost certain to 
 see your feet and legs before your eyes get low enough 
 to see him; for a deer's eyes are marvelously quick to 
 detect a motion of any kind. 
 
 All this Belville knows right well. For see how he 
 backs out and starts away off to the right, so as to 
 
TRACKING DEER ON BARE GROUND. 275 
 
 get into the dry sandy bed of a little creek that leads 
 out of this ground. Traveling cautiously up the 
 water-course for two or three hundred yards, his eye 
 at last rests on a spot of white, flanked with a line of 
 dark gray with a center of black, supported by a 
 couple of knock-kneed gray sticks, perhaps three 
 hundred yards beyond. A shiver of satisfaction runs 
 over the hunter as he drops his head almost out of 
 sight and watches the object before him. Presently 
 some shining points rise from behind it, and a huge 
 head, surmounted by great branching horns, appears, 
 Motionless at first, it shortly turns a moment to each 
 side, and then disappears again. 
 
 "Too far!" says Belville to himself. "I stand a 
 better chance of getting closer than of hitting him 
 from here. Besides, he must be killed dead with a 
 sure shot and not sent hobbling into yonder chaparral 
 to die." 
 
 So saying, he starts on a very hazardous, yet, if 
 properly performed, quite easy, operation to ap- 
 proach a deer when in plain sight of him. This is 
 almost impossible unless the deer is feeding from the 
 ground. For if he be on the watch, it is quite impos- 
 sible to come near him; and if browsing, his head is 
 so high that he is quite likely to see you. 
 
 Leaving his hat behind, Belville starts on hands and 
 knees toward the deer. In a moment the buck's head 
 comes up, and at the first motion upward Belville 
 stops still as a statue. The animal takes a look all 
 around and lowers his head again to the ground; 
 whereupon Belville begins again to crawl forward as 
 
276 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 fast as possible. At the next moment up comes again 
 the heavily-antlered head. The buck looks carefully 
 all round the horizon, scratches one ear, turns around 
 broadside, and stands a moment with the sun full on 
 his shining coat. He appears much larger, higher 
 shouldered, and thicker necked than any of the deer yet 
 described, and his horns are longer and more branch- 
 ing. It is without doubt the old boy that made the 
 track. Down goes his head once more for acorns, 
 and now Belville drops flat upon the ground. He no 
 longer dares trust himself on hands and knees; for 
 the deer's eyes are now too nearly turned in his direc- 
 tion. So he adopts the more laborious but much safer 
 process of worm-ing his way on his elbows and toes. 
 
 He advances in this way about fifteen yards, when 
 the deer takes another observation, while Belville 
 stops the instant he raises his head. Feeding re- 
 sumed, Belville advances another twenty yards before 
 being again interrupted by the upraised head. This 
 time the deer takes a good look, moves a few paces, 
 wiggles his tail with evident satisfaction, then decides 
 on another bite. And as soon as he drops his head 
 to the ground Belville continues his cautious and 
 painful progress. 
 
 And now the dark muzzle and huge gray ears are 
 turned full on Belville as they come up; every shin- 
 ing tine on the horns seems to be pointing directly 
 at him; he almost sees the dark blue eyes looking 
 through him; he can almost see that tight firmness 
 of the mouth that a deer wears when suspicious of 
 danger. The deer does not run or move. He only 
 
TRACKING DEER ON BARE GROUND. 277 
 
 looks straight on, and keenly. What is Belville to 
 do ? What would you do if in his place ? if you had 
 been crawling for ten minutes, feeling as if every hair 
 on your head were caught in a whirlwind, with de- 
 lightful expectation waltzing through your heart, 
 while hope and fear were executing a contra-dance 
 along your back-bone ? 
 
 You would no doubt shoot from where Belville now 
 is. It is only two hundred and fifty yards. And 
 what is that distance for the great modern rifle ? Do 
 they not now score bull's-eyes at a thousand yards ? 
 And are not hunters constantly shooting game at 
 five hundred and six hundred yards ? Are not two 
 hundred and fifty and three hundred yards the regu- 
 lation distances for killing game ? Yes, with the 
 quill. But Belville has tried too often the difficult 
 operation of estimating distance to be deceived by 
 the ridiculous stuff of such writers. And he reasons 
 like one who knows. 
 
 " I ought to get at least one hundred yards closer 
 for anything like certainty, and even that is not 
 enough for a center-shot. But then, the old fellow 
 seems suspicious. If he starts, I can't hit him running 
 from here. If I wait longer, he may decide that there 
 is danger in this quarter and vanish. Besides, it is 
 getting to be time for him to be moving; he may be 
 through feeding; and if he starts off for the hills even 
 on a walk, I cannot overtake him. I quess I shall 
 have to try him, though it's a very long shot. " 
 
 So thinking, he begins very slowly to raise his gun. 
 But why does he not stop to consider the other side. 
 
278 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA, 
 
 of the question ? Perhaps he does not see any other 
 side. People often view more important questions in 
 the same way. But if he would ransack the lumber- 
 garret of experience a moment, he would recognize 
 some very important considerations. He would re- 
 member that deer often look steadily in one direction 
 for some time without suspecting anything; that to 
 raise the rifle now and adjust the sights while the 
 deer is looking his way is dangerous, especially with 
 the sun shining as it now is; that in his present posi- 
 tion he cannot look over the intermediate ground, 
 without doing which the estimation of distance, al- 
 ways unreliable enough, is doubtly untrustworthy; 
 that unless alarmed the deer will either begin feeding 
 again, or, if done feeding, will probably stand around a 
 few minutes before going off; and that even if he is 
 suspicious, the chances of his running a few paces only 
 and stopping again for another look are just about 
 as good as the chances of making a deadly shot at an 
 unknown distance. 
 
 But how hard it is to, reason calmly at such a 
 time ! How hard, with the game in sight and the 
 rifle in hand, to have that patience and coolness of 
 judgment upon which in the long-run success most 
 depends ! It is more than Belville can stand, and he 
 slowly raises the rifle. 
 
 ATTd as it comes to a level, the shapely glossy statue 
 is changed into a cow-shaped brute on a long springy 
 and awkward trot a gait that deer sometimes take. 
 And this trot the deer holds regardless of bullets spin- 
 ning around him, until he fades over a low ridge. 
 
TRACKING DEER. ON BARE GROUND. 279 
 
 Belville made a few observations on deer in general 
 and this one in particular, which will not do to print, 
 and then made his way back to Norton, to whom he 
 recounted his adventure, laying, however, more stress 
 upon his success in tracking the deer than upon the 
 results obtained after he had found him. 
 
 " It's too late to go anywhere else this morning," he 
 said; " so let's take a smoke;" and he sat down by 
 Norton, and consoled himself with a fragrant pipe. 
 
 NOTE. Selection has, of course, been made of an easy case of 
 bare-ground tracking, to exemplify its most important principles. 
 There is much ground on which it would be far more difficult. But it 
 must be remembered that on the greater part of such ground still- 
 hunting, either by tracking or otherwise, is almost impossible. 
 So that bare-ground tracking over country worth hunting at all is 
 generally no such wonderful thing as it is represented. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE MUTUAL JOKERS. 
 
 YOU don't seem a bit tired with your walk; you 
 must be getting much stronger," said Belville 
 to Norton, as they sat down on a rock. 
 
 " I have certainly gained very much, and have good 
 reason to hope for a complete cure." 
 
 " Yes, if you don't make the usual mistake of going 
 back East and resuming your old mode of life. Fully 
 sixty per cent of invalids who do recover undo them- 
 selves again in this way." 
 
 " How many do you suppose do recover ?" 
 
 " Very few. Very small is the percentage of those 
 who recover in any climate, or could recover in any 
 climate in the world. Fully fifty per cent start from 
 home too late to be cured by anything. Of the other 
 fifty, one half look upon climate as a direct and posi- 
 tive medicine, and think there is nothing to do but to 
 sit down and take it. They take no amusement, no 
 exercise, do nothing to increase the appetite or build 
 up the system. They find that they don't get well at 
 once; and in a few weeks vote the climate a fraud, 
 and skip away to some place more lively and 
 unhealthy. A very few do as you have done : look 
 upon climate not as a direct means, but as a condition 
 of cure, and go to work to build themselves up by 
 
THE MUTUAL JOKERS. 281 
 
 out-of-door amusements that give just the right 
 amount of exercise, increase the appetite, and keep 
 off the blues. And yet a large number of these, after 
 life is saved and assured, throw it away by returning 
 to the climate and habits of life in which the disease 
 original ed." 
 
 " I shall look out for that mistake and avoid it," 
 said Norton. " I believe I owe my recovery entirely 
 to the life I have led since I came here. If I had not 
 fallen into your hands, I might have gone the way 
 of the great majority. I shall always be grateful to 
 you for advising me to spend the time as I have, and 
 for helping me to do it." 
 
 " I knew it would save you if anything would; but 
 I felt quite alarmed about you at one time." 
 
 Norton here began to laugh. 
 
 " There's a joke about that that is almost too good 
 to keep," he said at length. 
 
 " Any joke is too good to keep. Unlock the cas- 
 ket," said Belville. 
 
 " I played the dying man pretty well that time !" 
 
 "Yes. I thought you did. But I wondered how 
 you could make yourself thinner in flesh without real 
 injury. Of course the cough part of it was easy 
 enough to manage," replied Belville, coolly. 
 
 "You don't understand me," said Norton. "I saw 
 how it was going between you and Laura, and I played 
 that trick to head you off." 
 
 "Going between us? Please elucidate." 
 
 "Come, now; you need not play the innocent 
 Laura has told me all about it." 
 
282 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 "Oh yes," said Belville, scratching his head as 
 though trying to rake up his recollection. "You 
 mean that little transient affair. I declare, I'd almost 
 lost sight of it in the light of a brighter matter. Oh, 
 I knew that all the time. Well," he added flipping 
 the ashes from his cigar with his little finger as 
 delicately and artistically as if in a city club-room, "I 
 can tell a joke worth two of yours, and one that has 
 the additional advantage of being news. You see, 
 that was only a little matter of rapid growth and 
 equally rapid decline; it was a mere phosphorescence, 
 a transient gleam of moonlight that I mistook for sun- 
 shine. I found out right away that I had not chosen 
 as I wished, and so I made no objection to her marry- 
 ing you as the easiest way to arrange the affair. It 
 was your sister that I really wanted, and true love 
 being always blind, you know, I did not see it at first." 
 
 Norton sat staggered at the cool impudence of the 
 fellow, *and said not a word, although he wondered 
 whether he ought not to resent such talk; while Bel- 
 ville continued calmly smoking. 
 
 " Now, my dear fellow," contiuued Belville, flipping 
 off with elegant ease the slight crust of ashes that had 
 formed again on his cigar, "if you feel under any obli- 
 gation to me for my share in bringing about the turn 
 things have taken, I'll give you a receipt in full, if you 
 wish. Your sister has canceled the whole obligation." 
 
 " See here, my friend, I don't relish such allusions to 
 my sister, even from you," said Norton, with a decided- 
 ly frosty crackle in his tone. 
 
 " I can readily understand and sympathize with 
 
THE MUTUAL JOKERS. 283 
 
 your repugnance to allusions. In fact, I have myself 
 a most pronounced antipathy to the article. What 
 you mistook for an allusion was a fact. But your 
 mistake was very natural. No apology is necessary." 
 
 "Do you mean that my sister " 
 
 "Pre-e-e-cisely," interrupted Belville. " She gave me 
 her heart some time since, and will give me her hand 
 this coming winter." 
 
 "Why! she is already engaged to a young physi- 
 cian in Boston!" 
 
 It was now Belville's turn to be astonished, but he 
 suppressed all outward signs of surprise. 
 
 "Ah, well, you know it is common for patients 
 having a severe complaint to change physicians," he 
 replied pleasantly. 
 
 " But I can't believe it. She can't be false to him," 
 rejoined Norton, still struggling under his astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " Of course not false. She couldn't be false to any 
 one. Only slightly fickle. Others have been so 
 before her," said Belville, soothingly. 
 
 "No indeed; I don't believe she could," said Nor- 
 ton, shaking his head solemnly and talking mainly to 
 himself. 
 
 "Then she could not have been engaged to the 
 other man. I shall cheerfully accept that view of it, 
 for I dislike fickleness." 
 
 " Well, you shall never marry her," said Norton, 
 at length, with firmness. 
 
 " Oh, perhaps not; perhaps not. She said I should, 
 however. But then I didn't know about the other 
 
284 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 doctor in the case. There is no depending on fickle 
 persons. I really regret to learn that she is so fickle." 
 Norton's response to this was angry, but Belville's 
 rejoinder was conciliatory, and they finally agreed 
 to have no more words about it; Norton vowing in- 
 wardly, however, that his sister should never transform 
 their hunting companion into a brother-in-law, and 
 Belville being complacently satisfied with his own 
 purposes. 
 
 "May I be immediately and eternally jilted' if I 
 don't believe I behold venison on yonder ridge!" said 
 Belville, suddenly fumbling for his glass. " Bang my 
 hair, if I don't!" he continued, as he turned it upon a 
 small dark speck in the brush nearly half a mile away. 
 
 " What is it?" asked Norton. 
 
 " It is either a spike-horned buck or a doe, I can't , 
 tell which. If a doe, she has likely a fawn or two with 
 her. It acts as though it were going to lie down on 
 that point," he said, as he saw the distant object move 
 around the shady side of a large heteromeles that was 
 now shining with bright clusters of crimson berries 
 amid its lustrous green leaves. "The surest way is to 
 wait here and watch it until it does lie down," he con- 
 tinued; "for if we attempt to approach that ridge 
 while it is on foot, it will be sure to see us; unless we 
 could make a wide circuit, which you see we cannot 
 do on account of the chaparral. But if it once reaches 
 that line of thick brush where the ridge joins the 
 main hills, farewell deer! But the chances are very 
 strong that if let alone it will lie down just about 
 
 
THE MUTUAL JOKERS. 285 
 
 where it is, because it is now very near the time of 
 day for deer to take a rest, and that is just the kind of 
 place they like to lie down in." 
 
 He watched the spot a few minutes longer, and then 
 it gradually shifted out of sight around the bush. 
 Several minutes more of steady gazing failed to catch 
 another glimpse of it. 
 
 " I think it has lain down," said Belville, at length. 
 " But it won't do to rely upon that. There are more 
 deer lost by haste than in any other way; and this is 
 most decidedly a case where it is dangerous. If it 
 has lain down at all, we can take half the day to ap- 
 proach it. If not, we will gain nothing by going 
 while it is standing up, for it will be no easy matter 
 to keep clear of its eye-range even when lying down. 
 It would be quite likely to lie still if it did see us, 
 especially if we were at a considerable distance. But 
 it is never safe to presume on that. And if it should 
 see us while it is standing, it is far more likely to run 
 than if the discovery is made while lying down. I 
 think we had best retire to the shade of that big oak 
 and camp for an hour or two, so as to give the fellow 
 a chance to v settle down and get composed." 
 
 An hour and a half passed away, and then Belville 
 said, 
 
 "Well, it's late enough and warm enough now for 
 the deer to be down. Suppose we close in on him now 
 and try him." 
 
 They rode to the other side of a branch of the 
 creek that, lined with timber, ran to within three 
 hundred yards of the point, and when they had come 
 
286 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 opposite the point they tied their horses and crossed 
 the stream on foot. 
 
 " Now if you can travel up the bottom of this gully 
 until you get a hundred and fifty yards or so beyond 
 that point, you are all right," said Belville. "You 
 will find it rough and warm, but take it slowly, and 
 take an occasional rest in the shady parts of it. When 
 you get there, climb out of the gully and sneak as 
 quietly as you can up to the back-bone of the ridge. 
 I shall probably be there by that time; but if I am 
 not, wait for me. I'll swing around and work up the 
 next gully, and so get on the ridge from the other 
 side, and if all goes well we will meet there without 
 the deer's seeing, hearing, or smelling us." 
 
 Then they separated, each going his way. In about 
 twenty-five minutes Norton had reached the back of 
 the ridge, where he found Belville awaiting him. 
 
 " Now," said Belville, " the wind is all right, in our 
 faces ; and we can take our time to it. You keep down 
 along the side of the ridge just high enough to see 
 anything that runs along the back, yet low enough 
 for a shot at anything that goes along the side. The 
 deer will be almost certain to hear one of us before 
 the other, and will whip around the point to the other 
 side and offer there the best shot. But it may also 
 run along the top of the ridge; and it may run off 
 the point and across the creek: either of which would 
 give us a very bad shot. So make as little noise as 
 possible." 
 
 Belville now allowed Norton to walk faster than 
 himself, knowing that his companion's boot would 
 
THE MUTUAL JOKERS* 287 
 
 make more noise than he did with moccasins; the 
 purpose of this little scheme being to let the deer 
 hear Norton first and run around to Belville's side of 
 the ridge. As Belville was far the best shot, this was 
 quite a pardonable piece of selfishness, for it increased 
 the chances of securing the game; but whether par- 
 donable or not, it was a weakness such as often lets 
 down the underpinning of the most magnanimous 
 sportsman's good intentions. 
 
 It was one of Belville's faults to be an extremist; a 
 regular radical in nearly everything he undertook. 
 And he was not less an extremist in some of his ideas 
 of hunting than he was in his ideas of the pleasure 
 and propriety of flirting a subject upon which he 
 had once ranked high as an authority among the 
 crushing young men of festive " Frisco." Hence it 
 was not " remarkably remarkable" that, before he 
 heard or saw anything like a deer and before he got 
 within fifty yards of where the animal had been last 
 seen, the visage of Norton, clouded with disappoint- 
 ment, should heave in sight around the ^point, and 
 quite low down, too. The gloomy aspect of Belville's 
 face at once eclipsed Norton's melancholy counte- 
 nance; but the expression lasted but a second, and 
 was changed into a flash of triumph as he started and 
 ran to the top of the ridge. 
 
 Reaching it, he looked a moment all over the sur- 
 rounding territory and then went down the other 
 side a little way. Just below the level of the top a 
 faint scrape on the ground attracted his eye. It was 
 only the freshening of the color of half an inch or 
 
288 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 so of the dry hard earth; but there was certainly a 
 change in the shade caused by the grinding of the 
 lightest particles of dirt under something heavy. 
 Three, six, nine, fifteen feet ahead of it his eye quick- 
 ly runs, yet detects nothing till the twentieth foot, 
 when a slight rim of dry dust, the thickness of a 
 thread and half an inch long, catches his eye, being 
 noticeable mainly by reason of the difference in the 
 color. By its side is another scrape on the hard 
 ground, only four inches from the rim of dust! And 
 in this last scrape is something looking powerfully 
 -like the print of a small nail-head. 
 
 " May I encounter a female book-agent if he hasn't 
 stepped square in Norton's track since he passed 
 here!" exclaimed Belville. He turned around and 
 went straight to the bush where he had first seen the 
 deer. Norton was already there. Belville gave a 
 look at the ground under the bush and a glance along 
 the ground for some twenty feet in the direction he 
 had just come from. But nothing was visible except 
 here and there a faint scratch or a broken twig or 
 crushed bit of dry springy moss. 
 
 Then he said to Norton, "That deer has let you pass 
 him and then quietly sloped with that low sneaking 
 trot that will take a deer out of sight in a potato- 
 patch and carry him over a drum-head without mak- 
 ing a particle of noise. It's one of the tricks of the 
 trade. I was intending to get higher up on the ridge 
 in another minute or two, but did not think you were 
 so far ahead." 
 
 " To tell the truth, I suppose I spoilt the thing by 
 
 
FHE MUTUAL JOKERS. 289 
 
 trying to play a little trick 'on you. I tried to get 
 ahead so that you would drive him on to me," said 
 Norton. 
 
 "A capital joke! Only you got it tail foremost. 
 You should have stayed back," said Belville. "There's 
 nothing now to do but quit," he added, as he shoul- 
 dered his rifle and started for the horses. 
 
 " That wild-cat thinks he's pretty sharp now, don't 
 he ?" said Belville, as they got about half-way to 
 camp. He pointed to a round head with two tufted 
 ears that was peering at them from a granite boulder 
 about a hundred yards distant at one side. 
 
 "O o oh! yes," said Norton. "Ain't he a rouser? 
 Just wait till I " 
 
 He slipped off his horse and handed the reins to 
 Belville. 
 
 " Here, take the rifle," said Belville. " It's too far 
 for buckshot, and you can't get any closer, probably." 
 
 Norton took the rifle, and the first shot sang across 
 the rolling ground beyond. But Puss seemed to en- 
 joy the tune and lay still. 
 
 The second shot, striking the edge of the rock, 
 made a spiteful " mee-aa-oo" as it spun away aloft, but 
 Puss, as if it were the voice of one of her angel-kittens 
 calling from above, remained yet perfectly quiet. 
 
 " Don't be in such a hurry," said Belville as Norton 
 shot again without effect. " Take it coolly; they don't 
 move generally unless hit." 
 
 Ball after ball hissed, sang in the air, and splashed 
 in pieces against the face of the rock, until the maga- 
 
290 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 zine of the rifle had been emptied of the fifteen shots 
 it had contained. 
 
 ** Here is the last one. Now make it tell," said 
 Belville, handing him another cartridge. 
 
 " Then you shoot him, for I couldn't hit a barn 
 now; and it won't do to go home without anything/ 
 Norton dolefully replied. 
 
 " Oh, I don't care about shooting him again," said 
 Belville, carelessly. 
 
 "Again?" 
 
 " Yes. I shot him yesterday." 
 
CHAPTER XXV, 
 THE DOCTOR'S LAST HUNT. 
 
 WHERE is there a grizzly-bear country without 
 its "Old Club Foot" that old varlet that 
 years ago lost part of one foot in a trap ; that always 
 prefers to bag his own game, and so cannot be baited; 
 that does not affect cold victuals, and so cannot be 
 poisoned or waylaid; that traveling lead -mine from 
 which no hunter has ever yet recovered his invest- 
 ments, and even from prospecting which so few have 
 returned ? Even poor San Diego, unknown, forsaKen, 
 and despised as it is by the state of which it is a part, 
 has or did have until Belville got after him its 
 "Old Club Foot." Like all other "Old Club Foots" 
 he does not go an ounce under two thousand pounds, 
 and if the last two men who weighed him ever send 
 in their figures he will probably weigh a few hundred 
 more. 
 
 "Old Club Foot" ranged from Santa Rosa to 
 Temescal, and from there to the Sari Jacinto Moun- 
 tain all famous places for grizzlies in the olden time, 
 and a few still linger there. When this fellow was on 
 the southern end of his beat, one of his favorite places 
 was the great canon that, nearly opposite the camp of 
 our friends, wound its way a mile or more into the 
 dark bristling mountains. 
 
292 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. ' 
 
 It was three days after the hunt for the big mule- 
 deer days that had been spent in lounging along the 
 shady stream, shooting at doves as they whistled 
 through the timber along its sides or rose with 
 twittering wing from bathing in its rocky basins of 
 clear water; enlivening the dullness of rabbit life at 
 morning and evening; or stimulating quails in the 
 low brush. Belville had started down the creek at 
 dawn to look for a deer, and before he had been gone 
 half an hour he returned. Finding the camp all quiet 
 an'd probably still wrapped in sleep, he tore a leaf from 
 his pocket-book, wrote a few lines on it and fixed it 
 on the coffee-pot, where it could not fail to be seen. 
 Then he shouldered his rifle and started for the 
 mouth of the big canon. 
 
 When the remaining campers went to get breakfast, 
 they found the note and read as follows: 
 
 " Have just found fresh tracks of ' Old Club Foot ' 
 leading to the big canon on the west. Did not wake 
 you for fear you would dissuade me from going after 
 him. But I have never before had a chance at a 
 grizzly, and am not going to be scared out of one by 
 his size, or by the chaparral, rocks, or anything else. 
 I know it is dangerous, but so is everything else in 
 this life. Should anything happen There can't, 
 though; my rifle can get away with anything; so 
 there is no use in providing for nothing. Don't 
 worry. I shall probably be back by noon. 
 
 B." 
 
 "Mercy!" exclaimed Eveline. "Charley, can't you 
 find him and stop him ?" 
 
 "Oh do!" said Laura, pleadingly. "It is horrible 
 
THE DOCTOR'S LAST HUNT. 293 
 
 to have him go there alone into that dreadful brush 
 and among those rocks and hills." 
 
 Ah! Belville, why not think of that before? What 
 bravery in following such a monster into such a 
 bristly tangle of stiff chaparral, where you stand no 
 chance with the raging giant if the first shot is not 
 instantly fatal, where he may rise upon you unseen 
 from behind some bush or rock at less than ten feet 
 distance, where flight is impossible and no friend can 
 reach you if hurt, or perhaps even find you ? For neither 
 the vaquerd's horse nor the wild bull of the hills 
 can traverse those rugged glens and the dark shaggy 
 steeps that form their sides, so nearly impenetrable are 
 they to all but the grizzly and the madman who fol- 
 lows him. Yet what makes man more stupendously 
 insane than false ideas of bravery ? 
 
 " A dozen well men could not stop or even find him 
 in there now," said Norton. " It's a crazy piece of 
 work, but I "see no help for it. But it is said that the 
 odds are always greatly against finding a bear, even 
 when hunting him ; so it may be all right." 
 
 Sorrowfully they got their breakfast and sat down 
 to eat. Scarcely had the coffee been handed around, 
 when sharp and clear upon the cool morning air came 
 ringing down the cafion a distant rifle-shot. Bancroft Ubrau 
 
 Eveline spilt some of her coffee in her lap; her 
 brother suspended half-way a very energetic and so 
 far very successful bite into a biscuit; and Laura 
 dropped into the ashes a quail she was broiling. 
 Before the echo of the shot had died along the hills, 
 another shot came rattling down, followed in another 
 
RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN- CALIFORNIA. 
 
 second or two by a continuous bang, bang, bang, 
 bang, bang, bang, bang, bang! as fast as nine shots 
 could be rolled out of a Winchester repeater. 
 
 They said not a word until the last echo was buried 
 :n the dark sepulchral hills. 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder if he had got him now," said 
 Norton. 
 
 " Wh which one ?" said Miss Norton, in a tone of 
 very anxious doubt. 
 
 Hour after hour sped from the bow of time, feathered 
 with surmises, fears, hopes, and doubts, until the last 
 one transfixed the raven night and brought it down 
 with the sudden fall characteristic of this southern 
 latitude. And yet no Belville came. They built a 
 big fire and waked the long night with signal-guns, 
 but no answer but the echo came back from the 
 looming black hills. 
 
 At dawn Norton started off for help, and by noon 
 all the men that could be mustered at Santa Margarita 
 and San Luis Rey were louring, or trying to scour, 
 the cafion into which Belville had gone. But what 
 avail kind hearts and willing feet in chaparral where 
 the hard, dry ground shows no trace of a moccasined 
 foot ; where the brush turns back the toughest moun- 
 tain-horse, yields only to the crushing weight and 
 tough hide of the bear, and must in most places be 
 threaded on hands and knees ? Two days were spent 
 in the search, and on the afternoon of the second day 
 one by one the searching parties returned unsuccess- 
 ful, and the quest was sorrowfully given up. The 
 last vaquero left at dark, and Norton and the two 
 
THE DOCTOR'S LAST HUNT. 295 
 
 ladies sat by the camp-fire alone, bewildered and 
 dazed by the tragic ending of their .sport. 
 
 Suddenly Eveline Norton burst out crying. Mrs. 
 Norton's large dark eyes began to look very dewy. 
 Norton himself wore a very abysmal countenance. 
 
 "I'm so sorry you told me what you did!" said 
 Evy to her brother's wife. 
 
 " So am I. But it would have made no difference," 
 said Norton, soothingly. 
 
 " It might have. Maybe he wouldn't have been so 
 reckless if we hadn't " 
 
 " What ?" 
 
 " Quarreled about it. It was Charley's fault. He 
 ought not to have told me about that, or told him 
 about my foolish affair with Dr. Hart. I liked Dr. 
 Belville twice as much," sobbed Evy. 
 
 "He was worth a dozen Dr. Harts," said Mrs. Nor- 
 ton, with judicial firmness of tone. 
 
 " He was certainly a very clever fellow," replied 
 Norton, "and has been ver^kind to me, and to all of 
 us. He has done his best to give us the best shooting 
 and to make everything comfortable. We should 
 have had little pleasure here without him, for we 
 would not have known where to go, how to go, or 
 what to do. Just think how different our impressions 
 of everything would have been without him." 
 
 " We could not have stayed here at all. How could 
 any one stand such a lonely country without traveling 
 about and amusing themselves as we have ?" said 
 Mrs. Norton. 
 
 *' I hope you didn't treat him badly on account of 
 
296 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 that trifling matter I spoke to you about," said Nor- 
 ton to Eveline. 
 
 " Why didn't you call it a trifle the other day when 
 you told me about it ?" she replied, half indignantly, 
 half sorrowfully. 
 
 " You were as good a judge of its nature as I was." 
 
 " You know I always look up to you as my only 
 brother, and depend upon your advice." 
 
 " But I certainly gave no reason why you and he 
 should quarrel over it." 
 
 " I didn't mean to. I spoke mildly enough about it, 
 and he retorted with my engagement to that stupid 
 Dr. Hart. I got a little provoked at discovering that 
 he knew of it, and he began joking and teasing me 
 until we got into a downright quarrel, and I finally 
 told him " 
 
 "What! you didn't break the engagement?" ex- 
 claimed Mrs. Norton, in dismay. 
 
 "I didn't mean to. I meant to make up yester- 
 day," were the words ^rne out on a fresh flood of 
 tears. 
 
 " It has made him desperate. He was a man of 
 very deep feelings very deep," said Mrs. Norton. 
 
 "Yes, indeed he was. I shall never marry any 
 one now," sobbed Eveline. 
 
 On the following morning they sadly packed their 
 things and drove away. Sadly they rolled over the 
 bare sheep -trodden 'mesas, the sorrowful - looking 
 brown hills, and through the dreary canons of the 
 coast-road between San Luis and San Diego. How 
 different everything seemed from the fresh bloom 
 
THE DOCTOR'S LAST HUNT. 297 
 
 they saw in spring ! a melancholy sight enough to 
 those whose eyes are undimmed by any saddening 
 associations, but doubly so to our friends, to whom 
 even the fullest blaze of California's spring beauty 
 could now be only dull and dreary. 
 
 They endured two days of San Diego's quiet life, 
 and then fled to Miner's. But most of El Cajon was 
 now bare and brown ; the roads were dusty from the 
 travel of heavy teams ; the days were hot ; the winter 
 boarders had not yet arrived, and would not arrive 
 until after the rain came ; there were no ducks yet ; 
 the quails were as lively as they were numerous, and 
 vanished up the hills at the first sight of a gun. 
 Though Miner and his family, after their custom, did 
 everything possible to make it pleasant, El Cajon 
 seemed hopelessly gloomy and full of depressing 
 reminders, and until after the rain came there was no 
 hope-of an improvement even in external nature. 
 
 So our friends soon fled to Los Angeles in search 
 of more diverting life. Th^jjpeautiful surroundings, 
 the orange-groves, the vineyards, the gardens and 
 orchards of the City of the Angels relieved the dullness 
 for a while. But none of them could forget the lost 
 friend, and Norton could not repress his sorrow when 
 he thought of how kind Belville had been to him, and 
 pictured to himself the sad and graveless death and 
 lonely resting-place. Nor could any of them com- 
 pare even the beautiful orange-groves they saw with 
 the live-oak grove in the wild cafion, the bustle of 
 the street with the uproar of the blue-plumed myriads 
 of the valley, or the beautiful drives of San Gabriel 
 
298 RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 with the rough and rugged boulder-washes of the 
 San Bernardino Mountains, without a sigh of regret 
 for those wild scenes. 
 
 So they soon fled to Santa Barbara, and landed 
 once more full in the loving embrace of dullness with 
 the memory of Belville closely haunting them; and 
 from there they beat an immediate retreat to the Ojai 
 Valley. 
 
 They had been in that place but a week, and were 
 meditating still another flight, when among the mail 
 forwarded from San Diego came a paper for Eveline. 
 Broad pen-marks called her attention to the marriage- 
 notices, and she read: 
 
 "At Oakland, Cal., on - , by - , Edward Belville, 
 M.D., to , of Oakland." 
 
 On the margin, by its side, in Belville's handwrit- 
 ing, were the words, "Not false, but slightly fickle." 
 
 Blank astonishment and perplexed bewilderment 
 were at first visible ojftevery face as this was read 
 aloud, Joy beamed from the ladies' eyes as they 
 gradually realized that their friend was still alive. 
 But after these transitory phases of feeling had been 
 manifested, their countenances settled into an expres- 
 sion of determined resentment, as they contemplated 
 the full extent of the imposition that had been prac- 
 ticed on them. 
 
 "Why, he's been engaged to this girl all the time!" 
 exclaimed Mrs. Norton, with flashing eyes. "Nearly 
 all his letters were postmarked 'Oakland,' but he 
 always said they were from his sister," 
 
THE DOCTOR'S LAST HUNT. 299 
 
 "I just knew he was a contemp " said Eveline. 
 
 " I could have told you " said Laura, in the 
 same breath. 
 
 " Be chary of your wisdom!" interrupted Norton 
 " It's a trifle late. The best cosmetic for the face of 
 affairs is humility. He has painted all three of you 
 nretty well at one stroke not false, but fickle." 
 
 "Charley," said his sister, after a pause as long as 
 her countenance, " did any of the men look to see if 
 there were any bear-tracks that morning ?" 
 
 "I declare! I never thought to ask them to look. 
 It was only about ten miles across to the stage-road, 
 too! Perhaps " 
 
 " Why, of course," interrupted his wife. " There's 
 no perhaps about it." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 . 
 
 X!<fc 
 
of General llnterest, 
 
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