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THE CABIN 
 
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE BLAZED TRAIL. Id, net 
 
 THE FOREST. Is. net 
 
 RULES OF THE GAME. 25. nei 
 
 THOMAS NELSON & SONS 
 
THE CABIN 
 
 BY 
 
 STEWART EDWARD WHITE 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 THOMAS NELSON & SONS 
 
 LONDON, EDINBURGH, LEEDS, DUBLIN 
 
 NEW YORK, PARIS, AND LEIPSIC 
 

 (U 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 TO OUR FRIENDS OF 
 
 PEACE CABIN 
 
 261002 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. The Meadow .••••• 1 
 
 II. Short 9 
 
 III. The Fireplace l6 
 
 IV. The Trees 24 
 
 V. On the Acquisition of Treasure . . 36 
 
 VI. On Pioneering 43 
 
 VII. On the Conduct of Life. ... 53 
 
 VIII. The Stream 67 
 
 IX. Theophilus 83 
 
 X. On Birds and Living Things ... 90 
 
 XI. The Mill 115 
 
 XII. On Strangers 130 
 
 XIII. Our Neighbours 141 
 
 XIV. The Guest Camp . » . . .155 
 
 XV. The Ridge l68 
 
 XVI. The Big Country ..... 183 
 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVII. Trout • 202 
 
 XVIII. Flapjack 228 
 
 XIX. The Ethical Code of California John . 246 
 
 XX. The Surveyors' 258 
 
 XXI. The Journey 285 
 
 Note 297 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Cabin ...... Frontispiece 
 
 PACING PAGE 
 
 The vista of the meadow to the new-young Spring . 8 
 But though Short's is the chimney, the mantel 
 
 and " fixin's " are mine 24 
 
 Our horses, long accustomed to the Trail . . 40 
 Upstream a quarter mile we possess a hundred foot 
 
 waterfall . 80 
 
 He is like the gargoyles on the great cathedrals, 
 
 appropriate and pleasing 88 
 
 Near the lower end of the meadow . . . l60 
 
 The Big Country 184 
 
2 THE CABIN 
 
 Withal the sky is intense blue; the air 
 warm to the skin, but cool to the nostril; 
 all the world is vibrant as a ringing crystal 
 with the joy and life of the Morning of the 
 Year. 
 
 On such a time Billy, old California John, 
 and 1 rode through the forest. Our way led 
 along a plateau near the summit of a great 
 mountain. We were on a gently rolling level 
 of several miles in width, rising gradually 
 ahead of us. To our left we could have 
 ridden to where the mountain fell away three 
 thousand feet precipitously. To our right, 
 we could equally have climbed, had we so 
 wished, several hundred feet more to the top 
 of the range, whence we could have seen 
 abroad over an area equal to many kingdoms 
 of the earth. Neither of these facts, however, 
 had any evidences to offer us. The great 
 sugar pines and firs shut us in ; the streams 
 sang across our path. Occasionally we 
 pushed through a leafy thicket that bathed 
 us mysteriously in its fresh green ; occasion- 
 ally we mounted a little hill up which the 
 
THE MEADOW 3 
 
 tall trees marched ahead of us orderly. The 
 smooth green bear-clover spread its mantle 
 over the slopes. Thickets of snowbrush 
 sprawled in the sunlit openings. The horses 
 plodded along the dim trail, handling each 
 foot separately after the wise fashion of the 
 mountain animal. Pepper, the Airedale, and 
 Tuxana, the bull terrier, patted behind. 
 
 All at once Pepper and Tuxana scurried 
 madly off at a tangent through the brush. 
 After a moment we heard the excited and 
 outraged chattering of a squirrel. 
 
 "He just made, it, and now he's getting 
 rid of his scare by scolding about it," said 
 California John. "'He's telling them what 
 he'd do if he was only as big as they are. 
 Curious what a difference size makes. Im- 
 agine an island where all the big animals 
 would be little, and all the little animals 
 big! I bet the lion would hunt his hole as 
 quick as any of the bunch ! " 
 
 " And I suppose the mouse would be the 
 terror of the place," suggested Billy. 
 
 " No, ma'am," replied the Ranger. '* A 
 
4 THE CABIN 
 
 skunk four foot high would be the boss of 
 creation." 
 
 The woods road wound here and there, 
 then straightened. A long, gentle slope led 
 us slowly up. Beyond the ridge we could 
 make out, not more trees, but a wide open- 
 ing whose nature was as yet concealed. 
 
 '' That's it," said the Ranger. 
 
 In a moment we had surmounted the 
 shoulder of the slope. 
 
 Before us stretched a long, fair meadow, 
 green as new fir tips, enamelled with flowers. 
 It fell away from us with a dignified lipaci- 
 ousness, to come to rest in a group of aspens. 
 Behind them reared huge sugar pines, and 
 all about stood others, solemn and aloof, 
 drawing back in courtesy to give room for 
 this gem of a meadow with its. azalea fringe, 
 its trickle of flowing water, its flowers, its 
 floods of sunshine. 
 
 California John reined in his horse and 
 threw his leg over the pommel of his saddle. 
 
 '* Told you it was purty nice," said he. 
 
 Billy scrambled off* her horse. 
 
THE MEADOW 5 
 
 " Pretty nice ! " she sniffed reproachfully. 
 
 We followed her example and set out to 
 explore. Directly at the head of the long 
 vista had been built a sort of elevated seat 
 or throne. It was a luxurious affair, ingeni- 
 ously constructed of barrel staves curved to 
 fit the back. A group of young trees shaded 
 it : a cool breeze sucked up the opening of 
 the meadow. 
 
 "What a delightful throne!" cried Billy, 
 " and how well it is placed ! Who do you 
 suppose built it? It must have been some- 
 body nice to have cared for this." 
 
 " No, ma'am," the Ranger replied stolidly. 
 v"It was some old sheepman. He probably 
 didn't care a cuss for the view, but he could 
 watch his sheep better from here." 
 
 To the left of the throne, and slightly in 
 the hollow, lurked an old cabin. It proved 
 to be a commodious affair built of twelve- 
 inch boards and shakes. Its rooms were thick 
 with the forest litter; its foundation timbers 
 were rotted and awry ; its roof was full of 
 holes ; its floor sagged alarmingly. 
 
6 THE CABIN 
 
 California John tapped its walls. 
 
 '' Still good as ever," said he. " The fellow 
 who built it moved out twenty-five years 
 back. But he built her to stay. The roof 
 leaks, but the rafters ain't sagged an inch. 
 The foundation and the floor are about give 
 out, but the frame is all right. There's good 
 stuff in her yet." 
 
 " Why did he move out ? " asked Billy. 
 
 "Company bought his claim for timber. 
 See ; his shed's full of split wood, just as he 
 left it ready for the winter. It soon gets to 
 be winter here. I've seen ten foot of snow 
 on the level." 
 
 He pointed out to us the remains of an 
 old picket fence. 
 
 "That was his old truck garden. You'd 
 never think that had been ploughed and 
 planted." 
 
 He lifted one of the pickets and inspected 
 it thoughtfully. 
 
 "Split pickets set two inches apart," said 
 he ; " think of the work ! One man felled 
 the trees and split them out one by one. 
 
THE MEADOW 7 
 
 And he fenced all this meadow too. You 
 can see the remains of that fence down by 
 the lower corner. Splitting rails is hard work. 
 And that's his spring-house. It's stood all 
 these years. Come on, try her. Coldest, 
 finest water in these mountains." 
 
 We dipped our rubber cups and poured 
 a silent libation to the vanished builder. 
 
 "Seems a kind of waste, somehow," said 
 the Ranger, waving his hand abroad. " You 
 have to keep things up or they go. In 
 another ten years there won't be anything 
 left but his stumps where he cut the cedar. 
 And they're rotting." He removed his old 
 hat and rubbed his head. "He was a hard 
 worker. And now all his works " 
 
 "'Are one with Nineveh and Tyre,''' I 
 quoted. 
 
 He caught my allusion instantly. 
 
 " That's so," said he. " He is in purty good 
 company." 
 
 We walked on down the slope. Unex- 
 pectedly the vistaed meadow spread out to 
 right and left in bays and estuaries reaching 
 
8 THE CABIN 
 
 boldly into the forest. It proved to be much 
 broader than it had seemed. Springs trickled 
 here and there from the hillside. The aspens 
 clapped their innumerable hands in an un- 
 ending applause. At the lowermost end of 
 the meadow a stream threaded dense willow 
 and alder thickets. We could hear it quietly 
 gurgling and chuckling to itself somewhere 
 in the shadow, but we could not penetrate 
 to it. 
 
 " Runs into the Creek twenty rod down," 
 explained California John. 
 
 We therefore walked those twenty rods. 
 The Creek dashed and sang and gloried 
 over the rocks, foaming and leaping from 
 pool to riffle and from riffle to pool. The 
 other bank rose steeply up and up, and still 
 up. We could not see the sky-line of it, 
 for it, too, was clad in a beautiful and mys- 
 terious forest. 
 
The vista of the meadow and the new young Spring. 
 
II 
 
 SHORT 
 
 In the far mountains, seventy miles from a 
 railroad and a mile up in the air, you have 
 to do with v^hat you can get. At home 
 it is easy to order a thing, and then to 
 wait briefly until that thing is accomplished. 
 Here there is a wide gap between the con- 
 ception and the production. 
 
 So after we had decided that the meadow 
 must be ours, we ran against unexpected 
 difficulty. The old pioneer's cabin would 
 not do, but the material of it would. We 
 decided to build more accurately at the 
 head of the long vista. But to tear down one 
 house and build another needs more than 
 one pair of hands. 
 
 "We must hire a man to help us," said 
 Billy comfortably. 
 
10 THE CABIN 
 
 Now that looks simple. But in the 
 mountains are very few men, living far 
 apart, and each busy at his own affairs. 
 One would rather work for himself than for 
 another, and any one with an axe, a horse, 
 or a pick and shovel could always work for 
 himself. But also the mountain people are 
 kindly and well-disposed to help. From 
 mouth to mouth the message went, until at 
 last. I learned that on a specified morning 
 a man open to employment would meet me 
 at such an hour on a certain trail. 
 
 I was there early, in anticipation of a wait. 
 He was earlier, sitting at ease on his horse. 
 We each gravely named the other by way of 
 salutation, introduction, and identification, and 
 turned our animals' heads toward the Meadow. 
 
 The predominant notes of the man as you 
 looked at him first were a great square seal- 
 brown beard growing to the cheek-bones, 
 and brown eyes wide apart, looking from 
 beneath a square-chiselled brow. So massive 
 and square-cut was this effect that I could 
 imagine it quite possible to talk with him 
 
SHORT 11 
 
 an hour, and then to go away carrying an 
 impression of a big strong-framed man. As 
 a matter of fact, Short weighed just one 
 hundred and thirty pounds, and suffered from 
 rheumatism. Nevertheless, the personaHty 
 of the man was expressed rather by his 
 Jove-hke head than by his sUght pain-racked 
 body. He had a slow, calculating, stay-fast 
 way of going at a heavy job apparently 
 beyond his strength, that somehow carried 
 it to accomplishment. 
 
 I explained to him what I wanted, and he 
 listened to me clear through, without inter- 
 ruption or comment. Then he looked the 
 old cabin over very thoroughly from top to 
 bottom, and took a few measurements. In 
 eight words he pointed out the folly of our 
 proposed location ; and in eight more gave 
 conclusively good reasons for another, thirty 
 feet farther up the hill. 
 
 '* All we'll need is shakes ^ for a new roof, 
 and to clear up a little, and my tools. We'll 
 need a team for about two days." 
 
 * Shakes, Le, hand-riven shingles. 
 
12 THE CABIN 
 
 " Where'U you get it ? " I asked. 
 
 "Do'no. But I'll get it." 
 
 He did. At the end of three days he ap- 
 peared perched atop his tool-chest, a keg of 
 nails, a bed-roll, and some groceries. We 
 could hear them banging through the woods 
 almost as soon as they topped the ridge. 
 About every hundred feet the driver would 
 quite cheerfully clamber down, unhitch one 
 or two spans of mules as the case might be, 
 and haul to one side a greater or lesser ob- 
 struction to progress. Sometimes he had to 
 chop a way through. Once or twice he 
 hitched a span to the rear of the wagon in 
 order to drag it back for a better start. The 
 rate of speed was not many miles an hour, 
 but the caravan left behind it a cleared way 
 where passage there had been none before. 
 
 That driver was the most cheerful, ener- 
 getic individual ever planted in a dusty way 
 of life. His form was long, his eye twinkling, 
 his voice drawling, his movements deliberate 
 but powerful, and his face rough-hewn after 
 the Lincoln manner. Indeed, his clean-shaven 
 
SHORT 18 
 
 lips had a chronic humorous quirk to them 
 such as one might imagine illuminating the 
 country circuit-lawyer at the recollection of 
 a good story. None of this driver's moments 
 seemed dedicated to ease. He hauled stone 
 for the chimney, he hauled timbers for the 
 foundation, he generously hauled " dead and 
 downs " out of the way. And when he 
 couldn't find anything more to haul, he put 
 up elaborate feed-troughs for his animals, 
 and dug fresh spring-holes, and generally in- 
 vented things to do. 
 
 In the meantime Short had made him a 
 camp. 1 went over to see him, and found 
 him examining one by one his tools. Over 
 these he expanded. Each had its particular 
 virtue, its individual story. He had homely 
 reasons for the selection of each variety, and 
 he delighted to give them. 
 
 These days of machinery have rather tended 
 to render obsolescent old-fashioned carpentry. 
 So many things can be done more cheaply at 
 the mill or the shops ; so many devices are 
 purchasable at such low prices, that the man 
 
14 THE CABIN 
 
 who can fashion his appHances for himself is 
 becoming scarce. Short knew his trade, and 
 the theories of it, and the mathematics of its 
 measurements and angles. He delighted in 
 its exactitudes. He insisted on its thorough- 
 nesses. He approached every job without 
 haste, in due deliberation of thought, with 
 all completeness of preliminary preparation. 
 From the raw unplaned material he fashioned 
 all things, even to panelled doors which the 
 casual visitor will not believe did not come 
 from the shops. At first I thought him slow. 
 Then 1 changed my mind. Nothing Short 
 called finished had ever to be done over. The 
 Cabin has weathered six years of Sierra snows; 
 it has been buried actually to the ridge pole. 
 Not one line is off the true ; the windows 
 sUde, the doors open freely, the floor has not 
 warped or buckled. 
 
 He showed me a short heavy clawed in- 
 strument like a dwarfed bent crowbar with 
 a forked tail. 
 
 " That's my own invention," said he. ** It'll 
 pull off those boards without splitting one of 
 
SHORT 15 
 
 them — I don't care how many nails the old 
 fellow used." 
 
 A moment later a sharp rip startled the 
 mules. The first board of our lumber-pile- 
 to-be was laid on one side. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE FIREPLACE 
 
 Of course we had to have a fireplace — that 
 went without saying — and it must be of stone. 
 As the granite everywhere outcropped, that 
 seemed to be a simple matter, but we speedily 
 changed our minds. Any granite would not 
 do. Short pronounced that near the Meadow 
 of a most inferior quality. It looked all 
 right, but he assured us that under the test 
 of heat it would spalt, split, flake, and do 
 other reprehensible things. So we extended 
 our investigations. First and last, afoot and 
 horseback, we covered considerable country 
 before we found the proper sort of outcrop. 
 It looked the same as any other to me ; but 
 Short was entranced. The frost had cloven 
 it in blocks of various dimensions ready for 
 our handling. One piece was of the exact 
 
THE FIREPLACE 17 
 
 size and shape for a hearthstone. We spent 
 a good deal of labour to get that slab intact 
 into place. We succeeded ; but, as I remem- 
 ber it, the thing weighed nearly two tons ! 
 
 From the ledge all this rock had to be 
 dragged to the cabin site. We let the horses 
 do the hauling, by means of a rough '^ stone 
 boat " ; but the heavy lifting and rolling was 
 ours. 
 
 Having acquired a formless pile of granite, 
 it next became necessary to gather our mortar 
 for cementing the stones together. Short 
 pronounced a mixture of clay and salt the 
 proper thing. 
 
 Now, clay on a Sierra mountain is one of 
 the scarcest commodities afforded by an other- 
 wise beneficent nature. We found our little 
 bank of it some four miles distant and quarter- 
 way down the steep mountain-side. From 
 that point we packed it in sacks — one slung 
 either side the pack-horse, and one atop — 
 eight miles — and the pick-and- shovel labour 
 of digging it out ! As for the salt, that came 
 in from the " outside." 
 
 B 
 
18 THE CABIN 
 
 Having thus, by dint of patient labour, 
 gathered the raw materials, we were ready- 
 to begin. I always like to speak of the 
 chimney '' Short and I built." As a matter 
 of cold sober truth, I did not have much to do 
 with it. To be sure I was mightily busy. I 
 carried pails of water, two at a time, from the 
 spring, and I shovelled over that mixture of 
 salt, clay, and water until my arms ached; 
 and lifted chunks of granite until my back 
 cracked ; and I panted and heaved and tugged 
 at scaffolds and things from early morn till 
 dewy eve. But it was Short who laid the 
 stone. Short's eye gauged craftily the slants 
 and angles and openings. Short's ingenuity 
 constructed the slides and levers by which we 
 elevated the heavier stones to the greater 
 heights. And Short's was the triumph when 
 that chimney '' drew " perfectly. 
 
 But before we reached that happy result 
 we discovered two things ; that we would 
 need a lot more granite, and that the increas- 
 ing difficulty of hoisting without appliances 
 heavy rocks to an increasing height was going 
 
THE FIREPLACE 19 
 
 to extend the job somewhere into the next 
 century. 
 
 " I know of an old sawmill stovepipe," 
 quoth Short, " It's down the mountain. We 
 could take it apart and bring it up here, I 
 reckon." 
 
 His reckoning was correct. We acquired 
 that pipe, and in due time finished out our 
 chimney with it. It looks a little queer, 
 until you get used to it; but it draws like 
 a furnace. We cherish the illusion that some 
 day we will face it up with more stone. 
 That is one of the delights of living in the 
 wilderness ; there are so many things that 
 some day you can do I 
 
 But though Short's is the chimney, the 
 mantel and '^fixin's" are mine. I did them 
 while he was at the doors. The mantel is 
 a spacious affair. Twin columns of young 
 sugar-pine ten inches through, and with 
 the bark on, support a shelf of the same 
 material. The shelf, however, is a log split 
 in half and notched to fit accurately over 
 the pointed tops of the columns. It is to 
 
20 THE CABIN 
 
 the shelf surface I would call your atten- 
 tion. The smoothing was done entirely with 
 an axe ; — a labour of nicety most exhilarating 
 when your strokes fall surely, and most dis- 
 gusting when a blow awry spoils an hour's 
 work. 
 
 The fittings of the fireplace, too, are worth 
 notice. When we built the chimney, we 
 embedded in it a support for a crane. This 
 was made of a piece of wagon tire. The 
 crane was fashioned from the same material. 
 From it depend old-fashioned pot-hooks and 
 hangers, which are merely miscellaneous iron 
 rods in disguise. Three utensils inhabit the 
 fireplace : a heavy squat iron kettle, so ludi- 
 crously Dutch in build that we call it 
 " Gretchen " ; and two iron pots. Every 
 evening, even in summer, is cool enough for 
 a fire. We do a great deal of cooking on 
 that crane. It is exceedingly pleasant to 
 hear Gretchen sing while the flames leap up 
 the cavern of the chimney. 
 
 For the chimney is a cavern. It is wide 
 and high and deep. Short built it to take 
 
THE FIREPLACE 21 
 
 comfortably a three-foot log. Wood is every- 
 where for the pleasant labour of chopping it. 
 
 The "fire-irons," with one exception, are 
 all home-made. Tongs are of tough oak 
 steamed and bent double. The kettle-lifter 
 is an alder crook, appropriately cut and 
 peeled. The poker is a piece of wild cherry, 
 the handsome bark left on. The bellows is 
 a small rubber tube with a few inches of 
 flattened brass pipe inserted at one end; 
 you blow into the other. The "stand" is 
 a fork of beautiful red manzanita, the ends 
 of which are tacked either side one of the 
 mantelpiece columns. But the fiire shovel 
 is the pride of the lot. 
 
 That fire shovel is an example of the 
 preciousness of treasure trove in the wilder- 
 ness. A nail back of Shuteye is a marvellous 
 thing. A tin can, whole and in good repair, 
 becomes an invaluable coffee-pot. An aban- 
 doned dishpan is appropriated with a delight 
 inconceivable. A chance piece of string re- 
 joices the heart; and an old piece of paper 
 is better than fine gold. 
 
22 THE CABIN 
 
 So impressed is this truth on those who 
 have travelled much away from civilisation, 
 that often a man becomes a sort of magpie 
 in the collection of attractive things. Billy 
 is very strong on bottles. She never can 
 bear to pass one on the trail, but will dis- 
 mount and tuck her find in her saddle-bag, 
 and at camp wash it carefully. Flat whiskey- 
 flasks fill her with a particular and especial 
 delight. We never, that I remember, used 
 bottles for any purpose except occasionally 
 to shoot at ; but to Billy they looked valuable. 
 
 This spirit was responsible for our fire 
 shovel. We discovered it, rusted, without a 
 handle, bent and disreputable, in a heap of 
 burned debris. It was one of those sheet- 
 iron affairs with a fluted edge, that is ordi- 
 narily varnished black and in company with 
 a coal scuttle. Why anybody brought it 
 into the mountains in the first place would 
 be difficult guessing. Anyhow, there it was. 
 It "looked valuable," so we took it along. 
 Now at last its being was justified. We 
 knocked off* the rust, straightened it out, 
 
THE FIREPLACE 28 
 
 fitted to it a beautiful white dogwood handle, 
 and installed it in a position of honour. Now 
 we point with pride to the fact that we 
 are the only people in these mountains pos- 
 sessing a real fire shovel. 
 
ly 
 
 THE TREES 
 
 Until the Cabin was built, we camped near 
 the foot of the meadow. After it was com- 
 pleted, we made a bedstead among the azaleas. 
 The bedroom we saved for the time it should 
 rain. It almost never rained. So in that 
 chamber were tools and clothes and supplies 
 — and a bedstead, just to prove its title. 
 
 If one sleeps out-of-doors, he lives in com- 
 pany with the trees and the stars, and sees 
 the birds at their morning business. 
 
 A few statistics must be permitted me, for 
 only thus can I convey to you an approximate 
 idea of our trees. A California forest counts 
 as saplings the full-grown pines of our 
 Northern woods. Next the Cabin verandah 
 is a sugar pine twenty-seven feet in circum- 
 ference above the swell. A few rods down 
 
 24 
 
THE TREES 25 
 
 the Meadow stands another, seven feet in 
 diameter and two hundred and forty feet tall. 
 At the end of the vista is the biggest of all, a 
 giant of two hundred and eighty feet. These 
 figures will be better understood when I call 
 to your attention the fact that our Capitol 
 dome at Washington is about the same in 
 height. Imagine one of these noble trees in 
 Capitol Square. 
 
 Nor am I offering you exceptions; only 
 vigorous mature trees. Within my restricted 
 view from the one window near which I am 
 writing I can count twenty-seven nearly as 
 big. The hills and slopes and valleys are 
 cathedral-like with their straight columns, 
 buttressed and massive, upholding the temple 
 of the Out-of-doors. Some of their trunks 
 are grey and venerable ; but some, especially 
 in the light of late afternoon, are warm with 
 red and umber. In contrast to the green cool 
 shadows they appear to glow with an incan- 
 descence of their own. 
 
 The sugar pine's limbs are wide and spread- 
 ing, with a sturdy outward up-holding vigour. 
 
26 THE CABIN 
 
 From ' their tips depend the long cones, 
 daintily, like the relaxed fingers of a bestow- 
 ing hand at the end of a robed arm. So always 
 the sugar pines seemed to me the Great Ones 
 of the forest, calm and beneficent, with arms 
 stretched out in benediction of the lesser 
 peoples. 
 
 To one who has never seen them, the cones 
 are wonderful. Such cones were never 
 imagined in advance of their discovery. It 
 means little to say that they are over a foot 
 and a half in length. You must pick one 
 up, and compare it mentally with your 
 recollections of what pine cones were to your 
 childhood. You will select a dozen of the 
 first you see, discard some for others, larger ; 
 in turn exchange them, until at last, be- 
 wildered, you abandon them all in a maze of 
 wonder. Scattered under the trees they look 
 like the neglected toys of the Giant children 
 who alone are fitted to play in this enchanted 
 forest of vastness. And suddenly you feel 
 very small and insignificant. 
 
 Nor is the fancy entirely dissolved when 
 
THE TREES 27 
 
 you see them in place on the trees. They 
 do not grow close to the limbs or the 
 sturdier branches after the manner of the 
 other conifers ; but at the slenderest tips. 
 There they depend gracefully, their weight 
 bending down the tips in a long curve, 
 swaying slowly to and fro in every breeze, 
 as though hung there like so many presents 
 for those who mind their manners. 
 
 That part of it, however, is a delusion. 
 The pine squirrel and the Douglas generally 
 get the cones, and these saucy, busy little 
 animals do not mind their manners at all. 
 Quite to the contrary. They clamber aloft, 
 and cut loose the green cones, and let them 
 fall, reckless of whether you are passing. 
 Then they scamper down and patiently eat 
 away to the heart in search of the nuts, 
 leaving at the last a wonderful and delicate 
 winding-stairway of a core. 
 
 That is beautiful ; but more beautiful still 
 is to make of the fallen cones a fire after 
 darkness has thickened. The blaze is hot 
 and grateful ; but after it dies there remain 
 
28 THE CABIN 
 
 ghosts of cones, each perfect in every detail, 
 glowing incandescent, a last ethereal appear- 
 ance before they fall silently to the earth from 
 which, through many complicated natural 
 processes, they have sprung. That little pile 
 of white ashes represents all the solids they 
 owe the soil. The rest of their structure 
 they drew from the air about them; and in 
 the brief glory of their last moments to the 
 air they render back again its due. 
 
 But though the sugar pines are the most 
 spiritual, the firs, scarcely inferior in size, are 
 the most mysterious. From their pointed 
 tops, down the candle-flame-shaped body of 
 their frond to the rough wrinkled bark of 
 them they possess a thousand planes to catch 
 the lights and shades. From golden-green 
 moulded surfaces, like the conventionalised 
 foliage of the metal-worker, to the dark velvet 
 soft shadows of unplumbed depth the eye 
 passes. At times of the year each fan 
 branch is delicately outlined in light green 
 by the new tips. The firs are always alive 
 with birds flashing into half-visibility, and 
 
THE TREES 29 
 
 flirting back out of sight again ; appearing 
 silently for a moment's inspection, and melt- 
 ing into the shadow as though dissolved ; 
 balancing on the tips or creeping deviously 
 over the rough and wrinkled bark. And to 
 complete the effect, the firs deck themselves 
 with a close-growing bright yellow-green 
 moss, that even on the darkest day lightens 
 the forest as by imprisoned sunshine. It is 
 impossible to exaggerate either the brilliant 
 sun-effect of this moss or the artistic skill of 
 its distribution. It does not grow in festoons, 
 but close to the bark like a fur an inch or 
 so in depth. Sometimes it occurs in rings 
 around the trunk, like the stripes on old- 
 fashioned stockings. And it can take a dead 
 twig or limb, and so completely cover it as 
 to glorify it. 
 
 Here and there also rise the buttressed, 
 fluted red columns of the fragrant incense- 
 cedar. Exceedingly handsome is this tree, 
 curious with its fibrous bark, grand in the 
 sturdy strength of its thickness and the 
 blunt taper of its boles. But especially it is 
 
30 THE CABIN 
 
 estimable for the spicy odour of it, and for 
 its fragrance as it burns, for the beautiful 
 colour of its wood, and the ease of its splitting 
 into posts and rails. A few of its broad fans 
 in the bed bring dreams of green forests. 
 
 These are the strong of the woodland, the 
 mature vigorous trees in the prime of life. 
 But there are also the old men and the 
 youngsters. Were it not for them the forest 
 would be almost too austere for the comfort 
 of human residence. 
 
 I like these old men, still straight and 
 erect before falling at last to Mother Earth. 
 There are three of them near the entrance 
 to our domain, just before you top the 
 ridge for your glimpse over to the meadow- 
 opening. The bark has all long since fallen 
 away, and the smooth bare trunks of them 
 have weathered to the grey of old shingles. 
 In the shadow and colour of the forest they 
 shine forth like phantoms of trees. By moon- 
 light they are particularly ghostly. 
 
 An artist I know used occasionally to paint 
 the high mountains. His colour and light 
 
THE TREES 81 
 
 were good, and his technique not to be 
 questioned, for he is a man of the finest 
 genius. Yet something lacked. After long 
 puzzling, the solution stared out at me from 
 the canvas: his trees were all green and 
 vigorous. There were no hoary old losers of 
 the struggle against time ; no " dead and 
 downs " ; no accent to his forest. For these 
 stubs, and stripped trunks, and brown dying 
 ancients are part of the character of the 
 woods. With them removed you have a 
 park, not a forest. 
 
 But if these supplement the mature trees 
 by the glory of their nakedness, the younger 
 growths afford the intimacies without which 
 the wilderness would be inhuman and un- 
 livable. The thickets of fir and pine are full 
 of tepid odours, grateful warmths, humming 
 insects, chirpy, familiar little birds. They 
 shut in tiny chambers of reverie from the 
 austerity of the great forest. Around them 
 cluster the fragrant azaleas, the burred chin- 
 quapins, the thorny snowbrush, the manzanita 
 — all the smaller affairs. They live below 
 
32 THE CABIN 
 
 the august giants as we live below the stars, 
 attending to their own minute affairs, en- 
 grossed in their private activities. They are in 
 the thick of it. Life is competitive, earnest, 
 struggling. From the moment they push 
 their way above the soil, still wearing helmet- 
 wise the shell of the nut that produced them, 
 they have earnestly to attend to the business 
 of existence. At first their enemies are the 
 sheep, the dryness, the hoofs of cattle, the 
 cold shadow. Later they must fight each 
 other. Of a dense thicket but one, or two 
 at most, can mature. A hundred saplings are 
 elbowing each other aside, climbing rapidly 
 up toward the light and air, smothering 
 each other, reaching jealously out for the 
 moisture and sustenance which shall help 
 them in the struggle. Those that are over- 
 topped turn sickly in the shade of their 
 stronger brothers, finally die, fall, rot away, 
 and are fed upon by the triumphant victors. 
 It is for this reason, perhaps, that the 
 great trees possess their aloof air of supernal 
 calm. The struggle and heat of combat are 
 
THE TREES 33 
 
 over for them. They have fought their way 
 clear to a foothold, to the calm appropriation 
 by right of what they need. From the forest 
 they have nothing to fear. Their aloofness 
 is the aloofness that comes from experience, 
 from the philosophy of duty done, from the 
 almost Buddhistic contemplation of primal 
 sources. 
 
 The oftener one comes back to the forest, 
 the more deeply is one impressed by the fact 
 that these calm green people have entered 
 fully into the over-philosophy we attain to 
 only in snatches. 
 
 Each summer, when I return to the Cabin, 
 
 and look about at the v/ell-remembered aspects 
 
 of our woodland, the intervening eight months 
 
 shrink painfully as the measure of life. It is 
 
 but yesterday that we packed our belongings, 
 
 locked the cabin door, and trailed down the 
 
 mountain to civilisation. Yet I am eight 
 
 months older, have remaining to me just that 
 
 much less of life. And the realisation comes 
 
 to me that the succession of summers will 
 
 be like the succession of days here — where 
 
 c 
 
84 THE CABIN 
 
 one sees the Dawn Tree gilding with the 
 sunrise, and, behold ! it is night and the stars 
 are out ! Time as a dimension does not exist ; 
 its passage cannot be realised; its duration 
 cannot be savoured. And the residuum of 
 the days is so small. Pleasures enjoyed dis- 
 solve away. Only remain the things accom- 
 plished, and they are few. In the presence of 
 the Trees we look upon the poor little handful 
 of accomplishment our eight months have left 
 us, and we are ashamed. 
 
 Little by little the commonplace, rich 
 philosophies come back to us — the value 
 of small things ; the stability of the object 
 created, even though it be but a new broom 
 handle ; the importance of taking your ad- 
 vantage from routine work, since there is 
 so much of it to be done; the desirability 
 of fixing your enjoyment on means rather 
 than ends, for means occupy the greater 
 hours, and ends are but moments. These 
 things from one point of view are tiresome ; 
 from another they, like all the simple philo- 
 
THE TREES 85 
 
 Sophies of life, are vases whose beauties 
 show only where they are filled with ex- 
 perience and dear-bought wisdom. In the 
 hurry and confusion of life the vases are 
 emptied. 
 
ON THE ACQUISITION OF TREASURE 
 
 When the frame and roof of the Cabin were 
 completed, Short left us with the empty 
 shell. 
 
 " I reckon you can get along all right now," 
 said he simply. 
 
 By fortune we came to the Cabin from 
 the Trail and not from the towns. So we 
 began life, quite contentedly, on the simplest 
 terms. All our household goods^ our personal 
 effects and our food supplies we had been 
 used to packing on a single mule. When 
 that mule was unloaded, we were established 
 and at home. 
 
 Therefore we did not feel the instant neces- 
 sity of the numberless conveniences which, 
 little by little, as mood and leisure served, 
 we have constructed for ourselves. We 
 
 36 
 
ACQUISITION OF TREASURE 37 
 
 were then camping; and camping as we do 
 it is such an easy matter ! When the Cabin 
 was done, we cut ourselves a fresh supply 
 of fir and cedar boughs, hung up our camp 
 kit, arranged our food bags, and settled 
 down quite happily. The only immediate 
 innovation was a sheet-iron stove, which rode 
 in, ludicrously aslant, on Flapjack's back. 
 
 Of course the meadow had to be fenced. 
 Our horses, long accustomed to the Trail, 
 would graze contentedly for some time ; but, 
 sooner or later, their bellies full and their 
 minds empty, the desire for travel w^ould seize 
 upon them. By luck the vanished builder 
 on the meadow had left behind him some 
 split cedar posts. We lashed these either side 
 a pack animal, and distributed them. Then 
 we dug holes, painfully, one at a time, with 
 more or less luck in getting down to a proper 
 depth through the rocky soil. After that 
 we strung the barbed wire. It had come 
 in, two rolls of it, well wrapped in sacking 
 to avoid gashing the animal that bore it. 
 When we removed the sacking, it showed 
 
38 THE CABIN 
 
 all its teeth and gave its evil propensities full 
 swing. 
 
 I hate barbed wire. From the time you 
 first string it out, when you stretch it, nail it, 
 mend it, it is full of cussedness. No matter 
 how gingerly you handle it, it will switch and 
 jerk through your hands, it will snatch at your 
 flesh, it will snap viciously at you like a 
 scorpion. And when it is up, it lies in wait 
 like a trap. Probably more good horses have 
 been blemished and ruined by barbed wire 
 than by any other single agency. 
 
 But it turns cattle and it is quickly strung. 
 The latter point made it obligatory in our 
 case. The only alternative would have been 
 a rail fence ; and the rails were still growing 
 in the trees. 
 
 After the fence was up, and the gates 
 and corral built, there remained apparently 
 nothing more to do but to enjoy life in 
 pleasant idleness. 
 
 As a matter of fact, we have been doing 
 things ever since. As fast as one thing is 
 completed, another suggests itself. And a 
 
ACQUISITION OF TREASURE 39 
 
 little at a time accomplishes a great deal in 
 the long run. In the four summers we have 
 spent here we have, without a dollar of 
 " hired help," written a very respectable list 
 of accomplishment. Two bedsteads, a bureau, 
 eight chairs, three tables, shelves and cup- 
 boards, a meat safe, a bath-house, a barn with 
 two stalls, a spring boxed, a '^ cold storage," 
 a drain, a dog kennel, a flagpole, saddle racks, 
 nine hundred cedar rails split and in place, 
 road improvements, the meadow ditched, and 
 one by one a slow accumulation of treasures 
 from the distant world outside — these have 
 kept us busy and contented. 
 
 Starting with nothing, each new acquisition 
 is indeed a treasure. A thing is valuable in 
 direct proportion to the amount of time you 
 have spent on it. At home you hire a car- 
 penter to build you a stall, and you appreciate 
 it as a convenience. Here you fell your fir, 
 hew it square, carry it to place on your 
 shoulders, nail it home with nails packed 
 eighty miles. The days are full, and the 
 labour exhausting, so you are at it only two 
 
40 THE CABIN 
 
 or three hours a day. When the stall is 
 done, you celebrate that fact, and ever after 
 you cast a friendly and appreciative glance at 
 all stalls. 
 
 That is the principle applicable to all things. 
 It is a truism that the loss of a catboat bought 
 from the clerk's salary is more of a catastrophe 
 than the wreck of the yacht purchased casu- 
 ally by the millionaire. The catboat represents 
 four months ; the yacht perhaps ten minutes, 
 gauging by the incomes of the two men. 
 Time is value. 
 
 This will explain the pride Billy takes in 
 her table service. It is only white enamel 
 ironware edged with blue, but it succeeded 
 tin plates and kettles on the table. And let 
 this be noted : when you have filed an axe for 
 some years, you can hardly tear yourself away 
 from a brand-new ball-bearing grindstone, 
 carried in from the railroad terminus by 
 horses. 
 
 Let the principle sink in. Then, with due 
 respect approach these facts which I will detail 
 
ACQUISITION OF TREASURE 41 
 
 to you. And remember that this catalogne of 
 possessions was not written all at once; but 
 item by item, by chance, good fortune, care- 
 ful planning, by long, hot, dusty journeys, by 
 the courtesy of friends coming our way. 
 Each has had its day of especial and particular 
 cherishing, each has been envied and admired 
 by those who had it not, each has been an in- 
 spiration to further acquisition. 
 
 Our kitchen has a genuine double boiler — 
 you who have had jealously to watch lest the 
 mush burned, please take notice. It has a 
 cake lifter, a large dishpan, and a brace of 
 saucepans. There is an iron wash-tub and a 
 scrubbing board. We have a glass kerosene 
 lamp and two extra chimneys. A looking- 
 glass hangs uncracked in a good light. And 
 if you had improvised for two years with an 
 axe, a hatchet, and a cross-cut saw all items 
 of carpentry and woodwork, you would 
 appreciate the fact that we have a sledge 
 and wedges for splitting, a crowbar, an auger, 
 blasting powder and fuse, a rip-saw, a square, 
 
42 THE CABIN 
 
 a plane, chisels, wood-rasps, hoe, rake. With 
 these one can accomplish wonders. 
 
 And each was brought in and exhibited and 
 tried triumphantly as though it had been a 
 Christmas present. 
 
VI 
 
 ON PIONEERING 
 
 In the gradual evolution of our home on the 
 meadow we have come very close to genuine 
 pioneering. It is easy to play at such things : 
 a few tents by a lake — with the farmer s per- 
 mission — looks very like camping, and is often 
 good enough fun. We have many illustrious 
 examples of the men who have gone out into 
 the woods to cut down their weekly tree. 
 Most of us like to relieve our guides of a 
 great deal of the cooking, the chopping, the 
 packing, the paddling. This arises from a 
 healthy desire to stretch our muscles, take 
 exercise, play at doing those things which are 
 a guide's everyday business. In so doing we 
 may work very hard ; that is not the point. 
 
 But whatever we do, in such circumstances, 
 is the manifestation of a spirit of play : and 
 
44 THE CABIN 
 
 the proof of it is that at any moment we can 
 deliver back these activities into professional 
 hands. And even w^hen, as often in more 
 civilised communities, some of us elect to put 
 up our own workshop, or build our furniture, 
 or even construct our house, it is a matter of 
 deliberate choice. The carpenter is always 
 there for the hiring. 
 
 But in pioneer conditions a man constructs 
 because in no other way can he acquire those 
 things of which he stands in desire or in need. 
 He can hire no help ; he has access to no 
 shops. As for tables, chairs, fences, they are 
 there in the standing timber waiting to be 
 bodied forth by the crude tools at his com- 
 mand. The chimney is scattered away among 
 the rock outcrops ; the road, hidden among 
 obstacles, is waiting to be defined and made 
 passable; the few comforts he will grow to 
 need are at the other end of the long trail. 
 If this man is naturally a savage, he dwells 
 beneath crude shelters under the trees. A 
 week after he is gone, little remains to indi- 
 cate where he has abided. But if he possesses 
 
ON PIONEERING 45 
 
 in his soul the yeast of civiUsation, then most 
 surely, little by little, as well as he may, he 
 will construct and accumulate the customary 
 appurtenances of that state. It is a necessity 
 of his nature. In his surroundings he ex- 
 presses man's instinctive desire for a habita- 
 tion and certain orderly well-made things. If 
 he likes the work, so much the better; but 
 he may detest it. That seems to make no 
 difference. 
 
 So in our summer home we find ourselves 
 very much in the position of those early back- 
 woodsmen. 
 
 If we want a thing, we have to make it or 
 go and get it. Nobody can he had to do it for 
 us or carry it to us. When we split rails or 
 chop wood or dig ditches, it is not by way of 
 posing for the strenuous life, but because we 
 need those things. It would never occur to 
 us to undertake such affairs at home. We 
 are in a way a self-contained community. We 
 cook, do our laundry, perform our daily tasks, 
 because if we did not things would run down. 
 It happens that we like all this, which is lucky. 
 
46 THE CABIN 
 
 Even if such tasks were more or less of a 
 grind, I think we should still come to the 
 Cabin. In that event we should consider 
 them, like the discomforts of the wilderness, 
 only a just price to pay. 
 
 Of course at any time we can saddle up and 
 in ten days be back where flourishes the 
 starched collar. That choice is always open 
 to us. A similar choice was open to any wil- 
 derness dweller. There has always been a 
 highly intensive civilisation to which to re- 
 turn. The pioneer need not have left the 
 towns. He did so because he disliked the life, 
 or from restlessness, or a spirit of adventure, 
 or in search of opportunity. The altruistic 
 idea of opening up a new country was not one 
 of his considerations ; or it was of secondary 
 importance. 
 
 In this manner, without a conscious inten- 
 tion of so doing, we have to a certain extent 
 succeeded in getting to the inside of a pioneer 
 existence. Objectively it has always seemed 
 to many people constricted, narrow, hard, 
 without inspiration, without material of which 
 
ON PIONEERING 47 
 
 to construct a vantage point for the spiritual 
 insight. Yet when approached by the regular 
 road, this is soon proved untrue. 
 
 It is astonishing to discover the physical 
 possibilities of even the ordinary things we 
 take for granted. We are apt to look upon a 
 mechanic as plying a meclianical trade ; that is 
 to say, one whose routine makes very little 
 call on his intelligence. It needs but one 
 essay at the simplest of his jobs to dis- 
 cover the woeful error. Even aided by good 
 instruction, we find our wits taxed to the 
 utmost in figuring out reasons, expedients, 
 and necessities of method ; and properties, limi- 
 tations, and possibilities of materials. To 
 correlate a half-dozen of the simplest opera- 
 tions so accurately as to produce a finished 
 workmanlike result means a lot of thinking 
 and sums up considerable concrete knowledge 
 gained. And it is astonishing how interesting 
 that knowledge is, and how important it turns 
 out to be in application to a hundred different 
 things. 
 
 A rail fence is a common enough affair. 
 
48 THE CABIN 
 
 The theory is simple : You fell a tree ; cut it 
 into proper lengths; split those lengths into 
 rails by means of iron wedges ; carry them to 
 place ; and arrange them in a zigzag. 
 
 What happens? In the first place, you 
 must know how to use an axe. There are 
 few implements more satisfactory to handle 
 well ; and few more chancy, awkward, and, 
 yes, dangerous to a greenhorn. A blow at a 
 wrong angle will glance and twist the helve 
 from your hand to injure an innocent by- 
 stander or gash your leg deep. This is a very 
 common accident. Unless the blade hits 
 always in the same place you will only " chew 
 into the wood," instead of cutting clean chips. 
 A smooth surface to your kerf means that, at 
 full strength, you can hit to within an eighth 
 of an inch of where you want to, and with 
 a heavier implement than a golf stick. You 
 must further know how best to deliver your 
 strength, when to increase the speed of your 
 stroke, how to use your shoulders. Other- 
 wise the expenditure of energy is excessive, 
 and you soon tire to exhaustion. Furthermore, 
 
ON PIONEERING 49 
 
 your axe must be kept razor-sharp — the cheer- 
 fully nicked, rounded edge of the old wood- 
 pile weapon won't do at this work. The 
 relations of steel to stone and file must 
 be mastered. If you think rubbing one 
 against the other is about all that is re- 
 quired, you have much earnest cogitation still 
 to come. 
 
 Perhaps you may find some woodsman 
 miraculously endowed with powers of explana- 
 tion who will tell you some of these things. 
 If so, the information will be contained in 
 hints, illuminating only through your own 
 observation. But more likely you will have 
 to try, and then figure a bit, and watch some- 
 body, and figure a bit more, and then try it 
 again, until finally by dint of both thought 
 and practice you will arrive at skill. 
 
 The axe plays but a part in the felling of 
 your tree. You must with it cut a " notch " 
 on the side toward which you wish it to fall. 
 A certain knowledge of probable weights of 
 limbs and slant of trunks as affecting cen- 
 tres of gravity is here necessary. Then from 
 
50 THE CABIN 
 
 the other side you manipulate the cross-cut 
 saw. 
 
 It looks very simple as you watch a woods- 
 man at work. He draws the saw back and 
 forth horizontally until he can insert a wedge 
 in the crack. Then he continues work until 
 the tree falls. 
 
 But in the essay you find that it is quite a 
 trick to keep the saw running straight across. 
 It tends to sag at the ends, so your cut is in a 
 down-drooping curve. This in time binds the 
 instrument so that even wedges cannot help 
 your utmost strength in pulling it through. 
 As for throwing a tree in any direction by 
 leaving more or less fibre on one side or 
 the other, that is a matter you would better 
 smoke a pipe over. 
 
 Once down, you measure off your trunk and 
 start to cut it into lengths. The saw almost 
 immediately binds fast. You must find out 
 why ; and after your discovery of the reason, 
 you must invent a remedy — unless you have 
 been remarkably observing when watching the 
 
ON PIONEERING 51 
 
 same operation in the lumbering. The split- 
 ting into rails, also, is full of minor problems 
 having to do with the run of grain, the action 
 of wedges, and the like. Perhaps you will 
 do as I did first — expend considerable pre- 
 liminary work only to find that the tree you 
 have prepared is cross-grained and will not 
 split at all ! Then you will learn to diagnose 
 your timber before you start to fell it. 
 
 And by the time you lay aside your first 
 rail, you have done as much actual mental 
 work, both in observing phenomena and in 
 figuring from cause to effect long new lines, 
 as you would have expended in following 
 somebody's philosophy. In addition you have 
 entered into new relations with a whole new 
 series of acts. 
 
 The application of this is true all along the 
 line. There are thick technical books on car- 
 pentry, books that require as close study as 
 any course in college. In the backwoods one's 
 curriculum is wide even on the side of mere 
 practicability. A man must be constantly 
 
52 THE CABIN 
 
 learning, and, as he learns, the various con- 
 cealed properties of the possibilities and in- 
 tentions of the complicated world about him 
 become evident to him. He enters realms 
 which in civilisation are, by common consent, 
 delivered intact into professional hands. 
 
VII 
 
 ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 
 
 California John was away on forest busi- 
 ness most of the summer. Occasionally, how- 
 ever, he would ride over to see us. One such 
 visit rises in my mind as particularly a pi^opos 
 to the remarks of the last chapter. 
 
 I was cross-cutting a big cedar log, stoop- 
 ing over as the long saw bit lower and lower ; 
 working eagerly. The old man rode up on 
 his shining sorrel horse. Star, with his inlaid 
 silver bit, his rawhide bridle, and his beautiful 
 carved-leather saddle. Younger rangers now 
 go in for the plain and business-like, and pro- 
 fess more or less contempt for the "fancy 
 fixings," but California John was of the old 
 school. He nodded, flung one leg over his 
 saddle horn, and watched me some moments. 
 
 '' Hard work," he proffered after a time. 
 
 53 
 
54 THE CABIN 
 
 I nodded back. I had no wind left for 
 conversation. 
 
 " You had that sawed way through ten 
 minutes ago," said he, after a time. 
 
 In sheer astonishment at this, I quit work 
 and stood upright. 
 
 " Sawed way through 1 " I repeated stupidly. 
 
 "Yes — in your mind," said he. "Your 
 mind's been sawin' that log through a plumb 
 lot quicker than your saw. And you've been 
 just humpivb tryin' to catch up. That's what 
 makes it hard work. There's your mind 
 standin' first on one foot and then on the 
 other, plumb distracted waitin' ; and there's 
 your body all out of breath hustlin' and 
 strainin' to catch up. That's what makes it 
 such hard work. You're tirin' yourself down, 
 boy. You got to keep your body and your 
 mind together on the job. Put on brakes, 
 and don't get a thing done before it is done." 
 
 I quit sawing then and there, for I saw 
 California John was in a dissertative mood, 
 and that is worth much more than any 
 number of cedar rails. 
 
ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 55 
 
 " That's the way to enjoy yourself," said 
 the old Ranger comfortably. "Trouble is, 
 when a man starts out to do a thing, he just 
 nat'rally sees it all done before his eyes, and 
 he strains himself day in and out till it is 
 done. And mebbe it takes a long time to 
 do — a month or two, say. And he hasn't 
 had any fun with himself at all endurin' of 
 all that time. He's just plumb wasted a 
 month or two out of his life ; and he probably 
 won't get but one life — here. A man don't 
 want to give a cuss whether a thing gets done 
 or not, but just whether he keeps workin' 
 along at it. If he does that, it's bound to get 
 done, and without worryin' him. And he 
 ain't so plumb feverish all the time. 
 
 He slid out of his saddle and squatted down 
 by my cedar log. 
 
 " If you don't come to that way of thinkin', 
 sooner or later you get this here nervous 
 prostration," said he. " No manner of doubt 
 of it. The world's chuck full of tiresome 
 jobs that don't really mean nothin' — washin' 
 clothes, and sweepin' floors, and choppin' wood 
 
56 THE CABIN 
 
 that you burn up, and generally millin' around 
 in a circle that don't get nowhere." • 
 
 " Routine work," I suggested. 
 
 "Precisely. A man gets a notion that 
 these jobs are wastin' his valuable time ; 
 he begins to hustle to get them behind him 
 and out of the way. That means he does 
 a poor job, and gets all wrought up and im- 
 patient, and tries to get in a week's work 
 by sundown." 
 
 He reached up to rub his horse's soft 
 nose. 
 
 "We got to make up our minds that a 
 lot of our life is taken up with this routine 
 work — same thing ov^er and over, or work 
 that don't make nothing. So we ought to 
 have sense enough to find real livin' in them 
 as well as in doin' real things. Any job's 
 got a lot of fun in it, if you ain't in too devil 
 much of a hurry to finish it. You got to 
 do the job anyway; so you might just as 
 well get the fun." 
 
 We drifted into a discussion of the various 
 philosophies of life. I asked him if he had 
 
ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 57 
 
 always been contented to live his kind of 
 life in the mountains. 
 
 " Well," said he, *' when I was younger I 
 used to figure a good deal whether I was doin' 
 all I ought to. Seems as if a man ought 
 to do the best he can. He must have been 
 put here for some reason. It's hard to tell 
 what you're supposed to do. Now some 
 books ^ I've read claim a man ought to make 
 the very best out of himself he can, develop 
 himself all round, and get as high up in 
 the scale as he can. Then there's others that 
 claim he ought to get out and do something 
 definite — hustle along human progress — or he 
 ain't no good at all. What do you think 
 about it ? " 
 
 " I suppose a man ought to build some- 
 thing in this world." 
 
 " What was that you said a while back 
 on Nineveh and Tyre ? " asked the old man 
 quizzically. "There was the Moorish raid 
 
 ^ California John^ in spite of the apparent evidence of his 
 vernacular, was a voracious and rather intelligent reader during 
 the winter months. 
 
58 THE CABIN 
 
 into Spain " — he suddenly interjected one of 
 his astonishing surprises in general informa- 
 tion — "that was a mighty serious affair at 
 the time — worth headlines way across the 
 page, with all sorts of murders, speeches, 
 oppressions, and so forth. As near as I can 
 make out the total results was a sort of old 
 summer resort built of adobe mud." 
 
 '* Adobe ? " I repeated, puzzled. 
 
 " I forget her name. Place named after 
 her near Los Angeles." 
 
 "Oh! The Alhambra!" I cried with a 
 burst of amusement. 
 
 "Yes. Well, what's the use of doin' 
 things ? " 
 
 1 offered no immediate answer to this, 
 so the old man went on. 
 
 " Another thing : what did the Lord make 
 such an everlasting variety of a world for, 
 anyway ? Ever think of that ? " 
 
 "Never did. What of it?" 
 
 "Just this. I don't care what you know, 
 or how big a head you've got, or what sort 
 of an education, there's about four million 
 
ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 59 
 
 things you don't know nothin' about. Some- 
 body may know it, but you don't. You 
 can't take up anything, I don't care what 
 it is or where it is, without getting a whole 
 heap of new knowledge about things in the 
 world, and their natur', and how the cussed 
 things act. A thing looks simple and dead 
 easy to do — and it ain't." 
 
 I nodded, my thoughts on my recently 
 and painfully acquired experience with cedar 
 rails. 
 
 " The Lord's scattered things to learn 
 all over everywhere. I don't care what 
 you pick up, there's enough there to take 
 all the strength of your mind for a while, 
 anyway." 
 
 '^ * The world is so full of a number of things 
 
 I am sure we should all be as happy as kings,' " 
 
 I quoted. 
 
 " Who said that ? " asked California John 
 like a flash. 
 
 " Stevenson," said L 
 
 *' Well, he's dead right. Only I thought 
 
60 THE CABIN 
 
 I was the only fellow that had thought of 
 it," said the old man ruefully. " There's 
 quite a number of things ; and to my notion 
 in His eyes they're all one about as im- 
 portant as another." 
 
 "Oh, hold on 1 " I cried. "Do you mean 
 to say that you really believe it's as important 
 to ditch that meadow as to dig the Panama 
 Canal?" 
 
 "Not to Roosevelt," replied California John 
 quietly. " Mebbe to me." 
 
 He let this sink in. 
 
 "That's why the Lord made such an 
 everlasting variety of a world for, so every 
 man could find his own kind of knowledge. 
 There used to be a fellow down at Toll 
 House, who had been reading these health 
 magazines until he began to eat nuts and 
 raisins and olive oil and pine sawdust — and 
 not much else. Old, Doc Harkness was 
 talkin' to him once when I was there. ' But, 
 Doc,' says he, 'this yere editor don't eat 
 nothin' else, and he works fifteen hours a 
 day, and keeps healthy on it.' ' Sure,' says 
 
ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 61 
 
 Doc. ' And ain't they the healthiest sort 
 of foods ? ' ' Sure, ' says Doe again. ' Then 
 why — ' ^ Do you like 'em ? ' the Doc in- 
 terrupted him. ' Not very well,' said this 
 fellow at Toll House. ' Well, then they ain't 
 healthy for you. That's why there's forty- 
 eleven sorts of grub — so you can get what 
 you like.' " 
 
 He threw back his head and laughed. 
 
 " So when I figured all that out," he con- 
 tinued, " I see that a fellow was supposed to 
 stick to what he likes. I Uke mountains and 
 woods. And when I got the right slant on 
 it all, I began to get onto the true innards 
 of the situation. Everything's important. I 
 don't believe one thing's any more important 
 than another, if a mans doing what he likes. 
 Some folks like Panama Canals, and some 
 like meadows. Neither of 'em is goin' to 
 boost the race much in the long run, because 
 give 'em time enough, and they'll all be 
 gone — like the old improvements on this 
 meadow or those two fu-tile old cities you 
 mentioned." 
 
62 THE CABIN 
 
 " What does count then ? " I asked, a little 
 bewildered. 
 
 "The man," returned California John 
 sharply. " I don't know how, but that's it. 
 If he's the right sort, why he helps the next 
 fellow to be the right sort, whether he tries 
 to or not, and whether he knows it or not. 
 After a few thousand year of that sort of 
 thing we get somewhere — and it don't much 
 matter whether we get there through a 
 Panama Canal or go by hand." 
 
 " If everybody felt that way, we would 
 have little material progress," I offered rather 
 feebly. 
 
 " Everybody don't like hogs," returned Cali- 
 fornia John. 
 
 He rose stiffly to his feet and fumbled in 
 his saddle pockets. 
 
 " That reminds me," said he. '' Here's 
 those magazines you lent me." 
 
 We fell into a discussion of their contents. 
 Among them were the results of an investi- 
 gation into the phenomena of spiritualistic 
 stances. The undoubted authenticity of cer- 
 
ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 63 
 
 tain manifestations combined with their futile 
 character engaged our attention. 
 
 " Nobody knows nothing about it, and 
 that's just where it always ends. And you 
 can go potterin' off into speculatings about 
 it all till they land you in the padded cell," 
 said California John. " And you notice these 
 fellows always do land in the padded cell. 
 The whole business looks to me plumb foolish. 
 Of course, there's something there, but what's 
 the sense strainin' your poor intellects trying 
 to find out about it when there's so much 
 else to think about. Probably in a future 
 state all that will be as simple and easy as 
 takin' a drink. A fellow'd feel mighty sick 
 after spendin' his whole life here tryin' his 
 little darndest to come at a whole lot of 
 obscure problems to find it as plain as A B C 
 over there. If he'd only had sense to wait, 
 he'd have saved himself a lot of trouble and 
 had time for what he was meant to pay 
 attention to. And it would jar him especial 
 bad if he found that pine trees and trolley 
 cars and cement walks and doodle bugs and 
 
64 THE CABIN 
 
 tomato cans were plumb mysterious and 
 soul strainin' over there : then he'd be sorry 
 he hadn't sized them up while he had a 
 good chance, 'stead of wastin' his time." 
 
 "What makes you believe in a future 
 life ? " I asked him curiously. 
 
 "Common sense," replied the Ranger. 
 "Just ordinary common sense. Don't need 
 any miraculous revelations. Everything fits 
 in too well. Hot weather makes you sweat, 
 and sweat evaporatin' cools you off. There 
 you have it. Every darn thing / ever dis- 
 covered fits into everything else better than 
 I could have planned it if you gave me all 
 the time there is and a whole library full 
 of books. And you can see the reason for 
 it, if you're sabe enough. But how about 
 us? You were askin' a while ago. What's 
 the use of anything we build with our hands, 
 except as how it makes us more of men ; 
 and what in thunder's the use of our gettin' 
 to be more of men anyhow ? Everythin' to 
 do with us is plumb incomplete. It's just 
 common sense to judge as how the game 
 
ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 65 
 
 isn't finished with this here. Just common 
 sense." 
 
 *^ What becomes of us ? " I inquired. 
 
 " He uses us accordin' to what we have 
 turned out to be. This here is a sort of 
 nursery garden, as I look at it, like the one 
 the Government has put in down to San 
 Gabriel. By and by we'll be transplanted, 
 same as those little seedlings." 
 
 ''How about the fellows that don't make 
 anything of themselves ? " 
 
 California John pointed to the pile of 
 debris by my cedar log — the broken, twisted, 
 split and spoiled rails. 
 
 "Just culls," said he. "I reckon you'll 
 find some other use for them there rails — 
 firewood, stakes, and the like." 
 
 '^ There's a lot of them in this world," 
 said I sceptically. 
 
 California John rose slowly. Star stooped 
 his glossy head for the bridle. 
 
 " His patience is infinite," said the old man 
 solemnly. He reflected for a moment. Then 
 bis eyes turned on me with the twinkling 
 
66 THE CABIN 
 
 flicker of fun in their depths. '* Son," said he, 
 " I've often noted two things about trees : 
 the stunted little twisted fellows have had a 
 heap hard time, what with wind and snow 
 and poor soil ; — and they grow farthest up on 
 the big peaks." 
 
 He swung aboard his horse and gathered 
 up his reins. 
 
 " Got to go see whether old Cook's cattle 
 are trespassin' again," said he. " That old 
 fool will keep on till some day I'll call him 
 everythin' but a gentleman." 
 
VIII 
 
 THE STREAM 
 
 We have several good springs about the 
 meadow, and at the foot of it they converge 
 to form a tiny brooklet that sings and mur- 
 murs and gurgles through the alders. But 
 a few hundred yards farther is a real stream 
 — the water-course that marks the foot of 
 the gentle declivity on which we live. The 
 other bank of it rises very steep and high. 
 It is grown with forest, and the lofty screen 
 of it catches the breeze in all its fronds at 
 once, so that the organ note is very solemn 
 and austere. But the Stream itself is a 
 robust and vigorous and cheerful person, 
 always busy with affairs of its own. 
 
 For one thing, it is a mountain brook, and 
 therefore occupied with finding its way down 
 hill. It hurries around corners, and dashes 
 
 67 
 
68 THE CABIN 
 
 down shallows, and tumbles over cascades, 
 and swirls in eddies, and trickles down riffles 
 with the rattling undertone of the rolling 
 of little stones. Occasionally, however, it 
 enters a still reach beneath overhanging 
 bushes, where it flows smooth as a mirror, 
 and in it one can see the sky. There the 
 familiar little birds turn upside down and 
 sideways searching for insects under the 
 leaves, the waterbugs skate spasmodically 
 here and there, and frogs kick about or sit 
 in rows on the banks. 
 
 So far our Stream is very like another. 
 But we have several features to distinguish 
 us. Chief of these is a very large leaf. It 
 grows singly at the end of a stalk two or 
 three feet long, and is as wide as a small 
 parasol. This must be literally understood. 
 In fact Billy occasionally plucks one for use 
 as a sunshade. It grows where it should, 
 for the best effect — that is, in all sorts of 
 niches, nooks, corners, and ledges, where one 
 would be most apt to plant them were he 
 going in for rockwork gardening effects. 
 
THE STREAM 69 
 
 Once in a while you will find them growing 
 in regular ranks out from the shoals of the 
 riffles in such a manner as to conceal the 
 entire stream bed beneath. The effect is 
 exceeding curious and tropical — the straight 
 stems spaced, like a miniature forest, and 
 the broad flat leaves above. They fill the 
 creek-bed with green, and only occasionally 
 can the observer catch the flash and move- 
 ment of the bright water beneath. In the 
 autumn they turn vivid with colour, and 
 then serve more than ever as accents to the 
 whole picture. 
 
 Early in our stay we sought out the best and 
 nearest place for a bath. In these streams, 
 the usual way is to deepen the closest ap- 
 proach to a natural pool by means of a dam. 
 We found what we wanted, and were about 
 ready to begin work on it, when fortunately 
 Billy was seized with the spirit of rambling. 
 She returned full of the enthusiasm of dis- 
 covery. 
 
 We accompanied her. Down among the 
 pines, across a fern flat, through a screen of 
 
70 THE CABIN 
 
 young fir she led us. There below us the 
 Stream rushed down a long, smooth, slanting 
 rock and into a real pool. It was about thirty- 
 feet long, twenty wide, and looked to be six 
 feet or so deep. The opposite side was a clear 
 unbroken sheet of rock that plunged steeply. 
 The bottom was of sand. 
 
 ^'That isn't the best of it," said Billy. 
 " Come down closer." 
 
 We did so. A ledge of rock dropped 
 straight off into deep water. 
 
 " You can jump in from that," said Billy. 
 
 Alongside of it, and a foot lower, another 
 ledge sloped gently. 
 
 ''Then you can walk out on that one," 
 pointed Billy, " and rub down. Then you can 
 dress on this dry one in the sun. And it's 
 a regular dressing-room ; see how thick the 
 bushes are all around ! " 
 
 The swimming-pool was thereupon estab- 
 lished. Tuxana looked doubtfully at the 
 water and shivered. She is a ridiculous dog. 
 If you throw a stick into the water, she will 
 plunge eagerly after it, no matter how cold 
 
THE STREAM 71 
 
 the water may be. And she will keep it up 
 all day. But if you pick her up and cast her 
 in for the merely utilitarian purpose of a bath, 
 she scrambles out hastily, and shivers in the 
 most piteous manner. Our usual procedure 
 was to have our own bath, and then to throw 
 in the dogs. Tuxana knew this, and always 
 lurked miserably in the bushes until com- 
 manded so sternly to come forth that she did 
 not dare disobey. Then she squatted down, 
 became absolutely limp, and weighed a ton. 
 With a splash she disappeared. As soon as 
 she came to the surface, she struck out vigor- 
 ously for the opposite shore, scrambled out 
 with great difficulty and much scratching on 
 the steep rock, and took her position in the sun. 
 There she sat, both hind feet off the ground, 
 indulging in exaggerated shivers, eyeing us 
 disgustedly. When we were ready to go 
 home, she would cross back over a cedar log 
 that had fallen to make a convenient bridge. 
 
 Tuxana is a very wise individual. 1 have 
 read some enormous volumes to prove that 
 animals do not think. This seemed to me in 
 
72 THE CABIN 
 
 each case a desperate effort on the part of the 
 author to bolster up his pride in being a man. 
 It seems to be a matter of definition. I could 
 quite legitimately prove by the same argu- 
 ments that most people do not think. How- 
 ever it may be, something goes on behind 
 old Tuxana's wrinkled forehead that results 
 in some highly ingenious — and amusing — ac- 
 tivities. 
 
 For example, and by way of dissertation, 
 the nights in these mountains are pretty chilly, 
 so that the back of the kennel is naturally the 
 best protected and cosiest. When I would 
 put the dogs out of an evening, they would 
 scramble hastily to win the coveted position. 
 Tuxana, being slowest, usually got left, and 
 had to content herself with an outside and 
 chilly bed. 
 
 Now, the other dogs are young and excit- 
 able. Tuxana evidently considered all the 
 quantities of the problem and evolved the 
 following stratagem, which she invariably 
 thereafter employed with uniform success : 
 
 When I would knock the ashes from my 
 
THE STREAM 73 
 
 pipe, Tuxana, recognising the symptoms, 
 would advance to the closed door, growling 
 fiercely. The moment the door was opened, 
 with a fierce bark, she rushed in the direction 
 of the bushes. In the direction, I say; for 
 immediately the other dogs, their hair brist- 
 ling, their eyes alight with excitement and 
 eagerness, had darted like whirlwinds into 
 the darkness to get the game, old Tuxana 
 dropped her bristles, wagged her tail, and de- 
 parted for the kennel. There with many 
 grunts of satisfaction she selected her corner. 
 Five minutes later the other dogs, having 
 scoured the woods, wasted many observations, 
 and lashed themselves to a frenzy of excite- 
 ment over nothing, returned to find her all 
 settled for the night. 
 
 At first I could hardly believe the ruse 
 intentional, but, after its third or fourth repe- 
 tition, no other conclusion seemed tenable. 
 
 But to get back to our bath. After 
 Tuxana had suffered several cold baths, she 
 resorted to stratagem. At first she ran gaily 
 over the cedar log to the other bank, as though 
 
74 THE CABIN 
 
 she were sure the only reason we threw her in 
 was so she would get to the opposite side. 
 There she sat down, and wiggled the tip of 
 her tail, and laid back her ears, and twinkled 
 her eyes, and lolled her tongue, and generally 
 looked as pleased and as ingratiating as she 
 could. This did not work. After several 
 days she tried shaking herself vigorously all 
 over, just as a dog does when he has emerged 
 from the water. I imagine she attempted 
 thus to convince us she had already taken her 
 bath. No go. Her final effort was the most 
 amusing of all. She walked from the bushes 
 in her most dignified manner, marched to the 
 Stream and began to drink. She drank and 
 drank until we thought she would burst. 
 Then she glanced at us sideways and drank 
 some more. We were puzzled. All at once 
 Billy shouted aloud with laughter. 
 
 "Don't you see?" she cried. "The old 
 thing is pretending she thinks you are offering 
 her a drink when you make her come down 
 here." 
 
 When Tuxana could hold no more, we 
 
THE STREAM 75 
 
 threw her in anyway. Since then she has 
 given up the struggle and accepts cold baths 
 as one of the inevitable evils of life. 
 
 Yet in her shiveriest moments all one has 
 to do is to pick up a stick. Immediately 
 Tuxana's ears are up, her eye alight. In she 
 plunges, leaping far out, landing with a mighty 
 splash. 
 
 As a matter of fact, one cannot blame 
 Tuxana in the least. That water is very cold. 
 It is born of the snows, and it flows through 
 shaded ways, and swiftly. One hesitates con- 
 siderably, plunges with a gasp, flounders wildly 
 for the ledge, and emerges as rapidly as a 
 fairly slippery rock will let him. The calling 
 it a swimming-pool is somewhat of a mis- 
 nomer. No one ever really swims, except the 
 few strokes necessary to reach shore, and no 
 one was ever known to go in twice to a bath. 
 But the glow of reaction is fine, and a rub- 
 down makes you glad you came. 
 
 A quarter-mile upstream, and just at the 
 limit of our domain, are the Falls. There the 
 ridge breaks down abruptly for a hundred feet 
 
76 THE CABIN 
 
 or so, and the Stream must perforce follow. 
 At first it used to be a great trick to get to 
 the Falls without losing time and rending 
 your garments. There is much snowbrush 
 and chinquapin, and a tangle of little hills and 
 hollows. Now, however, we have a trail, of 
 sorts. 
 
 The Falls themselves are quite marvellous, 
 and for several reasons. At the foot of a 
 cascade is a wide and deep pool over which 
 you cross by a log four feet through. Once 
 on the other side you come to a broad slanting 
 sheet of rock over which the Stream flows like 
 a thin film. Scrambling up this you are face 
 to face with the Falls proper. The Stream 
 drops over a ledge in two branches. Half- 
 way down, the ledge angles to form a deep 
 recess or cave — eight or nine feet high, four 
 or five deep, and across the creek-bed in 
 width. Before this recess the water falls in a 
 glittering veil. The cave itself is cushioned 
 with thick green elastic moss, like upholstery. 
 In it, as in a garden, grow tall ferns in 
 groups, and more of the big-leaved plants. 
 
THE STREAM 77 
 
 From crevices in the walls are suspended 
 other smaller ferns. A more beautiful green 
 cool bower of dampness for a water nymph 
 could not be imagined. As frame to the 
 picture are jutting rocks around which the 
 water divides or against which it splashes; 
 fringes of ferns and saxifrage ; and, square in 
 the middle, just as a skilful scene painter 
 would place them for the best theatrical 
 effect, grow a clump of big leaves. And as 
 a general surrounding, the forest. 
 
 The place is remarkable at any time, but 
 in the late autumn, when the leaves and ferns 
 have turned golden and orange, it is almost 
 unbelievable. We once had a friend visit 
 us who was a most excellent artist and a 
 marvellous manipulator of the English lan- 
 guage. 
 
 " Now look here,'' said he, " this is all very 
 well. But you've spoiled my last atom of 
 respect for the fellows who made the chromos. 
 I used to think that at least they had origin- 
 ality — they must invent their subjects — that 
 nothing like the things they depicted could 
 
78 THE CABIN 
 
 possibly exist in conjunction. The other 
 day you showed me the babbling brook flow- 
 ing through the green meadow with cows 
 grazing and trees on either side and the pre- 
 posterously contrasting snow mountain accu- 
 rately in the vista. Now thisl If some 
 grand opera star will kindly trip down these 
 obviously property rocks and warble us a 
 few strains, it'll be complete. By Jove ! did 
 you ever see anything like it ? " 
 
 A swift dash carries you through the falling 
 veil and into the recess. To your surprise 
 you will find yourself quite dry ; the great 
 slab of rock lets through not the smallest 
 trickle of moisture. The deep green cushion 
 of moss is as wet as a sponge, but only 
 through absorption from below. It is a queer 
 sensation to look out upon the world from 
 this fairy bower. The falling water wavers 
 and sparkles, the blurred landscape flashes 
 and dims, a super-brilliance of refraction fills 
 the cave, the rflshing sound of waters isolates 
 you completely from the customary impres- 
 sions of the forest, as nothing else could. 
 
THE STREAM 79 
 
 When yoii step outside again it is as though 
 you are suddenly awakened. The trickle of 
 the Stream, the songs of birds, the buzz of in- 
 sects, the wind in the trees, your companions' 
 voices burst on you as when a door is opened. 
 Some day some one will find the nymph of 
 the Stream at home, and so will fall under 
 an enchantment to dwell always in that 
 bright world apart. 
 
 The artist and I used to take long rambles 
 over the mountains. We were continually 
 discovering all sorts of interesting things : 
 little lost meadows like green gems in cups 
 of the hills; beautiful open parks of trees 
 smoothly carpeted with pine needles, and 
 strewn negligently with the great cones ; hill- 
 sides of warm flowering bush; broad sheets 
 of smooth rock many acres in extent ; out- 
 cropping dikes like fortresses ; ridges where 
 the deer fed in droves. Among other things 
 far back toward the backbone of the range 
 we came upon the headwaters of the Stream. 
 
 It was in the fall of the year, and the 
 deciduous leaves were gorgeous. At that 
 
80 THE CABIN 
 
 time these lesser people of the forest get 
 their true value. During the other seasons 
 they blend so with the greens of their 
 mightier neighbours that they are lost. But 
 now the very evergreen character of the forest 
 throws them into bolder relief. Here and 
 there the dogwoods glow, visible down the 
 aisles and through the glimpses for a long 
 distance, their reds and soft pinks and rose- 
 colours delicate as the petals of a flower. 
 Around the clearings the azaleas form a 
 border of the most brilliant flaming oranges 
 and yellows ; and the aspens are as golden 
 as sunshine, and the oaks ruddy as a fire. 
 While green, these trees have seemed a sort 
 of shrubbery to the forest proper. Now 
 they show in their true proportions, as trees 
 of the sort we see at home and are accus- 
 tomed to. And now at last, this being fully 
 appreciated, the pines tower as the giants 
 they are. It is an impressive season. The 
 woods thus seem to have grown taller; the 
 bird-songs have stilled ; not a breath of wind 
 stirs the pine-tops ; the tricklings of little rills 
 
Upstream a quarter-mile we possess a hundred foot waterfall. 
 
THE STREAM 81 
 
 have hushed. A rather reproving portent is 
 in the air. Those creatures that stir abroad, 
 do so furtively, silently. A flash of wings, 
 a glimpse of brown — and again the im- 
 memorial hush of the year falls across the 
 forest like the haze of a great smoke. 
 
 We came, on this day, to a point on the 
 slope of a hill whence we could see through 
 the straight tree-trunks to a glade. Glade is 
 the word, used this time in one of its few 
 veritable applications. A lawn of green flung 
 in a hollow, and half-way up a slope ; a dozen 
 big grey boulders around whose bases grew 
 gorgeous bushes; half as many clumps of 
 the same gorgeous bushes scattered here and 
 there ; a fringe of orange-leaved azaleas ; and 
 the great solemn trees standing in stately 
 ranks as though guarding. And down through 
 the forest ran a straight vista between the 
 trees, uniform in width, carpeted with green, 
 in which flowed a little brook. The sun 
 was low and ahead of us. The shadows lay 
 long across the meadow, and the forest was 
 a mysterious alternation of smoky-looking 
 
82 THE CABIN 
 
 shade, impenetrable darkness, and the bril- 
 liance of sky through tiny openings. From 
 the forest seemed to flow that lucent mist 
 one always observes when looking across bar- 
 riers to a westering sun. The artist gazed 
 for some time in silence. He was deeply 
 impressed. 
 
 " Gee ! " said he at last. " If the fairies 
 don't pull off a fandango every moonlight 
 night, they don't know a good dance-hall 
 when they see it ! '' 
 
 We broke through the bushes to the 
 meadow. There out in the grasses was a 
 round sunken pool, ten feet across, pellucid, 
 utterly calm. From its lower edge stole a 
 timid trickle of water. It crept through the 
 grasses down the meadow, disappeared under 
 an old burned tree-trunk, trickled in musical 
 drops over another, gathered courage as it 
 grew, finally gurgled away down the long 
 avenue guarded for it by the stately trees. 
 The Stream was born. 
 
IX 
 
 THEOPHILUS 
 
 Theophilus is a bird. He perches on a stub 
 at our gateway, watching cynically, his head 
 cocked slightly to one side, all w^ho pass into 
 our enclosure. He has the air of a robin 
 looking down at a worm ; of a bald-headed, 
 very wise old sinner who has nothing more 
 to learn ; of a vigilant and faithful guardian 
 of his master's interests ; of utter detach- 
 ment and indifference — whichever you please. 
 Presumably no one worth his displeasure has 
 yet passed our gate, for he has never stooped 
 over to rap anybody with his great yellow 
 bill. However, he is all ready to do so. 
 Personally I treat Theophilus with great re- 
 spect, for I have to pass in and out of that 
 gate several times a day. 
 
 Theophilus has a tremendous yellow bill, 
 
84 THE CABIN 
 
 somewhat on the toucan order, only one- 
 storied, and of a slight Hebraic cast. It is 
 about three feet long, and has a grim curve 
 at the corners of the mouth. His head is 
 not quite so long as his bill, and is a beau- 
 tiful sky blue. Was a beautiful sky blue, I 
 should say, for age has dimmed the colours 
 of his youth. A fiery upstanding crest of 
 red completes his upper works. 
 
 I regret to state that Theophilus either is 
 hump-backed or is sunk in a continual grouch. 
 When one possesses blue, red, yellow, and 
 green wings with black polka dots, one 
 should be entirely happy. Theophilus is up 
 here alone all winter, though, and he may 
 be merely humping his back philosophically 
 against the snow and the cold. Certainly he 
 keeps his tail spread bravely. It is a blue 
 tail, with a broad yellow edge to each feather. 
 Blue and red legs, a red breast and yellow 
 belly, and yellow claws complete Theophilus's 
 chaste and tasteful colour scheme. His eye, 
 I regret to state, is small and malicious. His 
 attitude, as I have intimated, is one of per- 
 
THEOPHILUS 85 
 
 petual challenge ; and his motto he carries, 
 neatly lettered, to test each chance comer. 
 It reads : 
 
 DO YOU SPEAK THE LANGUAGE 
 OF OUR TRIBE ? 
 
 Mr. Dan Beard is primarily responsible 
 for Theophilus. Some years ago he pub- 
 lished in Outing Magazine full directions 
 and measurements on " How to make a 
 Totem Bird." Theophilus is a modification 
 — at long range — of these ideas. Subse- 
 quently I saw Mr. Beard and made various 
 inquiries. He was much interested in Theo- 
 philus, but vague in his answers as to how 
 one was supposed to solve specified mechani- 
 cal difficulties of construction. A certain 
 surprise characterised his attitude. You all 
 remember that stage situation wherein the 
 alleged wizard is commanded under pain of 
 death to prove his powers by making the 
 Nile rise. Desperately — but hopelessly — he 
 goes through as elaborate mummeries as he 
 can invent. In the midst of his perform- 
 
86 THE CABIN 
 
 ances, in rashes a messenger. '' Sire ! The 
 Nile is rising ! " he shouts. " Is it ? " cries 
 the wizard in stupefied astonishment. Well, 
 somehow, Mr. Beard's expression when I 
 told him I had built a totem bird on the 
 inspiration — not the specifications — of his 
 article, reminded me of that wizard. 
 
 " Look here, Beard," said I finally. " Did 
 you ever build that totem bird ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said he ; then after a pause, 
 and with a quizzical grin — *'with a pocket 
 knife. I worked out the details, and then 
 just enlarged them." 
 
 " Right," said I. " I thought you never 
 tackled it with an axe and a cross-cut saw." 
 
 Theophilus wa^ made on smaller measure- 
 ments than the original ; but even then his 
 component parts weighed each more than I 
 could lift. 
 
 In cutting the head and body 1 had help 
 from the three boys of our neighbours, ten 
 miles away. After that Billy and I struggled 
 with him as best we could. His body and 
 legs went up first. I managed to rig a 
 
THEOPHILUS 87 
 
 tripod, or " scissors," of three poles over the 
 stub, arranged a slide of old boards, and 
 thus, an inch or so at a time, got the dis- 
 membered carcass to the top without drop- 
 ping it off on the ground. This was no slight 
 task, and several times I literally wrestled 
 with that fowl. Once atop, we had further 
 to stand him upright, and fasten his feet. 
 The wings we built from shakes and some 
 scraps of four-inch boards ; and nailed on. 
 The tail was of shakes arranged fan-wise. 
 Shakes shingle-fashion imitated the feathers 
 of the back. 
 
 But with the head we had the most 
 diflficulty. It weighed a good deal more 
 than we could handle comfortably, and it 
 had to be lifted bodily into place from a 
 narrow and insecure footing. This 1 man- 
 aged to accomplish, then called on Billy 
 to steady it while I spiked it fast. 
 
 Up to now we had controlled the creation 
 of Theophilus, arranging the details of his 
 anatomy to suit ourselves. But at this 
 moment there intervened Theophilus's own 
 
88 THE CABIN 
 
 familiar spirit, his oversoul in the universe 
 of grotesques, to determine his final char- 
 acter. Billy held on as tight as she could; 
 and I spiked as carefully as I was able. 
 Yet when we stepped back to contemplate 
 the result, lo ! it was on crooked. Lamenta- 
 tions could have no practical results, for it 
 was too late. But when Theophilus's beauti- 
 ful colours were applied, we found that his 
 familiar spirit had wrought better than we 
 knew. As the paint defined his crest and 
 bill and eyes, he took on that half-comical 
 mysterious attitude of listening and looking 
 for something coming along the trail, which 
 has from that moment set Theophilus miles 
 above us in experience and wisdom, and 
 has summarily taken him from our fashion- 
 ing hands as a thing, and made him an 
 individual entity. I no more feel responsible 
 for — or capable of — Theophilus, than I do 
 for the pines or the weird granites of 
 Shuteye. I confess he slipped beyond me. 
 The method of sawing him, of nailing him, 
 of pegging him down I comprehend; but 
 

 
 
 
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 Qy 5 
 
 P£^K 
 
 H t 
 
 •ANoyAi:^£ 
 
 or 
 
 DuR T 
 
 HiafcJ 
 
 He is like the gargoyles on the great cathedrals, apprppriate 
 and pleasing. 
 
THEOPHILUS 89 
 
 his soul and what he means and his general 
 attitude toward me and toward life in general 
 1 do not understand. He is hardly friendly, 
 as is a dog; nor yet inimical in any way — 
 perhaps merely aloof, and very superior. 
 
 As you come down the road through the 
 forest, and rise gradually to the crest of the 
 gentle slope that gives over to our Meadow, 
 Theophilus is the first object to rise above 
 the hill-line. In the distance and against 
 the sombre magnitude of the forest, his gay 
 plumage makes a very pleasing spot of 
 colour. In spite of the gaudiness of his 
 attire and the preposterous proportions of 
 him, he never seems out of place. Any- 
 where else he would be utterly and absurdly 
 grotesque ; but here, at once subdued and 
 thrown into relief by his surroundings, he 
 is like the gargoyles on the great cathedrals, 
 appropriate and pleasing. But I would feel 
 a lot easier, if I only knew whether he 
 really approves of us or not. 
 
ON BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 
 
 I AM very glad I was once somewhat of an 
 ornithologist: I am equally glad that I am 
 not one now. 
 
 The ornithologist's interest in birds is in 
 direct ratio to their rarity. I well remember 
 the first flock of Evening Grosbeaks I ever 
 saw. It was in the dead of winter and in the 
 height of a wind and snow storm. The hard 
 snow cut like knives, and the prospect was 
 one of half-buried fences, tossing bared 
 branches, and swirling, blinding flurries sweep- 
 ing a beaten country-side. The birds sat 
 stolidly in the tops of two elms by the road, 
 resembling a sort of gorgeous upgrowing fruit 
 or cone rather than living creatures. With 
 a leap of the heart I recognised them — by 
 plates and descriptions. I shall never forget 
 
 ^ 90 
 
BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 91 
 
 how slowly and lazily that horse turned into 
 a drift where I could tie and blanket him; 
 how stiff the buckles were, and how numb 
 my fingers ; the difficulty I had in putting 
 together the shotgun ! The Grosbeaks never 
 moved. So finally I shot a fine male; and 
 the whole band uttered a concerted cheeping, 
 and flashed to the top of another tree where 
 they again perched stolidly. I stuffed a little 
 pellet of cotton down my specimen's throat ; 
 plugged his nostrils, wrapped him carefully 
 in a paper cone so his feathers would not be 
 ruffled. The same performance was repeated. 
 After I had attended to this prize, I set 
 myself to observing their habits. They had 
 none. Merely they perched in the top of 
 that tree, occasionally remarking to each 
 other what a fine warm winter day it was, 
 while I slowly congealed. After a while, as 
 though at a signal, they departed into the 
 swirling snow. 
 
 Save for the identity of the birds and a 
 certain quality of weird aloofness, that was 
 not an extraordinarily interesting or illuminat- 
 
92 THE CABIN 
 
 ing incident, yet in my collecting experience 
 it was a bright particular star of a day. 
 
 The recording of three out of the five Con- 
 necticut Warblers then observed in Michigan 
 was another triumph. At that time but a 
 score of this extremely rare bird had been 
 seen anywhere, and some doubt existed as to 
 whether or not it should be considei'ed a 
 hybrid. I do not know its present status. 
 You may imagine tlie prize was too great to 
 risk in observation. A lightning recognition, 
 a quick aim, and that adventure was over. 
 
 I have lain belly down for hours straining 
 my attention to catch stray glimpses of some 
 infrequent migrant, while tliousands of the 
 •• common " species fairly overran me. Long 
 eager days have I followed the lure of a single 
 pair of flashing wings. Who cared to bother 
 with Goldfinches, and Redstarts, with Mary- 
 land Yellow Throats and Towhees when the 
 woods held possibilities of such rarities (to our 
 region) as the Prothonotary, the fields a faint 
 chance that a Dickcissel had wandered so 
 far north ? Sparrow Hawks were iminterest- 
 
BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 93 
 
 ing because you could get near them, and 
 Cooper's Hawks because you could not. 
 
 Yet this is true ; that in order to recognise 
 at a glance the rarities, you must also know 
 all the common species. Else how can you 
 know that every feather is not a prize ? And 
 as the common species are everywhere at all 
 times, and so constantly to be met with, it 
 follows that shortly you will be able to 
 identify them at a glance. At one time — the 
 skill has departed to a large extent now — I 
 could name the genus and often the species of 
 a bird as far as I could distinguish the manner 
 of his flight ; and the exact species of any one 
 of three hundred varieties by any portion of 
 his song or note. Perforce I learned how to 
 look for birds, where the different species 
 were to be found and whither their habits of 
 life led them. I had to do this in order to 
 eliminate the rank and file from my rare and 
 interesting objects of pursuit and identifica- 
 tion. I am very glad I have been something 
 of an ornithologist. 
 
 Three mornings ago a fine male Evening 
 
94 THE CABIN 
 
 Grosbeak flitted out of the pine forest to 
 perch on the Cabin ridge-pole. I thought 
 him a remarkably handsome person, but 
 stupid. After turning himself around to 
 exhibit fully the wondrous symbolism of his 
 plumage, he flew away. In the meantime 
 a Junco was earnestly carrying on an interest- 
 ing and animated conversation with a Chicka- 
 dee and a most ridiculous Pigmy Nuthatch. 
 This particular Junco comes to see us every 
 morning before we are up. We can recog- 
 nise him, even before we open our eyes, by 
 the way he flirts his wings. He belongs to 
 an extremely common species indeed; but 
 he is a most interesting and companionable 
 person. I concluded that I am very glad I 
 am no longer an ornithologist. For while a 
 scientist of that brand is interested most in 
 the rarities, the rest of us care more for the 
 individuals. There are more individuals than 
 rarities; therefore we have a much better 
 time. 
 
 These forests are extraordinarily populous 
 with birds. In the early morning the woods 
 
BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 95 
 
 ring and echo and re-echo with their songs. 
 One gains the impression of a vast multitude 
 'busy with its daily and accustomed affairs. 
 The joke of it is, those affairs go on just as 
 busily when we are not here. It is a com- 
 munity we have nothing to do with. We 
 are foreigners. When one takes a walk into 
 the forest, he counts for nothing. The 
 creatures are aware of his presence, and at 
 least doubtful of his intentions ; therefore 
 they interrupt their occupation, their song, 
 their journeys, to keep a bright and suspicious 
 eye on him. Even when he hides long 
 enough to restore confidence to the forest at 
 large, there are one or two amateur detectives 
 who decline to be fooled, and who hover dis- 
 tractingly and silently near at hand. The 
 forest modifies itself, ever so subtly, to man's 
 domination. 
 
 But when one sleeps out, and in the morn- 
 ing merely uncloses his eyes to the dawn, 
 the real business of the forest world goes 
 on full swing as though he were not there — 
 as it would were the world of men absolutely 
 
96 THE CABIN 
 
 non-existent. He has shrunk from an in- 
 fluence to a mere intelligence. Over him 
 woods life passes unruffled, happy, absorbed 
 in its affairs, utterly unself-conscious, in the 
 manner of the wilds. 
 
 This, to us, is one of the chief delights 
 of sleeping out — when we do not have to 
 get up early and travel, of course — to watch 
 the early-morning occupations of the forest 
 world. 
 
 The Sierra night here is one of the stillest 
 things on earth, not even excepting a calm 
 at sea. The wind falls utterly; there seem 
 to be no nocturnal songsters, like our old 
 friend the White Throat of the Northern 
 forest ; the chill of the mountain night sends 
 all humming and murmuring insects early 
 to bed. There is literally nothing /to make 
 a noise, save the far murmuring brook, and 
 that is so distant as to supply only the 
 faintest wash of monotone to the picture of 
 Night. An occasional owl or coyote, the 
 horses moving in ,the meadow, the tinkle of 
 Flapjack's sweet-toned bell, actually break 
 
BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 97 
 
 the silence, sometimes in an almost startling 
 manner. The tall trees are very motion- 
 less and solemn and black. So still are they 
 that almost it seems the stillness of some 
 tension, as though their heaven-pointing tips 
 conveyed some silent invisible fluid of virtue 
 straight up from the overcharged earth, as 
 a candle flame sometimes stands unwaver- 
 ing in its upward flow of abundant heat. 
 To a city dweller sleeping out for the first 
 time in these forests, the night is sometimes 
 terrifying, not from apprehension of wild 
 beasts or falling limbs or any other material 
 danger, but from the subtle big awe and 
 mystery of something intangible he cannot 
 understand. 
 
 On no other forest with which I am ac- 
 quainted > does the enchantment lie so heavy. 
 It is as though the lifting of the last broad 
 sunray across Shuteye was as the lifting of 
 a golden wand. Somewhere in the depths 
 of the woodland is the Sleeping Princess; 
 and all the trees and bushes, the thickets, 
 
 the birds, and the creatures have been 
 
 G 
 
98 THE CABIN 
 
 stricken to immobility pending her awaken- 
 ing. Especially is this illusion near to the 
 truth when the moon sails the heavens. 
 Down through the still darkness of forest 
 aisles you look to a little glade all of most 
 beautiful and delicate frostwork. From 
 blackness projects a single branch of silver. 
 Long shadows lie immobile across openings 
 of light. But these shadows, and the trunks 
 of trees, and even the silhouettes seen against 
 the moon are not of the blackness of star- 
 lit nights. Acljross them all is a milky lucent 
 veil. This is a new forest, a new world into 
 which you have graciously been permitted 
 to w^ander. The grosser substance of the 
 material universe has been magicked away, 
 leaving the wonderful form-soul of them to 
 stand until a touch shall crumble them to 
 a pinch of white moon-dust. You move by 
 sufferance, the only noisy, blundering, rest- 
 less creature in the world. And the great 
 silence and stillness rebuke you. 
 
 There are a few familiars to the great 
 magician who are allowed certain privileges of 
 
BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 99 
 
 the night. Of these the Owls are the most 
 remarkable — is not the magician always at- 
 tended by an owl or so ? The big Horned 
 Owls with their booming whoo, whoo, whoo, 
 are in tune with the solemnity of an earth 
 fallen under enchantment. But there is 
 another species — the Short-eared Owl — that 
 represents well the diabolical side popularly 
 attributed to all necromancy. He clucks, 
 he shrieks, he laughs, he shouts insultingly 
 and sardonically. The w^oods are full of 
 his ribald jeerings. Like the coyotes, two 
 make racket enough for a dozen. When 
 one of these irreverent imps breaks loose 
 among the echoes of a forest fallen utterly 
 silent, it seems that the farthermost stars 
 must awaken and give ear. Yet when the 
 row is all over, you find that not the tiniest 
 bird, not the smallest leaf has been aroused 
 from the deep trance. The imps have beaten 
 in vain against that supernal calm. All 
 they have succeeded in accomplishing is to 
 render frantic Brudder Bones, but as Brudder 
 Bones is only a pink-eyed, white bull pup 
 
100 THE CABIN 
 
 seven months old, his judgment does hot 
 count for much. 
 
 To the west the trees of our forest are 
 apparently of almost an .equal height. Yet 
 there is one, far distant, that, either because 
 it stands directly opposite a chance opening 
 in the east, or because it really is taller than 
 its neighbours, is bathed to its waist in golden 
 sunlight before any of the others have caught 
 a single ray. Therefore it is known as the 
 Dawn Tree. 
 
 By the Dawn Tree we know that it is time 
 to get up. And under the Dawn Tree, we 
 suspect, lies the Sleeping Princess, for with 
 the touch of morning on its crest the forest 
 stirs. Birds chirp, a tiny breeze murmurs 
 through the highest tops, certain spiders swing 
 perilously from silvery cables, the bees hum 
 by on their way to the flower gardens of the 
 meadows. And far up, so high that barely 
 we can make them out, silver-flashing birds 
 flutter across the emptiness of blue ether, like 
 the spirits of morning out of the east. 
 
 Inch by inch the sunlight descends, until 
 
BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 101 
 
 the forest is bathed in light, every aisle and 
 thicket of it, a golden green light seen at no 
 other time of day. Then indeed the life of 
 the woodland is at high tide. All the insects 
 are out, and the birds after them. Every- 
 thing with a voice has something to say, 
 and takes time to say it. The freshness of 
 morning is in the air, and the exhilaration of 
 a brand-new untried day. 
 
 In the complicated bird-life of the forest 
 are many planes and stories. Some dwell 
 entirely in the tip-tops of the trees, rarely 
 descending below the level of the uppermost 
 branches. Others inhabit the mid-regions ; 
 while still a third class divide their time be- 
 tween the lower limbs and the brush. Besides 
 all these are the distinctly ground-dwellers, 
 such as the Quail and the Towhee families. 
 
 Birds are in one respect a remarkably com- 
 placent race. Each species has its own way 
 of doing things, from which it never varies, no 
 matter how overwhelmingly unanimous the 
 example set by other species all around it. 
 And the examples are numerous enough and 
 
102 THE CABIN 
 
 close enough, one would think, to tempt at 
 least the youngest and most enterprising to 
 try a new way of doing things, if only to see 
 how it seems. But no ; the conduct of life 
 has been settled ages ago, there remains only 
 the pleasant task of filling the frame with as 
 much brightness and joyous colour as possible. 
 '' No," says young Master Thrush, *' singing to 
 the new risen sun from the very tip of a big 
 fir may be very pleasant, and may do very 
 well for Robins ; but none of us would think 
 of it for a moment ! And Magnolia Warblers 
 are undoubtedly very worthy people ; but 
 none of our set ever wears a yellow spot on 
 the rump." Among human beings extreme 
 conservatism usually means also a gloomy and 
 cheerless outlook on life. Here are creatures 
 more settled in their ways than the Chinese 
 themselves, yet able to preserve also a free 
 and joyous spirit. 
 
 On this account our Robins amuse us 
 immensely. They are of course accustomed 
 by tradition immemorial to close-cHpped 
 gi'een lawns, well watered, with shade trees, 
 
BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 103 
 
 conservatories, vines, gravel drives, angle- 
 v^rorms, and clipped hedges. In those sur- 
 roundings the self-respecting Robin can do 
 himself justice. We all know how well he 
 lives up to his station in life— three or four 
 proud hops forward, breast swelled, head back, 
 aspect noble ; the ostentatious and theatrical 
 cocking of the head sidewise over a wormy- 
 looking spot ; the sudden dab, the braced legs, 
 the reluctant worm, the triumphant pose as 
 the victim comes away. It is as well done as 
 is the knee action of the horses brought to the 
 door. Not every Robin can have his setting 
 as elaborate as he might wish, but at least he 
 has reason to expect something in the way of 
 a well-kept sward. 
 
 Up here there are no lawn-mowers, no lawn, 
 no angleworms, no nothing. We cannot sup- 
 port a single Robin in the style to which 
 he has been accustomed. Nevertheless, our 
 Robins, in place of going seedy and losing- 
 interest, as so many people do in the circum- 
 stances, make the best of it. Not a ceremony 
 is omitted. What matter that the lawn is 
 
104 THE CABIN 
 
 only the meadow grass cropped down by the 
 horses ? it is emerald green ; what matter 
 if there are no angleworms at all ? one can 
 attitudinise just as carefully over any old 
 doodlebug. Our Robins hold as rigidly to 
 the good-form of angleworming as any fox- 
 hunter to the rules of the game, even when 
 the prosaic aniseed replaces the living quarry. 
 I respect the Robins for that, and I must 
 confess that their touching efforts to make 
 our front yard look aristocratic sometimes 
 almost succeed. 
 
 We have also a very busy and friendly 
 inhabitant of our bushes next the house that 
 we call the Plaintive Bird. This is because 
 of his note, which complains gently and plain- 
 tively of something that has gone wrong. 
 The grievance is evidently of long standing, 
 for the tone has become just a trifle querulous. 
 Perhaps it is an ancestral outrage, the memory 
 of which has become traditional and the 
 protest against which is a family duty, for 
 the bird himself is as lively and cheerful as 
 you please. He is especially partial to the 
 
BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 105 
 
 low~growing chinquapins, and when he is oc- 
 cupied in stirring up the peace of that thicket, 
 he seems to pervade it from one end to the 
 other. He scratches among the leaves in 
 great, two-handed swoops that send things 
 flying. Then he hops out to the edge, cocks 
 one merry black eye up at us, voices his 
 plaintive we-o-wee, and examines to see what 
 he has unearthed. Generally that proves to 
 be nothing. He does a lot of vigorous 
 scratching for meagre results, but he seems to 
 enjoy it, and he is certainly a friendly and 
 fearless person. 
 
 With him are the Purple Finches, hundreds 
 of them. The salted clay of our chimney 
 possesses a fascination for them. At any time 
 of day we can flush a dozen or so by coming 
 around the corner on them suddenly. They 
 scurry away with a great fluttering of wings, 
 but if we stand quite still, even for ten 
 seconds, back the bravest venture, their crim- 
 son head-feathers ruffled, their eyes upon us, 
 but their eager little bills at work on our pre- 
 cious structure. They are very tiny people, and 
 
106 THE CABIN 
 
 weak, and the chimney is solid, but I some- 
 times think they will in the course of years 
 finish by carrying off our fireplace piecemeal. 
 They love, in the early morning, to perch 
 on the straight topmost finger of the giant 
 firs, there to enjoy the first sun, and occasion- 
 ally to favour us with their sweet and ramb- 
 ling warble. 
 
 Hardly second to these two in their claim 
 on a semi-domesticity are the Juncos, or 
 snowbirds. They and their cheerful flirtings 
 in and out, the neatness of their costume with 
 its black muffler and white waistcoat, and the 
 two flashing white feathers of their tails are 
 so familiar a feature of our meadow that we 
 should miss the azaleas no more than them. 
 
 These three — the Purple Finches, the Plain- 
 tive Birds, and the Juncos — stand to us instead 
 of domestic fowls. They live always inside 
 our fence, they never wander far abroad, 
 and they are always to be found. The other 
 birds dwell aloof, or cruise it here and there 
 in the forest, or drop in on us occasionally 
 for a friendly visit and gossip. 
 
BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 107 
 
 Of such the most amusing are the inde- 
 pendent, swashbuckhng bands of Nuthatches 
 and Chickadees. For an hour or so after 
 sunrise you will have no indication whatever 
 of their existence. Then far off in the woods 
 you become aware of a voice like the blowing 
 of hundreds of elfin tin trumpets. The sound 
 comes nearer ; is heard to be intermingled 
 with clear modulated whistles and the dis- 
 tinctive chick-a-dee'dee-dee of that small and 
 independent individual. Suddenly every tree 
 is covered with comical, scow-built, tiny 
 birds, moving busily — and impartially — up, 
 down, or around the trunks; every twig 
 is quivering with the weight of bright- 
 eyed, quick, eager little Chickadees, upside 
 down, right side up, seeking eagerly and 
 minutely every possibility that might conceal 
 an addition to breakfast. The host sweeps 
 by you as though you did not exist. The 
 little fellows are friendly enough — there is 
 nothing scornful or exclusive in their atti- 
 tude, as there is in that of the Stellar Jay 
 for example — but they haven't time for you. 
 
108 THE CABIN 
 
 You have no trunk to run up and down, 
 no twigs from which to balance. They are 
 not the sUghtest bit afraid of you. Merely 
 they close about you, and move on. One 
 moment the trees are swarming with be- 
 wildering life ; the next, they are empty. 
 Receding in the distance you hear the chorus 
 of tooUtoot'toot, cMck-a'dee-dee-dee^ dear me^ 
 and the harsh squawking of the jays who 
 seem to delight in acting the part of derisive 
 camp followers to this elfin army. 
 
 Other free spirits of the woods are the 
 Woodpeckers. They range as the mood 
 strikes them, swooping in long curved flight, 
 uttering loud and triumphant cries. From 
 the tops of dead trees they beat out a long 
 roll in the sheer joy of noise ; on half-decayed 
 logs they deliver the purposeful, spaced, 
 heavy blows of the workman; they romp 
 around and around tree-trunks in an ascend- 
 ing spiral, chasing each other in an ecstasy of 
 play. Like noisy schoolboys, they break all 
 the solemnities. No hush of evening or lan- 
 guor of noon is proof against their rattling 
 
BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 109 
 
 or their sonorous weecher^ weecher ! At long 
 intervals the king of them all passes our way 
 royally, the great Pileated Woodpecker, big 
 as a hawk, with his black, white-striped body 
 and his flaming, upstanding red crest. I 
 imagine he looks on Theophilus, the totem 
 bird, as some sort of distant relative. He 
 retreats with dignity, but he retreats, and if 
 we are to observe him, it must be from the 
 passive standpoint of the proverbial " bump 
 on a log." 
 
 Before getting up in the morning, we seize 
 many such opportunities for close observa- 
 tion. Our camp blanket is red, and to this 
 day a certain Humming-bird is hoping yet 
 to solve the sweetness of what he thinks to 
 be a gorgeous and gigantic flower. We hear 
 the swift darting hum of the little creature, 
 followed by the deeper tone as he hovers 
 suspended. There he balances, sometimes 
 not a foot from our faces, gazing intently 
 on that great patch of red. 
 
 The Chipmunks, too, tiny fellows not over 
 a quarter the size of the Eastern species. 
 
110 THE CABIN 
 
 consider the bed somewhat of a dare. Its 
 base is a flake of hay embezzled from the 
 horses' late-autumn supply, and that forms 
 the attraction for the little squirrels. They 
 consume ten minutes screwing up their cour- 
 age, dart fearfully under the edge of the 
 canvas, reappear carrying a head of barley, 
 perch on the headboard to eat it, one beady 
 black eye comically aslant at us. It is ex- 
 ceedingly interesting to see thus such deli- 
 cately fashioned woods creatures at such very 
 close range. 
 
 To the larger Pine Squirrels, however, we 
 are to be considered in the light of an in- 
 excusable outrage. A great tree-trunk de- 
 scends to the head of our bed, and down 
 this every morning a Pine Squirrel would 
 venture, to tell us what he thought of us. 
 He squatted quite flat behind, raised him- 
 self slightly on his fore-paws, and chattered 
 nervously. Every moment or so he would 
 jerk his tail and advance another foot or so 
 down the tree. The nearer he got, the 
 shorter his descents, the jerkier his tail, and 
 
BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 111 
 
 the louder his scoldings. Finally the awful 
 proximity would break down his nerve-sus- 
 tained courage. With a shriek of released 
 terror he would turn and skitter madly to 
 the top of the tree, gibbering as though 
 pursued by ten thousand devils. Once in 
 safety from his imaginary dangers, he con- 
 gratulated himself for some time in a low 
 voice, and examined his precious tail to 
 see if it had sustained any damage. Gradu- 
 ally his indignation mounted. He looked 
 down and saw us still there. After a minute 
 longer of doubt, he would decide to try it 
 again. 
 
 Between the dogs and the three kinds of 
 squirrels common about our Cabin, is per- 
 petual war. By experience each knows ac- 
 curately how far it can be adventured. 
 Apparently bold Chipmunks perch saucily 
 within a few feet of the dogs ; the latter, 
 beyond a quiver of the nostrils, betray scant 
 interest. They know, and the Chipmunk 
 knows, that the way of escape is from that 
 point infallible. Apparently prudent Douglas 
 
112 THE CABIN 
 
 Squirrels appear in an opening fifty yards 
 away ; instantly with eager whines the dogs 
 tear away in a scrambling pursuit. Some- 
 times they butt their noses against the tree 
 up which, with terrified chatterings, Mr. 
 Douglas has just managed to escape. Some- 
 times he loses his life. It is a fair game, 
 and the nature of a dog is to hunt. We 
 would not be justified in interference. Also 
 such incidents do not seem to discourage 
 the squirrels in the least. Instantly we ap- 
 pear, the word goes about through the wood- 
 land that the Dispensers of Favours are 
 returned accompanied by their Dragons. In 
 the squirrel mind, evidently, one consideration 
 far outbalances the other, for within a few 
 days ten of the little animals appear where 
 before was but one. 
 
 They are easily tamed, but we have never 
 attempted especially to gain their confidence. 
 It would not be fair. California John was 
 once telling us of a fawn that came every 
 morning to the head of his meadow to 
 feed among the domestic animals. 
 
BIRDS AND LIVING THINGS 113 
 
 " I believe you could tame him ! " cried 
 Billy, " Why don't you try ? " 
 
 *'Oh, he'd gentle all right," repHed Cali- 
 fornia John, ''but, ma'am, I don't believe 
 in gentling no wild critter whatever that 
 I can't take care of. It just makes it easy 
 for the first fellow with a gun or claws 
 that comes along." 
 
 The Mountain Quail, beautiful helmeted 
 and plumed birds, found our clearing good 
 during all of one season. Since then they 
 have disappeared, not only from our meadow, 
 but from our ridge. I suppose the feed is 
 better somewhere else. Animals and birds 
 like to frequent the same places, but it is 
 a mistake to suppose that they necessarily 
 confine themselves to one locality. I be- 
 lieve they have various estates which they 
 inhabit as the fancy strikes them — a Water- 
 ing Place on Whiskey Ridge ; a Cone Forest 
 on Pine Ridge; a Pinon Preserve on Goat 
 Mountain, and so on. On a year when 
 cones are scarce with us, the squirrels desert 
 us almost completely, and we hear of them 
 
 H 
 
114 THE CABIN 
 
 on the mountains away across the tremen- 
 dous gorge of the Joaquin. We are sorry 
 to lose the Mountain Quail, and hope some 
 year they will come back to take the shutters 
 down here. It was great fun to see the 
 well-groomed, sleek, anxious mothers mar- 
 shalling the ranks of their scurrying, comical, 
 small progeny. 
 
XI 
 
 THE MILL 
 
 There is a sawmill two miles distant, over 
 near the bluffs. It growls away to itself, 
 and pretends it is wonderfully big and im- 
 portant, whereas it is in reality a very little 
 mill indeed. For twenty-five years it has 
 been amusing the forest by biting at her 
 fringes. Two million feet a year is con- 
 sidered pretty good.^ It sends its lumber 
 out by teams consisting of from six to ten 
 span of horses and mules, a journey of three 
 days. The driver rides one of his wheel 
 horses, and for twelve hours a day is lost 
 in thick clouds of dust. At the mill itself 
 one circular saw keeps as busy as it can 
 —when it is in working order; two teams 
 of mules haul the large logs in from the 
 
 ^ A modern plant cuts fifty or sixty million a year. 
 
 115 
 
116 THE CABIN 
 
 woods; and a donkey engine yanks the 
 timbers from the bed to which they have 
 fallen. The mill-hands are mostly the sons 
 of small ranchers, young mountaineers, and 
 the like. The w^oodsmen, experts with axe 
 and saw, have, some of them, drifted out 
 from the pines of Michigan and Wisconsin. 
 They w^ork hard, as all woodsmen do, and 
 have no time for visiting. Two miles in 
 the mountains would be a new measure of 
 distance to a motorist, say. We see the 
 twenty or thirty of the mill crew only when 
 we visit the scene of their work. They are 
 non-existent in our life. 
 
 This general rule falls to the ground in 
 the case of a few, however. Some, by virtue 
 of especial character, have grown to be our 
 friends. 
 
 The master sawyer, for example. All day 
 he stands by his levers, sending the log car- 
 riage back and forth, turning the log over 
 by means of the nigger hooks, gauging 
 accurately how best to get the most good 
 lumber from the material. Each log is a 
 
THE MILL 117 
 
 problem by itself. For a great many summers 
 his eyes have followed the incessant move- 
 ment before them, until they have grown 
 steady with a tired abstraction. When we 
 ride oVer to the mill after our letters, we 
 always go in to see the sawyer. The rattle 
 of the machinery and the exultant crescendo 
 shriek of the saw fill all the possibilities of 
 sound. We touch him on the shoulder and 
 let him know we are there. He grins cor- 
 dially at us; we grin cordially back at him. 
 Perhaps we shriek a word or two at the 
 top of our lungs. That is all, but we go 
 away feeling we have had quite a satisfac- 
 tory visit. This sawyer has lived all his 
 life in the mountains — in fact, the man who 
 wrought at our meadow so many years 
 before bore his name. He has property, 
 and a family, and a slow benevolent patience 
 that has taken care of every forlorn and 
 incompetent relative, in direct defiance of 
 his own interests and those of his boys. In 
 repose his face has a Lincolnian sadness, 
 but when he smiles it twinkles all over like 
 
118 THE CABIN 
 
 sun on broken water. He possesses a fiddle 
 on which he plays jiggy, foot-tapping things. 
 His home is down the mountain at the 
 Forks. There he often furnishes the music 
 for some of the dances. The quadrilles are 
 especially grand, for then the musician, both 
 eyes closed, calls out. No one knows what 
 he says, or what it all has to do with the 
 figures ; and no one cares. Each remark 
 is jerked out with an accompanying strong 
 sweep of the bow and swaying of the body. 
 It is all about " honey 1 " — *' Pig'n a corn 1 " 
 " Po-liteness ! " " Swing round," " Go down, 
 Moses ! " " 'Coon up a plum tree I " and 
 various inarticulate but inspiring sounds. 
 
 "Uncle Charley" has a wife and four 
 half-grown boys. Every once in a while 
 some or all of them take the long ride up 
 the mountain to see us. The boys patiently 
 try to catch chipmunks, or go swimming, 
 or generally pop around the woods. The 
 grown-ups settle down for a good talk. 
 The mountain people are exceedingly in- 
 teresting. They live a life that depends 
 
THE MILL 119 
 
 more than the common on its individual 
 resource ; and at the same time the better 
 class of them possess a remarkably high 
 standard of taste and education. Books, 
 and good ones, are abundant. In addition 
 are certain qualities of hospitality, the 
 breadth of view incidental to the meeting 
 of many types on a plane of equality, and 
 independence in the manner of thinking. I 
 like the mountain people. 
 
 For here you must know all your neigh- 
 bours for fifty miles about. In more 
 crowded centres one picks and chooses even 
 his most superficial acquaintanceships. As a 
 consequence certain classes of men fall out- 
 side your experience completely, and to that 
 extent your knowledge and sympathies are 
 limited. 
 
 But a sparsely settled region is diflPerent. 
 The dweller therein has full opportunity to 
 know all his microcosmos. He knows Uncle 
 Charley's folks, with their more refined 
 tastes; he is on intimate terms with the 
 Forest Supervisor's people of college educa- 
 
120 THE CABIN 
 
 tion and sweet and gentle breeding; he 
 comes in contact with the Washington men — 
 the inspectors, timber experts, grazing men, 
 all the numberless technical experts; he 
 meets and talks with tourists and campers of 
 all classes on their way to the higher peaks. 
 In addition he knows all about his other 
 neighbours ; and as any society, no matter 
 how sparse, possesses in itself the elements of 
 a community, he is in contact with all classes, 
 from the debased caterpillar-eating Indians 
 at the rancheria, through the half-breeds, 
 and on up past the "white trash," to 
 the different independent, semi-patriarchal 
 and always individual households scattered 
 through the Hills. If Smith's colt dies of 
 rattlesnake bite, it is a matter of personal 
 interest ; if Jones's son is getting to hang 
 around the saloon at the Corners, you must 
 do something about it. Public opinion is 
 nowhere so concretely expressed nor so 
 powerful in affecting general attitude as in 
 the mountains ; — nor so powerless to affect 
 individual attitude. A man easily works out 
 
THE MILL 121 
 
 his conduct of life — whether for good or 
 evil — and lives by it " spite of hell or high 
 water." 
 
 And to a large extent he is allowed to 
 do so. Men are taken objectively in the 
 mountains. That is to say, their idiosyn- 
 crasies in the manner of doing things or of 
 looking at things are taken as so many un- 
 changeable, natural phenomena. One adjusts 
 himself to them just exactly as he would take 
 into consideration the sets of current in 
 swimming a horse across a stream. The 
 more introspective peoples are apt to ask 
 themselves whys and wherefores. 
 
 "How could Jones think and do so and 
 so ! " we cry. " I should think a man with 
 a grain of sense would have seen it ! I can't 
 understand how a man gets at feeling the 
 way he does 1 " 
 
 So we go on worrying ourselves with the 
 reconstruction of Jones. 
 
 The mountaineer, on the other hand, ex- 
 plains everything by saying that that's the 
 way Jones does, and lets it go, and forgets it. 
 
122 THE CABIN 
 
 As well try to explain why Jones has a sharp 
 nose. The attitude is at once a result of and 
 conducive to the fullest expression of indi- 
 vidualism. 
 
 From the mill also we draw our friend the 
 hunter. He stays on the mountain all the. 
 year round. In winter, when the snows 
 come, he looks after the mill's property — 
 shovels snow off roofs and generally keeps 
 things in repair. Constantly he deludes him- 
 self that he is going to quit and go down to 
 the valley. He never does. He lives high 
 up on a rocky knoll. It is facetiously forti- 
 fied with old pieces of pipe stuck out at all 
 angles to represent cannon. When you get 
 up there, you are met by a cynical 'coon at 
 the end of a chain. He retires promptly to 
 ' the inner recesses of his kennel. A moment 
 later you find yourself in a really comfortable 
 and clean cabin. It is decorated with litho- 
 graphed calendars, skins, deer's antlers and 
 Indian baskets. The latter are our hunter's 
 specialty, and he will wax enthusiastic for you 
 over the variation in a border pattern. 
 
THE MILL 123 
 
 About once a week he comes over to see 
 us, generally armed with rifle and revolver. 
 He perches on the steps for an hour, gravely 
 exchanges news as to game seen during 
 the week, confides to us as to where and 
 by whom deer have been killed, relates a 
 few trapping incidents that curl Billy up 
 inside, declines to stay to a meal, and departs. 
 Generally he brings us in our mail by way of 
 excuse. Each spring when we return, he 
 tells us carefully just how the winter has 
 been. Quite of his own volition he snow- 
 shoes over occasionally to see how the Cabin 
 is getting on. Two years ago, he says, it was 
 buried to the ridge-pole, and only the tip of 
 the smoke-pipe was sticking out. 
 
 Then there were, until this year, the Stout 
 brothers. We met the first as he was 
 "nicking" a big sugar pine. He is one of 
 those very tall, very slender mountaineers 
 with the strength and spring of whalebone in 
 his long, slim body. His brothers are like 
 him. They are musicians. One blows 
 through a cornet, one twangs a guitar, the 
 
124 THE CABIN 
 
 other scrapes a fiddle. One evening they 
 packed all these things on their backs, col- 
 lected Uncle Charley and his instrument, and 
 walked over after dark for a grand musi- 
 cal pow-wow. Uncle Charley's wife, all her 
 boys, her adopted Indian girl, and three 
 young people who were staying with her were 
 already occupying the Guest Camp above the 
 Cabin, under the trees. We built a roaring 
 camp-^fire, uncased the instruments, and — — 
 
 But let us go back two days. It was noon, 
 and I had walked over to the mill to post 
 some letters. With me were Tuxana and 
 Rattler, the latter at that time six months 
 old. The old lady was padding along at my 
 heels as usual, but the puppy, gangle-legged 
 and ridiculous, was far afield investigating 
 everything. Naturally, when we approached 
 the mill, the mill dogs, seven in number, of 
 various and astonishing mongrelism, rushed 
 forth. As naturally Rattler fled for the tall 
 timber. This aroused Tuxana. No one had 
 paid any attention to her, but the outrage of 
 seven against the one youngster was too 
 
THE MILL 125 
 
 much for her. Without saying a word, she 
 shot out from behind me and hurled herself, 
 like a missile from a catapult, upon the 
 histrionic seven. 
 
 Tuxana's usual method of fighting is to 
 clamp and hang on. It is at once simple and 
 effective, for Tuxana has a face like a catfish. 
 But to-day, against numbers, she shifted her 
 tactics. In about a minute she had the 
 redoubtable seven licked to a standstill. 
 Some fled with shrieks, some lay down and 
 held all four feet in the air as token of 
 submission, some crawled under buildings. 
 The last one she tackled, however, put up 
 more of a fight, and him she proceeded to 
 slaughter in approved fashion. We hauled 
 her off, with some difficulty, and I led her 
 around by my belt strap until her bristles 
 had gone down. For this energetic combat 
 was Tuxana much admired. 
 " On the evening of our projected camp-fire 
 music that last antagonist had the bad taste 
 and judgment to follow the Stout boys over 
 to our camp; and they had not noticed it. 
 
126 THE CABIN 
 
 Here was Tuxana's chance. She is the most 
 peaceful old girl that ever wagged a tail, but 
 a personal enemy she never forgets. Riding 
 along the roads at home we pass fifty dogs to 
 which Tuxana pays not the compliment of a 
 side glance. Then her ears cock forward, her 
 hair bristles, her eyes fix on a canine away oft 
 in the distance. She is off* with her tearing 
 scramble. And no matter how far away that 
 dog is, when he sees Tuxana coming he 
 departs rapidly. 
 
 So, no sooner was the orchestra tuned up 
 than the most unholy row broke out from the 
 woods. We all ran out to see what was the 
 matter. Tuxana had missed the throat hold 
 for which she always tries, but had clamped 
 firmly on the dog's flank. There she hung on, 
 biting deeper every instant. The dog, frantic 
 with fear and pain, was snapping blindly in all 
 directions. When the men tried to allay the 
 battle, they made the mistake of reaching 
 for Tuxana. Thereupon the other dog, his 
 fore quarters threshing in all directions like 
 the head of a scotched snake, bit rapidly and 
 
THE MILL 127 
 
 accurately. In six seconds the three Stout 
 boys and Uncle Charley had from two to five 
 bites apiece. Then somebody grabbed the 
 mill dog by the neck. When we finally got 
 Tuxana away, she carried with her a substan- 
 tial piece of that luckless canine. 
 
 Billy opened her medicine case, and the 
 victims lined up in a row as though they 
 wanted to buy tickets for some popular 
 success. Bandage rolls, calendula, and per- 
 oxide were consumed in vast quantities. 
 Billy had a chance to try her skill. 
 
 Billy, inspired with the idea of acquiring 
 knowledge useful to the Trail, once joined two 
 classes- — First Aid to the Injured, and Cooking. 
 In the former she learned how to distinguish 
 drunkenness from apoplexy. In the second 
 she gained some skill in the construction of 
 Charlotte Russe and Floating Island. Un- 
 ► fortunately in the high country we have not 
 yet run across anybody lying by the trail — 
 bottles are not easily transported in quantity 
 on a pack-horse. Neither have we arrived at 
 a yearning for such desserts contemporaneous 
 
128 THE CABIN 
 
 with a possession of eggs and milk. A family 
 doctor showed her how to bandage, however ; 
 and now the knowledge came in very handy. 
 She turned out a good workmanlike job, and 
 her four patients were wound to the elbows. 
 But we hadn't enough good fingers among us 
 to make a single note of music. 
 
 The mill is our point of touch with the 
 world outside. Through it we get our mail, 
 occasionally. Its teamsters are very good 
 to us in the matter of tucking in a box or 
 so of supplies when they come up the moun- 
 tain empty. It is quite an adventure to 
 take Flapjack and go over to the mill. We 
 never know Avhat we are going to find. 
 Uncle Charley's wife may have' sent us a 
 little sweet corn, or some eggs, or a water- 
 melon; there may be letters or a magazine 
 or so ; or possibly some precious article we 
 sent for so long ago that we have utterly 
 forgotten it turns up at last as a pleasant 
 surprise. Or again the total results of a long 
 journey through the woods may be a circular 
 and two unreceipted bills from home. 
 
THE MILL 129 
 
 This year the mill has sawed its last in 
 the little clearing where it has lived for 
 twenty-five years. It has made a tiny hole 
 in the forest, and has left some ugly debris 
 in its slashings. But even where it cut two 
 years ago, the young trees are springing 
 thick. The acreage of its cut is so small 
 that there is not much danger of fire, and 
 if fire is kept out, the forest will soon re- 
 establish itself. 
 
XII 
 
 ON STRANGERS 
 
 Whenever you see a dust through the 
 trees, you look first to make sure it is not 
 raised by stray cattle. Then when you are 
 certain of your horse and man, you start a 
 fire in the little stove. That is an invariable 
 rule in the mountains. 
 
 The logic is simple, unanswerable, and 
 correct. The presence of the man argues that 
 he has ridden from some distant point, for 
 here all points are more or less distant ; and 
 the fact in turn proves that somewhat of 
 exercise and space of time have intervened 
 since last he has eaten. Therefore, no matter 
 what the time of day, you feed him. It 
 works out like a mathematical formula. 
 
 Similarly in other camps, after you have 
 chatted for a few moments, some one will 
 
 ISO 
 
ON STRANGERS 181 
 
 slip quietly away. A sound of splitting 
 crackles, a thin, fragrant smoke odour enters 
 your nostrils. After an interval there is 
 brought to you a lunch to which your atten- 
 tion is invited. The lunch varies from beans 
 on a tin plate and rank coffee in a tin cup, 
 to tea and yeast-bread, and gooseberry jelly 
 and layer cake, according to whose camp you 
 may happen to be in. But its welcome is 
 the same, and you find yourself responding 
 avidly at ten o'clock in the morning to the 
 cordial invitation, " eat hearty." Such is 
 mountain hospitality and mountain conven- 
 tion. It is as much a matter of course as 
 the urban ring at the door bell, and is no 
 more to be omitted than the offer of a chair. 
 
 '' Light and rest yo' hat " ; " Eat hearty " ; 
 " Take care of yoreself." These three speeches 
 can cover the entire gamut of good-fellowship 
 — ^greeting, entertainment, and good-bye. 
 
 It must be repeated; one knows fewer 
 people in the wilderness, but he knows them 
 better. He has leisure to walk all around 
 them, to appraise them, sound their depths, 
 
132 THE CABIN 
 
 and make up his mind about them. In 
 crowded centres one is apt to know types and 
 the examples thereof; here one knows in- 
 dividuals. 
 
 Perhaps a little more philosophy might be 
 permitted. The city has certain work to 
 be done — street-cars to drive, elevators to 
 run, horses to conduct, papers to sell, shirts 
 to make. To accomplish it she possesses 
 millions of hands. A slight push from each 
 pair will accomplish the task. So we see 
 men whose vitality is low, whose vices are 
 many, whose working days are few, whose 
 capacities are scant, filling well enough neces- 
 sary industrial positions. A man can get 
 drunk, sober up, and still wash windows and 
 sweep the office. The headache is uncom- 
 fortable ; the task nevertheless is done. That 
 is because it is a single task, a simple task, 
 an invariable task. For all other needs the 
 city has other hands. A feeble push at the 
 wheel is unavailing. Multiplied by a million, 
 the wheel turns. 
 
 So we constantly see wrecks of men, 
 
ON STRANGERS 133 
 
 sodden with drink, eaten with disease, ener- 
 vated with vice, taking somehow their small 
 part in the life of the city, and receiving 
 therefrom their living, such as it is. The 
 city makes them what they are, but it per- 
 mits them at least to subsist. Elsewhere 
 they would not last a week. When they 
 drop, at the end of a greater or lesser period 
 of efficiency, there are plenty of others to 
 take their places. The triumphant vitality 
 of the city is unlowered. Its mighty works 
 go on, so that in ten years it has built, 
 cleansed, developed wonderful and titanic 
 things. But the average vitality and effici- 
 ency of its individuals are throughout very 
 low. 
 
 In a new country, on the other hand, a 
 man must be strong, healthy, and self- 
 reliant. It is not sufficient that he acquire 
 the ability to punch holes, certain that for 
 all time the man next — or one like him — 
 will stick in the rivet, and the man beyond 
 tap with the hammer. Such partial activi- 
 ties would here avail him little. He is not 
 
134 THE CABIN 
 
 a finger or an arm or an eye or any other 
 single member of an industrial body ; he 
 is the industrial body itself. If he wants 
 a thing riveted, he must know how to 
 rivet. 
 
 And since riveting is not the only thing 
 necessary to life, he must possess reserves 
 of vitality beyond the tap of the hammer. 
 He must be healthy, free from the corrod- 
 ing vices. When he loses his vigour, he 
 loses his chance. His community, scattered, 
 miserly of men, needs his whole ability. It 
 is not satisfied with part, and if he deliber- 
 ately withholds himself, it soon dispenses 
 with him entirely. 
 
 Of course it would be a stupid argument 
 that would claim all virtue for the country. 
 That is not the purpose of this homily. 
 The foregoing remarks may be more clearly 
 understood when you focus them in this 
 manner : 
 
 In settled communities it is of course 
 both impossible and undesirable to welcome 
 all comers. Sheer weight of numbers would 
 
ON STRANGERS 185 
 
 preclude acquaintance with everybody, even 
 were that desirable. As a matter of fact, 
 it is not. The exceptional humanitarian 
 may see some interest in the Jones-Brown- 
 Robinson flat-dwellers or commuters with 
 their narrow, stuffy interests, their rubber 
 plants, their small circle of friends, and 
 their appalling boredom. Most of us are 
 thoroughly satiated after the first dreary 
 meeting. We prefer to pick our friends 
 according to our tastes, and we do so. Thus 
 we have an enjoyable time, but we are apt 
 to narrow our sympathies. 
 
 Out of civilisation, however, it is possible 
 to meet and enjoy every passer-by. Some 
 are more interesting than others. And some 
 are dangerously close to being utter repro- 
 bates and scalawags. But one and all are 
 vital, otherwise they would not exist. In 
 the course of a season one meets the com- 
 ponents of a social cosmos, at close range, 
 sympathetically, on a common ground of 
 equality. Thus one acquires several new 
 points of view. Once in Arizona, while 
 
186 THE CABIN 
 
 following the chuck-wagon for the experi- 
 ence, Billy was quite taken with the appear- 
 ance, the manner, and the conversation of 
 one of the cowboys. After she got to know 
 him quite well, we informed her of the 
 known fact that he was a cattle rustler and 
 train robber. Since then she has had a 
 modified though somewhat puzzled opinion 
 of hold-ups. 
 
 Again, we were camped on an old for- 
 gotten trail above one of the tremendous 
 canons of the Sierra Nevada. About even- 
 ing a man with two pack animals drifted 
 in and made camp. His being there puzzled 
 me. The trail had long since been super- 
 seded by another several miles shorter. No 
 way led from the upper canon through this 
 particular meadow. Unless he had made 
 a deliberate detour, I could not imagine 
 why he had hit that old trail. Voicing 
 these cogitations to Billy, she offered an 
 easy solution. 
 
 " Go over and ask him," said she. 
 
 "And perhaps he has ^ band of sheep 
 
ON STRANGERS 137 
 
 trespassing up in the ledges — or a prospect 
 this side the minarets — or some other good 
 reason. It isn't polite to ask people things," 
 I replied. 
 
 « Oh, dear ! " lamented Billy, '' I don't 
 think I'll ever get used to this Western 
 watch - the - other - fellow - to - see - if - he's - going- 
 to-hit-you-first way. Now I should have 
 asked him straight out, if I were a man." 
 
 " And got into trouble," said I. 
 
 For it most decidedly is not polite to ask 
 a man his business or where he is from. 
 When a stranger shows up out of a howling 
 wilderness, a great desire fills your soul to 
 know all about him, and whence he comes, 
 and how far it is, and whether the trail is 
 rough, and whether he's had fishing, or 
 killed a deer, and all the rest of it. That 
 is natural. But you must not. 
 
 And therefore your powers of observation 
 grow on you. No detail of equipment 
 escapes your eye. Sherlock Holmes would 
 have enjoyed comparing notes with a good 
 Westerner. One sizes up his man and his 
 
138 THE CABIN 
 
 j^utfit and draws his conclusions, silently. 
 If there is no reason for concealment, a few 
 logs of wood blazing and an ounce of 
 tobacco glowing will bring the fact out. 
 Our man had heard that the old trail 
 existed, and he thought he'd try it — that 
 was all. 
 
 Occasionally it is exceedingly difficult to 
 keep "tongues off." Billy, Wes and I were 
 camped near the main crest. We were 
 about as far from rail-roads, towns, and 
 settlements as it is physically possible to 
 get. At sundown a horseman rode in. 
 
 " How's chances for feeding my horse and 
 me ? " he asked. 
 
 "There's the meadow," said I, "and I 
 guess we can manage to rustle you a little 
 grub." 
 
 He unsaddled and turned his horse loose, 
 joined us at supper and breakfast, resaddled, 
 and departed. 
 
 There was nothing unusual in that. But 
 note this : he had no blankets, no grub, no 
 slicker, not even a tin cup. He was at 
 
ON STRANGERS 139 
 
 least four days' ride from the nearest house. 
 Moreover, he was heavily armed with a 
 carbine and two Colts. 
 
 We talked on indifferent subjects all the 
 evening. He made no mention of his errand 
 or where he was from, or how he subsisted, 
 or whither he was going. So we did not 
 ask. In the morning he caught up his horse, 
 saddled him, and approached me. 
 
 " How much ? " he inquired laconically, 
 thrusting his hand in his pocket. 
 
 ^^ Nothing." 
 
 *^ You're the first folks I've seen that 
 didn't take all the traffic would bear," said 
 he, drawing his hand out again. "Them 
 trout tasted pretty good." 
 
 "You must have been in the valley," I 
 suggested, for I knew mountain hospitality 
 too well to suspect it. 
 
 " I have," said he grimly, " — and then 
 some. ' ' He looked up at me keenly. " That's 
 where I ate last, three days back." 
 
 While he was tightening his cinch pre- 
 paratory to departure, he told me his story 
 
140 THE CABIN 
 
 in little jerks. Evidently he had been sizing 
 us up ever since the first moment he had 
 hit our camp. 
 
 He was a sheriff, from Goldfields, in pur- 
 suit of two horse-thieves. He had left at 
 a moment's notice, without preparation. The 
 trail had led him over the desert, one hundred 
 and ten miles of it, across the great ranges 
 twice, now back again. He trusted to luck 
 for food. 
 
 " I've had pretty good luck," said he. 
 " I'll get 'em yet." 
 
 But often and often inscrutable visitors 
 will sit all evening at your camp-fire, discuss 
 with you the country, the trails, politics, 
 mining and the county supervisors, only to 
 leave you next day none the wiser as to 
 their identity, their business, or even their 
 names. 
 
XIll 
 OUR NEIGHBOURS 
 
 The Cabin is not on one of the highways 
 of the mountains. Our trail leads nowhere 
 but to ourselves. One thoroughly conver- 
 sant with the turnings of the Ridge and its 
 numerous canons will here find a short cut 
 to the Shuteye country, but these people 
 are few. Nevertheless, down our road in 
 the course of the season many and varied 
 visitors find their way. 
 
 There are the Rangers, of course. The 
 summer headquarters of the Supervisor are 
 at the other end of the Ridge. Thence 
 come the men of the Forest Service on their 
 varied business. We know them all, and 
 like them, and are always glad to see their 
 ponies sidling up to our hitch rail. The 
 summer is their busy season. All the mani- 
 
142 THE CABIN 
 
 fold business of the Forest is pacing its 
 swiftest. Fire fighting, sometimes sixty hours 
 at a stretch, trail and bridge building, the 
 regulation of grazing, the watch for trespass, 
 the sale of timber, the constant supervision 
 of all the special privileges the National 
 Forests now offer the public, the compila- 
 tion of reports, all keep them riding and 
 working all day and every day. When a 
 few hours' leisure offers, they string barbed 
 wire around their pastures and build posts, 
 cabins, corrals. Constantly they are meet- 
 ing new emergencies, new people, new ideas. 
 They develop rapidly. In three years a raw 
 mountain boy, or a youth callow from the 
 forest schools, has turned to a quiet, steady- 
 eyed, self-reliant, toughened piece of steel 
 and whalebone capable of and enthusiastic 
 for any duty to forward his beloved Service. 
 
 That is, if he sticks. It is a constant source 
 of interest and amusement to contemplate 
 the weeding-out process. Each year brings 
 its crop of recruits. The newcomer generally 
 cherishes a hazy idea that a Ranger's chief 
 
OUR NEIGHBOURS 143 
 
 duty is to ride abroad pleasantly on patrols, 
 to count rings in tree- stumps, and to see 
 that everybody obeys regulations. Ten to 
 one he is set at stretching barbed wire, or 
 splitting cedar posts, or digging holes, or 
 handling large jagged rocks. When his hands 
 are all cut and skinned, his muscles sore, and 
 his back tired, he is called to ride a hasty six 
 hours to a large hot fire on a side hill. Here 
 he works for two days in a broiling sun, 
 over broiling coals, with little water, and 
 perhaps no food. He gets faint, finally sick. 
 He tells the Head Ranger these painful 
 facts, and is surprised to discover that he is 
 expected to go ahead anyway. Other men 
 are working methodically, as a matter of 
 course, when they are so dry that their 
 tongues swell, and so tired that they stagger. 
 When that fire is corralled, all ride back 
 home again. Our new Ranger goes to bed 
 to sleep it off. After a few hours he is 
 awakened and told of another fire in another 
 direction— a bigger fire than the last. He 
 is filled with consternation. 
 
144 THE CABIN 
 
 "We're dead!" he cries. "We can't do 
 anything more ! " 
 
 " We've got to," is his reply. 
 
 Of course this is the rough end, but the 
 rough end of rangering presents itself oftener 
 than the smooth middle. At the end of 
 the season our youngster — if he sticks — has 
 been literally tried by fire. He looks with 
 contempt on what he used to consider hard 
 work. And if furthermore he can develop 
 intelligence, tact, and resourcefulness in 
 dealing with men, and an ability to get on 
 with his fellows, he is in a fair way to become 
 a good Ranger. About one out of four 
 succeeds. 
 
 And the other three depart, their souls 
 filled with a great disgust, their delusions 
 dissolved, their faith in humanity shaken. 
 One function only have they served — that of 
 supplying those of sterner quality with the 
 material for camp-fire jokes. Rangers have 
 been known wickedly to sympathise night 
 after night with the terrible woes of a novice 
 with the sole purpose of drawing those woes 
 
OUR NEIGHBOURS 145 
 
 into speech. And sympathy goes far toward 
 loosening the tongue of a youngster whose 
 feet are sore, whose back is lame, and whose 
 poor hands are full of barbed- wire punctures. 
 
 The men who remain three years in the 
 Service are generally there to stay. They 
 are filled with an enthusiasm hard to under- 
 stand until you have ridden and worked with 
 them, studied their problems, and shared 
 their triumphs. In the old days when the 
 Land Office was in charge and appropriations 
 few, it was no unusual thing for a Ranger 
 to spend up to half his monthly salary for 
 necessary tools he could procure in no other 
 way. Now that the Bureau of Forestry has 
 substituted an honest and efficient administra- 
 tion for the old regime, the same spirit mani- 
 fests itself. A certain Sub-ranger, with wife 
 and children to support, was promoted to 
 Ranger with an increase of three hundred 
 dollars a year. A friend congratulated him 
 on his raise in salary. 
 
 ^' Damn the pay ! " rejoined the Ranger ; 
 " it's getting rid of that ' sub.' " 
 
146 THE CABIN 
 
 Every once in a while these men make up 
 their minds to resign. They never do. The 
 reason for the resolution is generally this : 
 
 When the Land Office was in charge, the 
 income from the National Forests was about 
 $60,000 a year. Then Congress howled 
 wildly about having to appropriate for their 
 support some $400,000. Under the Bureau 
 of Forestry the income jumped rapidly to 
 over a million and a half. Did Congress 
 allow this fund to remain long at the disposal 
 of the Service ? Not noticeably ! It promptly 
 passed a bill turning all receipts from the 
 National Forests into the General Treasury. 
 Then it calmly went on appropriating lesser 
 and more inadequate amounts. All along 
 the line the Service is crippled for lack of 
 funds ; and yet it is turning in yearly to the 
 National Treasury four or five times what it 
 receives as an allowance.^ 
 
 So when a Supervisor, by forethought, hard 
 work, and crafty planning, makes a good 
 
 ^ Conditions in this respect have gradually improved since 
 the above was written. There is room for plenty now ! 
 
OUR NEIGHBOURS 147 
 
 showing with twenty-five men, his reward 
 is not opportunity of extending his field or 
 carrying out broader ideas. He is told that 
 as he can do so much with twenty-five men, 
 his force during the coming year will be 
 reduced to twenty. Encouraging, isn't it ? 
 Then he gets blue, and frames his resignation. 
 About that time some one rides in to tell him 
 that somebody's running a donkey engine 
 without spark arresters, or that Cook's cattle 
 are trespassing, or that Smith wants a con- 
 tract for shake timber. In the meantime, 
 lightning has started a fire over by Chiquito. 
 So he spreads his twenty men thin, and tells 
 every one to hustle, and forgets that resigna- 
 tion. 
 
 This particular Forest Supervisor lives 
 three miles from us, under big firs and sugar 
 pines, and before a wide meadow. His 
 headquarters have grown from small be- 
 ginnings. Here a room has been added, 
 there an office. Gradually the proud living- 
 room, in which some years ago we used to sit 
 around a roaring fire, has been overshadowed 
 
148 THE CABIN 
 
 until now it is used as a store-room. A wide 
 verandah under the roof, or a three-sided 
 room — whichever you please — is edged by a 
 tiny bubbling stream. From it rises a stair 
 to a Juliet balcony. The kitchen is entirely 
 detached, and has no roof. Although thus 
 the mistress is likely to acquire pollen and fir 
 needles in her coffee, she also sweetens labour 
 with a sight of green trees, blue sky and 
 yellow sunlight. Beyond, in fragrant azaleas, 
 is a tool-house ; across a ravine is a barn. 
 This must be reached ; so a substantial rustic 
 bridge spans the gulf. When a thing has 
 been needed, it has been built. The great 
 solemn woods are full of surprises, pleasant 
 ones always. 
 
 And as the place has grown, so has the 
 community. When you visit the Forest 
 Supervisor, you pitch your tent in the cedars, 
 tap the flume of water, and dispose your 
 household gods to suit yourself. One has a 
 little growing cedar tree next his bunk. 
 On this he hangs things, and thus has 
 a Christmas tree all the summer through. 
 
OUR NEIGHBOURS 149 
 
 As more people come, the boundaries are 
 extended. Already outposts have pushed 
 down across the creek, over the hill. 
 
 All sorts of people are to be met. Rangers 
 are continually riding in and out — mountain 
 men, graduates of the universities, all mould- 
 ing to the same type. They have their 
 reports to make, their instructions to get. 
 Inspectors visit for weeks at a time, men from 
 Washington, widely travelled, cultivated, in- 
 tensely in earnest. Technical men pursue 
 their varied and interesting investigations, 
 timber, entomology, grasses, roots, sociology 
 — everything to which a scientific mind gives 
 its attention. They come with their assist- 
 ants and their outfits, and stay a week or so 
 at a time. One learns more from a college 
 professor here than in college. If there are 
 Rangers enough in, there is a big bonfire 
 some evening, and the scientist talks. And 
 always the men of the mountains are there 
 with suggestion, complaint, inquiry, business 
 to proffer. They hitch their saddle animals 
 to a tree; the pack horses stand patiently 
 
150 THE CABIN 
 
 with down-drooping heads. Spurs clanking, 
 they walk gingerly across the verandah and 
 into the office. For a time the drawl of their 
 voices is heard. After a while they come 
 forth, mount their animals, and ride away. 
 Cattle trespass, free use of timber, timber 
 sales, mining claims, water rights, pasturage, 
 roads, trails, cordwood — anything and every- 
 thing may have been their business. Lastly 
 are the tourists, the campers, on their way 
 through to the big country. Most of them 
 are worth meeting, as they come from all 
 classes, from all corners of the world outside. 
 Sometimes they are amusing or even irritat- 
 ing in their ignorance. They cannot under- 
 stand why they should not put their animals 
 in the meadow. 
 
 "It's public property," they argue: and 
 then go away to spread the gospel of bitter- 
 ness. This is now to be noted in regard to 
 opposition, little or big, to the Forest Service 
 as at present conducted ; it springs invariably 
 from selfish interest, whether a petty indig- 
 nation at refusal of horse-feed absolutely 
 
OUR NEIGHBOURS 151 
 
 necessary to the public business, or the con- 
 certed efforts of men like Fulton, Clark, 
 Heyburn, and their ilk in the Senate to serve 
 the land-grabbing interests. 
 
 Over all these varied and sometimes incom- 
 patible people our Supervisor rules easily by 
 reason of his tact, his knowledge of human 
 nature, the absolute unselfishness of his pur- 
 poses, and his deep personal humility. He 
 is my friend, and it is ungracious to appraise 
 a friend: but I hope this slight tribute to 
 a disinterested public official may not be 
 amiss. 
 
 Like most strong, efficient, and enthusiastic 
 men, our Supervisor retains a great deal of the 
 small boy in his composition. Thus in case 
 of a celebration his mind naturally reacts in 
 the direction of bonfires. If the forester is 
 due for a visit, or the Technical Assistant is 
 presented with a baby, or the land-grabbers 
 lose a fight in the Senate, or old Jones finally 
 comes to time in regard to the trespass matter, 
 or it's Fourth of July, or one of the Rangers' 
 kids has a birthday, or somebody feels espe- 
 
152 THE CABIN 
 
 cially happy or anything — why, everybody 
 must come to the bonfire ! 
 
 They are real bonfires ; none of your Uttle 
 haphazard piles of brush and sticks ! First a 
 tall post is planted. Around it, wigwam 
 fashion, are stacked split poles of pitch pine. 
 Outside them, ends up, are other poles, logs, 
 and miscellaneous fuel as much as can be 
 placed. When the affair is fired, the flames 
 leap straight up fifty feet. At a distance, a 
 most respectful distance, we sit, some on 
 benches, most on logs or on the ground. For 
 a time the fascination of that roaring, waving 
 pillar of flame is sufficient. The sparks flying 
 upward in the good old scriptural way, the 
 leaping heat waves, the tongues of flame 
 reaching like licking tongues through the hot 
 gases of the fire, the shadows dancing in and 
 out of the circle of illumination like mischiev- 
 ous boys, the half-revealments of the gigantic 
 trees out in the darkness, all hold the gather- 
 ing contemplative and silent. But after a 
 time conversation begins. Simple refresh- 
 ments pass, pipes and cigarettes glow. Then 
 
OUR NEIGHBOURS 153 
 
 the Supervisor likes to read aloud. He holds 
 the real attention of every member of the 
 miscellaneous crowd. After every sentence 
 or so, he interpolates comment of his own. 
 Whatever is foreign to the Sierras, he inter- 
 prets in terms of these mountains. It is a 
 treat to hear him read " The Ballad of East 
 and West" to the Rangers. Each phrase 
 has its running comment. 
 
 ''' — and a raw red roan was he' — that's 
 like that old horse of yours, Jim ; he wasn't 
 much for looks, but that colour is tough. 
 Kipling knew what he was about when he 
 selected that type." 
 
 Or a little later : 
 
 "* — the snick of the breech blocks more like 
 our army rifles, you see. Bolt action. I 
 don't think much of that for ambush work. 
 Winchesters wouldn't make such a racket." 
 
 So it went. The trail, the weapons, the 
 animals, the men — all were plucked from the 
 half-mythical, wholly unreal East and trans- 
 lated into things these men handled every day 
 of their lives. The drama of the poem was 
 
154 THE CABIN 
 
 no longer merely academic ; it became alive. 
 He snapped shut the book. 
 
 "How about it, John?" he demanded. 
 " Do you believe it ? Would you have done 
 it that way, or would you have fetched him 
 a clip side o' the ear for being foolish ? " 
 
 Dazzled by the light of the now sullen 
 coals we stumbled through the velvet dark 
 to our waiting horses. The animals snorted 
 softly. We rode home through the dim 
 forest, unfamiliar with the night. The horses 
 knew the way. Only overhead were the 
 glorious heavens, crackling with the brilliant 
 stars of the high altitudes. 
 
XIV 
 
 THE GUEST CAMP 
 
 It is a very simple matter to have guests at 
 the Cabin. We all sleep out under the trees ; 
 and there are plenty of trees. Up to the 
 number of two or three we feed our visitors — 
 and make them help wash the dishes. If 
 more come, we pass them our camp cook 
 outfit; show them the lower spring; and 
 leave them to their own devices. 
 
 Of regular, invited guests, asked from 
 home and met at the stage terminal, we have 
 had very few. It is a little difficult to guess 
 how people will take doing their own laundry 
 and going without sheets. A few choice 
 spirits have made the four-day struggle to get 
 here, and have professed themselves pleased. 
 One was an artist. He constructed a terrace, 
 three turnstiles, a section of rail fence, helped 
 
 156 
 
156 THE CABIN 
 
 build the barn and put together a fine wash- 
 bench. The nearest approach to his pro- 
 fession was the accomplishment of four 
 stained-glass panes for one of our windows. 
 He pasted heavy bond paper over the glass, 
 and then with watercolours evolved the most 
 fantastic and ridiculous heraldic devices for 
 each of the four of us. The effect was quite 
 perfect, for he even imitated the uneven tint- 
 ing caused in the genuine article by the 
 varying thickness of the glass. Beyond that 
 he did not lay brush to canvas. This artist, 
 a girl friend of Billy's, my father and brother, 
 are so far the only " brought-in " guests. 
 
 But of others there have been many. 
 Every once in a while we run across people 
 prowling about the Sierras, out for a summer 
 vacation, because they like it. That very 
 fact goes far toward making them eligible for 
 the Guest Camp. If we like them, we ask 
 them up for a week or two. Thus we have 
 gained new and valuable friends without the 
 usual, sometimes fruitless labour of search- 
 ing through multitudes of acquaintances for 
 
THE GUEST CAMP 157 
 
 them. The love of the mountains does the 
 sifting for us. From all parts of the country 
 they come, east and west — young girls and 
 their brothers, college professors and their 
 wives, boys just out of school, travellers, just 
 plain people. They are varied enough in 
 occupation, in training, in age, in social con- 
 dition, but they all pass fearlessly by Theo- 
 philus's challenging sign. Did I tell you of 
 that ? It faces the Trail, so that all who run 
 thereon must read. It says : 
 
 ''Do you speak the Language of our 
 Tribe?'' 
 
 And sometimes our friends among the 
 mountain people come for a few days, bring- 
 ing their beds, their grub, their horse-feed 
 with them. Aunt Belle, the sawyer's wife, 
 is with us two or three times a season. The 
 boys accompany her, and two or three others 
 whom her kind heart has lifted from the heat 
 of the midsummer for a breath of mountain 
 air. They have camp-fires, and explorations, 
 and great times. Occasionally funny things 
 happen. One party of them went for a ride. 
 
158 THE CABIN 
 
 got lost, hunted for a way out, fell into the 
 dusk of evening, finally decided they must 
 stay out over night. They tied their horses 
 to trees, scraped together beds of yellow pine 
 needles. Finally one of them descended to 
 a creek to get a drink. Somehow a log 
 seemed familiar, though he could not tell 
 why. After a moment his eye caught sight 
 of something white. It was a towel. The 
 party were within fifty feet of our swimming- 
 pool! 
 
 Again, it began to rain just as a party of 
 nine hove in sight. We took them in. For 
 three days the storm raged. We all lived in 
 that little two-roomed cabin, sleeping at night 
 on the floor, roosting any old way in the day- 
 time, rustling firewood, cooking in the fire- 
 place while the grey rent veils of mist swept 
 through the trees and across the meadow. 
 We had the best kind of a time. 
 
 At first visitors suited themselves as to 
 location. Now a fairly definite Guest Camp 
 has been established by a sort of evolutionary 
 process. It is near the lower end of the 
 
THE GUEST CAMP 159 
 
 meadow, quite hidden from the Cabin, on a 
 dry slope among smaller trees. A consider- 
 able space has been fenced in with fir poles. 
 Places for balsam beds are levelled. A 
 framework needs only a saddle-blanket or so 
 tacked up to make a private dressing-room. 
 It has shelves and a bench, and a place for 
 a tiny fire directly in front. The lower 
 spring is near by. Altogether it is very 
 attractive and convenient. The Artist fitted 
 it with swinging gates and dressing-tables and 
 the like. If we could persuade the Artist to 
 come back one of these times, we should soon 
 possess all the comforts of home. And this 
 thought occurs : if thus an artist conducts 
 himself under influence of the great forest, 
 what should we expect from, say, a plumber ? 
 Would his surplus energy manifest itself in 
 improving our water supply ? More likely he 
 would write verse. 
 
 I have spoken of the sifting effect of the 
 mountains. This is strikingly corroborated 
 by the fact that in our five years we have 
 had but two really unwelcome visitors. The 
 
160 THE CABIN 
 
 first was a woman, harmless, well-meaning, 
 angular, vain, elderly, and most abominably- 
 talkative. She came from the Valley and 
 spent the summer within striking distance. 
 Like a rattlesnake, she struck suddenly, but, 
 unlike a rattlesnake, without warning. We 
 found her one afternoon comfortably seated 
 on the verandah. When we came in sight, 
 she began to talk. Her conversation assayed 
 one low-grade idea to the thousand words, and 
 she had five or six hundred ideas which she 
 wished to elucidate before sundown. She 
 was near fifty, but was still kittenishly in the 
 running. One o'clock was the hour of her 
 arrival, and near sundown the time of her 
 reluctant departure. Next time she hove in 
 sight Billy saw her first and dropped behind 
 the brush like a quail. I managed to sneak 
 out of the bedroom window and up the hill 
 to the fir thicket where hangs the hammock. 
 Only the Artist was left, working innocently 
 away at his terrace. From time to time I 
 heard his plaintive calls, and his loudly 
 spoken wonder as to where we could have 
 
Near the lower end of the meadow. 
 
THE GUEST CAMP 161 
 
 gone, and his confident assurances that we 
 would soon be back. In four hours he did 
 this three times ; which, after all, was meagre 
 punctuation to the high-pitched, nasal voice. 
 Finally she left. It still lacked an hour to 
 sundown. I do not know what the Artist 
 did or said to her, but she never called on us 
 again. He was very dignified, and received 
 our hypocrisy with scorn. When we had 
 quite finished, he told Billy he did not con- 
 sider it dignified for her to crawl on her hands 
 and knees behind bushes. 
 
 The other unwelcome visitor was a sheep- 
 man. The grazing through the forest round- 
 about is leased to a limited number of sheep. 
 Ordinarily we do not know of their exist- 
 ence, for they feed in two small bands which 
 are lost among the numberless ravines and 
 defiles of the mountains. 
 
 But one day or another we catch sight 
 of a vulture sailing high up in the blue. 
 By that we know the flocks are approach- 
 ing, for only with the bleating multitudes 
 are these cynical keen-eyed scavengers ever 
 
162 THE CABIN 
 
 to be observed in our clean Sierras. Then 
 across the undercurrents of sound, far away, 
 we catch a faint mellow murmuring. Hardly 
 can it be identified as having a definite 
 objective existence. Rather is it like those 
 undervoices one hears amid the roar and 
 dashing of a rapid. Then a faint dust is 
 discernible as a shade of grey against the 
 atmospheric blue of distance. A single blat 
 is carried down wind : a single deep clang 
 from one of the huge musical bells affected 
 by the mountain sheepmen. We hear an 
 elfin barking, then a nearer single crash. 
 Finally the murmurous many-voiced multi- 
 tude is opposite us, on the other hill. We 
 can distinguish, above the steady monotone 
 of the sheep, various calls, the enthusiasm 
 of dogs, an occasional shot. The voice of 
 the flock grows to a crescendo, passes, dies 
 slowly away. The grey dust-haze settles. 
 Again we hear our Hermit Thrushes and 
 our streams. 
 
 The owner of the sheep at the time of 
 which I speak was an old-timer of the 
 
THE GUEST CAMP 163 
 
 autocratic and patriarchal type. Generous, 
 good-natured, big of frame and jolly of 
 demeanour, he was the soul of good-fellow- 
 ship — as long as his will was not crossed 
 nor his purpose opposed. But through all 
 his life he had absolutely ruled his little 
 community. His women obeyed him; his 
 sons he ruled even into middle age; and 
 his neighbours he succeeded in overawing 
 by a certain abundant vitality and fierceness 
 of rage. Add to this the fact that he had 
 come early to the mountains before rules 
 and regulations were dreamed of and that 
 he had fought, and fought successfully, 
 through a great many cattle wars and over 
 a great many trespasses. 
 
 He had sent up a relative of his, also 
 an old-timer, to oversee his sheep herders. 
 By the way, there are no shepherds in the 
 West — the term is too scriptural and digni- 
 fied in its connotations to apply to these 
 men. They are always sheep herders. This 
 second old-timer was a fat man, brimful of 
 steaming energy. He would waddle and 
 
164 THE CABIN 
 
 puff and stew breathlessly up the steepest 
 slopes — but he arrived. He had a choleric 
 blue eye and a hearty disposition. Common 
 report said he had been considered an un- 
 desirable by the Canadian Mounted Police. 
 Certainly the directest way to an explosion 
 was by mention of that body. His ideas 
 were those of the old-fashioned sheepman: 
 get feed; it doesn't matter how or where, 
 but get it. This class has made plenty of 
 trouble, both for itself and for the govern- 
 ment officials. 
 
 Naturally our little hundred acres were 
 excluded from grazing. Nevertheless, it 
 proved to be a constant struggle to keep 
 the sheep off. The herders were Basques 
 and possessed of a conveniently erratic know- 
 ledge of English. I showed the old-timer 
 the blazed lines. When the sheep grazed 
 over the boundaries, however, he was con- 
 veniently absent. On his return he was 
 volubly sorry: it was a mistake by those 
 stupid Basques — but the sheep had the feed. 
 We went away for two weeks, but returned 
 
THE GUEST CAMP 165 
 
 at the end of ten days. The sheep were 
 feeding in our front dooryard, and the 
 herders were lying stretched out by our cabin 
 gate. I rode up and ordered them off. 
 Two of the Basques failed to understand 
 even vigorous sign language. The third 
 looked me up and down. 
 
 "I t'ink they more of us as you," said 
 he. " We go bimeby." 
 
 He had failed to take in all my equip- 
 ment. I thrust the holster of my Colt's 
 to the front. 
 
 " All right ! I go ! I go ! I go ! " he cried 
 hastily. 
 
 They went. After an interval of some 
 weeks I spread the news that I was going 
 away again. I did not. Two days later, 
 just after daylight, the flocks poured over 
 our ridge. That time I " threw a scare " 
 into the Basques that lasted out the season. 
 Also I wrote to the sheep-owner informing 
 him of the facts, and requesting him to 
 issue definite instructions to his men. 
 
 Then came the delicious part of the 
 
166 THE CABIN 
 
 whole episode. This sheep-owner, unsus- 
 pected, must have consumed vast quantities 
 of Deadwood Dick, the Duchess, Ouida, and 
 Fourth-of-July orations. I received eventu- 
 ally an epistle from him which was worth 
 all the bother. The man is probably fifty- 
 five years old, well off, of a good educa- 
 tion, and with wide experience. Yet his 
 letter was that of a boy of twelve. Oh, it 
 was well enough spelled and written ! But 
 the sentiment. He spoke of ''rich men's 
 playgrounds " — Billy and I chortled with 
 delight over that — and 'Vnever will I bend 
 the knee to arrogant wealth " ; and " no 
 minion of plutocrats" and the like, until 
 Billy and I had to look again at our 
 bank-book to see if the iridescent dream 
 might not be true. He ended with a 
 patriotic burst about American citizenship. 
 If his sense of satisfaction over this effort 
 half equalled our joy over its grandilo- 
 quence, his ruffled spirit must have been 
 soothed. 
 
 All this looked mildly like war. But 
 
THE GUEST CAMP 167 
 
 some of his men managed to set fire to 
 the woods near one of their camps. Fortu- 
 nately, Billy and I happened to pass that 
 way. We corralled the fire while it was 
 yet small. The whole affair did not impress 
 the Company favourably. The sheep-owner's 
 lease was not renewed. A Frenchman took 
 his place ; and all has since gone well. 
 
XV 
 
 THE RIDGE 
 
 Opposing desires tug gently at us all the 
 time. The fascination of the Cabin, the 
 delight in labour, the wish tc^ get things 
 accomplished tend to keep us at home : 
 the delights of exploration call us abroad. 
 We cannot well do both. 
 
 It is remarkable how quickly human 
 nature makes for itself an environment in 
 which to try its powers and spin out its 
 petty destinies. There is no real reason 
 why we should finish our meadow ditches, 
 our rail fences, our trails, our graded road 
 now — or ever, for that matter. We are 
 very comfortable here; we lack nothing 
 essential. Yet each day we rise to a 
 joyous anticipation of new accomplishment. 
 When it is suggested that we go fishing, 
 
 168 
 
THE RIDGE 169 
 
 or explore the mountain toward the old 
 Sage Mill, or take ten days for an excur- 
 sion into the big country — we "haven't 
 time ! " I wonder if that excuse seems as 
 real, and is as foolish, to the thousands of 
 others all over the world who are making 
 it believingly and perhaps a little wist- 
 fully. 
 
 Now we are possessed of two good legs 
 apiece ; a saddle horse each ; and a pack 
 mule between us. With these advantages 
 over our friends the sugar pines we can 
 accomplish much. We can ramble out on 
 tours of discovery. The objects of these 
 discoveries may be new pools in the creek, 
 new birds' nests under the ferns, new know- 
 ledge of the intimate twists and turns, the 
 glens and glades and hollows, the peaks and 
 vistas of our own pine-clad range ; — or they 
 may be, as once this summer, the finding, 
 away back among the chaos of the snow 
 peaks, in the awful gorge of a box canon 
 thousands of feet deep, some wide pine flat 
 with a brook bubbling through, and a natural 
 
170 THE CABIN 
 
 pasture in a pocket of the ledges, and pools 
 across which no angler's fly had ever fallen, 
 and from which the big trout leaped in 
 countless numbers. From here to the top 
 of our knoll is a half-mile swarming with 
 interesting doodlebugs, birds, and plants: 
 the Sierras are eighty miles or so wide, five 
 hundred long, and, except on the edges, 
 uninhabited, wild, tremendous. In these 
 two facts rest all the possibilities. 
 
 Of course we know our own range in- 
 timately — all its water- courses, plateaus, 
 ravines, canons, peaks, and hidden meadows. 
 It is about seven or eight miles long — 
 before it merges into Shuteye — and pro- 
 bably two broad. The forest is magnifi- 
 cent and almost unbroken. Whiskey Creek 
 runs nearly its length, on a wide sloping 
 shelf below the highest ridge. From it 
 are tributaries, short, tortuous, rapid. From 
 this fact, and the impossibility of gaining 
 a bird's-eye view over the forest growth, 
 it is exceedingly difficult at first to get the 
 lay of the country. Under the trees a 
 
THE RIDGE 171 
 
 ridge-top will coax you insensibly farther 
 and farther around to the south or west 
 until at last you emerge at a most unex- 
 pected point. A man considerably practised 
 in mental visualisation of topographical 
 features will soon get the logic of it all. 
 One not so accustomed, however, would 
 wander far out of his way. He would 
 never get lost, in the sense that somebody 
 would have to undertake his recovery; but 
 he would be considerably — well, delayed. 
 
 There are about a dozen major meadows 
 on the Ridge, all exceedingly beautiful 
 save the one where the little mill stands. 
 Besides these, are innumerable ^' stringers " 
 and tiny pockets of rich feed where the 
 range cattle and the deer can stand knee- 
 deep in bliss. There are bold granite 
 ridges, and unbroken rock sheets cover- 
 ing many acres, and little stunted trees 
 growing low and twisted. There are wide 
 hillsides warm in the sun, covered with 
 snow brush and manzanita and chinquapin. 
 There are thickets of young pines and 
 
172 THE CABIN 
 
 the depths of willows. There are broad 
 forests and shady dells ; waterfalls, rapids, 
 deep still pools, glades where the fairies 
 must dance every moonlight night. All 
 the wonder and variety of the woodland 
 and the peaks are here. And every once 
 in a while you come upon a sheltered, 
 shaded, intimate nook, screened with dog- 
 wood, carpeted with moss, flecked with 
 sunlight, musical with birds, watered by 
 a tiny thread of a streamlet, murmurous 
 with buzzing insects, where you can forget, 
 if that pleases you, all the grandeurs and 
 the solitudes. 
 
 Of course we learned all these things 
 gradually. No single and determined ex- 
 ploration could do more than establish the 
 shortest routes between various points. 
 That is something. When we first came 
 to the Ridge, and before we had any 
 notion of settling down here, we rode 
 idly, for the moment's pleasure, without 
 much attention at direction, until it was 
 time to return to camp. On one such 
 
THE RIDGE 173 
 
 excursion we emerged from the woods 
 into a gem of a round meadow encom- 
 passed by a rim fifty feet or so high. 
 We rode up over the rim and home 
 again. That meadow was then only one 
 of the hundreds we had seen in these 
 mountains, and speedily it blurred to a 
 memory of a beautiful thing detached from 
 all practical details of location. Later, 
 after we had built the Cabin and settled 
 down, the picture of that green cup re- 
 turned to us. In our rides and walks 
 we constantly expected once more to 
 emerge on the steep perfect semicircle of 
 the rim, to look down again on the 
 peaceful, still emerald sward. Our ex- 
 pectations were vain. One after the other 
 we canvassed the meadow possibilities, so 
 to speak. For the formation of these 
 mountain meadows depends on certain 
 well-defined conditions. Knowing those 
 conditions you know where to look for 
 a meadow. We found many, but never 
 the one. Gradually the idea of it fell into 
 
174 THE CABIN 
 
 the background. We remembered it as 
 one remembers the features of a dream, 
 or of some natural object seen in earliest 
 childhood, when such matters are isolated, 
 before they have fallen into an orderly- 
 sequence of memory. The picture was 
 distinct but utterly detached. And so 
 after a time it lost its physical reality. 
 The Lost Meadow was something to be 
 dreamed about — and doubted. 
 
 Then one day when I was thinking 
 about something else — in fact I was most 
 busily searching for a section corner placed 
 nearly thirty-five years ago — I rounded a 
 corner of a knoll — and there lay Lost 
 Meadow, peaceful in the sunshine. One 
 could have ridden within a hundred feet 
 of it without seeing it. Perhaps we had 
 done so. It was as beautiful as I remem- 
 bered it; and yet I confess to being deeply 
 chagrined. What is a real meadow com- 
 pared to the dream of one inaccessible? 
 Who would barter the last touch of 
 mystery for a lost reality? What do you 
 
THE RIDGE 175 
 
 suppose the Round Table would have done 
 with the Grail if it had gained it ? 
 
 On that point Billy and I once had 
 something of an argument. I always main- 
 tain that in a landscape there should be 
 left one unexplored vista, preferably over 
 a hill. I want one direction preserved for 
 imagination. If you know what is over 
 all the hills, then where are you going to 
 pasture the flocks of your fancy? In any 
 well-ordered imagination are glades, forests, 
 meadows, and flowers, birds and solemn 
 trees, which are the enchanted land. Some 
 people build castles there. Personally I 
 do not care for castles. They are more 
 fitted to Spanish landscapes; and then, 
 too, they generally hurt like the mischief 
 when they come tumbling about your 
 ears. The enchanted land may be located 
 almost anywhere — tobacco smoke, wood 
 coals, white clouds will do — but there is 
 a substantial advantage in locating it some- 
 where handy, like over a hill. Even the 
 best imagination finds difficulty in trans- 
 
176 THE CABIN 
 
 porting its owner vividly enough to a cloud 
 or into a wood fire. But any of us can 
 wander in fancy up through the trees, over 
 the always fascinating skyline, and plump 
 into the enchanted land. 
 
 If, however, you happen to have been 
 in propria persona over that hill you know 
 the country is already occupied by various 
 more or less interesting things. Two bodies 
 cannot occupy the same space at the same 
 time. Your enchanted land is crowded out. 
 Therefore I repeat, firmly, in every land- 
 scape should be preserved one vista which 
 you do not explore. 
 
 At the Cabin I picked out such a vista. 
 There are two admirably adapted to the 
 purpose, and I hesitated for some time. 
 
 Directly down in front of the Cabin 
 stretches the meadow terminated by aspens 
 and by the green pine forest. During the 
 daytime that forest looks unbroken; but 
 when twilight falls, the planes differentiate 
 themselves. Greens near at hand are dark, 
 those farther away retain still a faint illumi- 
 
THE RIDGE 177 
 
 nation. Thus we can see down through 
 an unsuspected forest aisle to a distant and 
 fairy hillside. When the sun has set, this 
 becomes a light olive-grey in delicate con- 
 trast to the dark olive-greens nearer at hand. 
 The effect is quite magical and charming 
 — a whole mountain - side evoked by the 
 evening. 
 
 And, again in view from the front verandah 
 of the Cabin, but to the left, rises a long 
 gentle slope set with the wonderful straight 
 columns of sugar pines. By chance they grow 
 here in such a manner as to leave an un- 
 obstructed aisle leading straight up the hill. 
 The effect of dwindling distance is helped by 
 the accident of a false perspective — ^the rows 
 of trees grow into a slight convergence. 
 At the very top of the hill a low and 
 delicate screen of brush has been thrown 
 across to close the vista, like the screen of a 
 theatre around which dancers are to appear. 
 The aisle invited one to the spacious strolls 
 of kings. Around the screen of brush lay 
 the magic country. 
 
 U 
 
178 THE CABIN 
 
 I decided finally on this latter. The other 
 required wings wherewith to fly to the fragile 
 distant hillside. Here I could wander idly, 
 each step apparent through the smoke of my 
 after-dinner pipe, up between the columns 
 of the portico to the green screen — and there 
 I was, at home with all the ragtags and 
 bobtails of many desired lands and places ! 
 
 This lasted a month. Then the expected 
 happened. 
 
 *' Let's explore up over the hill to-morrow," 
 Billy suggested. 
 
 I explained carefully why not. It was 
 evening, and the half-light threw mystery 
 down through the long straight aisle. Only, 
 by some freak of opening, the brush screen 
 at the end caught a last shaft of light. It 
 stood out faint green in a species of trans- 
 lucence. As though to emphasise my re- 
 marks, at this moment a deer stepped out 
 from the shadow, stood for a moment before 
 the screen as though appearing on a stage, 
 and faded away into the shadow again. 
 
 "Oh!" cried Billy softly. 
 
THE RIDGE 179 
 
 "You seel" said I. 
 
 But Billy could not see that deer at all 
 as a guardian spirit of the enchanted land. 
 Her argument was that not even an en- 
 chanted land could be as wonderful as the 
 realities of these, our Sierras : that enchanted 
 lands could be easily moved to localities 
 not otherwise desirable, and that therefore 
 it was a shame to deprive ourselves of any 
 possibilities. It ended by our walking up 
 through the aisles of the trees. Of course ! 
 
 Over the brow of the hill lay a little 
 oval of a meadow approached by solemn and 
 austere ranks of trees. The sun shone cheer- 
 fully on the grass: the deep shadows were 
 in the woods. Owing to various willows 
 and the like one could not see into the 
 meadow until directly opposite. 
 
 "This," said Billy decisively, "is a Glade. 
 I've read of them, but I never saw one 
 before." 
 
 We went on. A little farther was a rounded 
 amphitheatre of a smooth, unbroken, con- 
 cave, semicircular hill. It would have seated 
 
180 THE CABIN 
 
 twenty thousand people, or the entire popu- 
 lation of the fairies. In the centre of it a 
 dozen big sugar-pines were giving a masque. 
 They stopped as we came along, and waited 
 aloofly until we had gone by. The audience 
 of big trees and little trees also suspended 
 their attention. We hurried on feeling rather 
 guilty at having interrupted. 
 
 Over the rim of the amphitheatre we came 
 on two old gentlemen with their heads to- 
 gether. They were evidently myrmidons, 
 for only their heads were above the soil. 
 The heroes were gigantic in the old days: 
 the round helmet tops of the old gentlemen 
 were quite ten feet above the ground. They 
 held very still as we went by; and when 
 we looked back they resembled two huge 
 round boulders, close together, all alone in 
 the brown soil of the forest. 
 
 A little farther we found a cave in the 
 base of a huge sugar-pine. The entrance was 
 low, but once inside there was room for us both, 
 and for the dogs. Its bed was dry and soft. 
 It ran up into dimness, like a chimney. We 
 
THE RIDGE 181 
 
 waited some time for the dryad to return ; 
 but as she did not, we finally had to leave 
 without seeing her. 
 
 In all directions were pogsnoggle holes. 
 What are pogsnoggles, and of what appear- 
 ance are their holes ? If ever you find a hole 
 that looks as though it had been made by 
 thrusting a round cane straight into soft 
 earth ; or if ever under an uprooted tree- 
 root you come upon a huge, jagged, crooked 
 opening : and if, moreover, there are no tracks 
 about these holes — then be sure you have 
 come upon the abode of the wily pogsnoggle, 
 male and female. For the sexes live in dif- 
 ferent kinds of holes, and make no tracks. I 
 have never seen a pogsnoggle, but I always 
 look hopefully upon their holes. 
 
 And then, after a time, we came upon 
 a meadow, one of the prettiest of all, large, 
 willow-grown, with a stream, big trees, hills, 
 with green grass and flowers and birds. 
 That is as far as we had time for that 
 day. 
 
 " There," said Billy, as we turned home- 
 
182 THE CABIN 
 
 ward, "can your enchanted land beat 
 that?" 
 
 I am not sure. At any rate my last 
 unexplored vista is gone. For rent cheap, 
 one unlocated homeless and friendless en- 
 chanted land. 
 
XVI 
 
 THE BIG COUNTRY 
 
 Sooner or later we get restless. Then one 
 morning we throw ''the diamond" over 
 the modest pack that suffices us, and are 
 off for the Big Country. Sometimes we 
 carry grub for a month, and are back again 
 inside the week : again we go for a week 
 and are absent several. It all depends. 
 
 The Big Country is very big indeed. 
 Three hours from our Cabin we top Shut- 
 eye Pass and can look abroad over a few 
 hundred square miles of it. From Mt. 
 Lyell on the north, down the sweep of the 
 Minarets, past the Mono Creek divide to 
 Goddard, lying dim at the south, the ordered 
 procession of splintered granite giants capped 
 with eternal snow files by us across the 
 distance. They are blue and airy, and be- 
 
 188 
 
184 THE CABIN 
 
 tween us and them lie deep canons, wide 
 forests, lower ranges, domes, buttes and 
 rivers, yet they are not the top o' the world, 
 but only the outlying rampart. Beyond 
 them still is the Main Crest. And when 
 you fish out your map, you find you are 
 gazing upon but a portion of one quad- 
 rangle, and there are many quadrangles. 
 
 Here, from Shuteye, is the one chance 
 to see the watershed of the Joaquin in 
 general. Hereafter the traveller is involved 
 in smaller problems — the mazes and laby- 
 rinths of woods and mountains, the expedi- 
 ence of trails, the grandeurs of granite and 
 snow. Only occasionally will the giants 
 among which he moves permit him a wide 
 outlook, and then only in certain directions. 
 
 Through the Big Country Billy and I 
 have ridden many times in the course of 
 many seasons, yet we are far from knowing 
 it well. Each year we find new meadows, 
 new camps, new fishing, even new moun- 
 tains. And when we pass on over the 
 ranges to the Merced and Tuolumne water- 
 
The Big Country. 
 
THE BIG COUNTRY 185 
 
 shed on the north or the King's and Kaweah 
 on the south, there opens before us an inex- 
 haustible, beautiful wonderland. In all sorts 
 of company we have ridden. Last year I 
 was out six weeks quite alone, and in that 
 time held mainly to the snow altitudes. 
 Again we started once in a company of 
 sixteen with twenty-nine animals. These 
 people were Rangers and their wives : each 
 group of two or three had its own outfit 
 and did its own cooking: so we journeyed 
 along as independently as though alone, and 
 as merrily as a troupe of minstrels. At the 
 end of a day or so duties began to reduce 
 our number, until at last our own people 
 alone remained, pushing on to a high-up lake 
 where live big trout. 
 
 Throughout each and every trip one has 
 adventures. An adventure in the mountains 
 means anything out of the ordinary — often 
 a discomfort turned inside out. Our Super- 
 visor came in one day to tell us how his horse 
 had fallen in a ford, his supplies and clothes 
 wet through ; and in addition it came dark 
 
186 THE CABIN 
 
 and he had to curl up under a tree until 
 morning. 
 
 " But that was an adventure, wasn't it ? " 
 he cried buoyantly. 
 
 Miss Bailey, too, reported her adventure. 
 Being possessed of an ambition for Indian 
 baskets, she rode down the mountain to a 
 rancheria, but, returning, got lost in the brush. 
 
 " I'd always heard," said she, " that if you 
 gave your liorse his head, he would always 
 take you home. I did so. He walked up 
 to a tree, tucked up one hind leg, and wont 
 to sleep. It took me until dark to find the 
 trail, the sun was hot, and I got all scratched 
 up. But it was quite an adventure, wasn't 
 it?" 
 
 No one can guess what the day may bring 
 forth. You have fully made up your mind 
 to go to the Devil's Post Pile. But after 
 breakfast, when you go out to look for the 
 horses, they have disappeared. The bell is 
 nowhere audible. A wide circle discovers 
 their tracks. These lead straight up the 
 mountain. The stones and dirt are scattered, 
 
THE BIG COUNTRY 187 
 
 and the position of the hoof-marks indicates 
 that the animals were on the keen jump. 
 
 " Stampeded," you remark to yourself, and 
 set about looking for the cause. At the 
 spring is the footprint of a bear. You gaze 
 at it with disgust. 
 
 " If you were a big one, I shouldn't mind," 
 you soliloquise, "but you weren't much 
 bigger than Brudder Bones ! " 
 
 All that day you track horses. Sometimes 
 the trail is as easy to follow as a path. Again 
 you have to use all your skill to spy out the 
 marks of iron on granite. It becomes a game, 
 and an interesting one. When finally you 
 come on the truants standing asleep in some 
 little green stringer, you are quite pleased 
 with yourself, in a way, although you are 
 perfectly well aware that trailing three or 
 four horses anywhere is a very mild feat. 
 Still, it is an adventure. 
 
 Because of adventures it is exceedingly diffi- 
 cult to travel on any sort of schedule. You 
 never can tell what is going to happen to 
 modify your well-laid plans. An unexpected 
 
188 THE CABIN 
 
 depth and softness of snow or an unexpected 
 volume of water may spell long delay. An 
 inch on the map means nothing but un- 
 certainty — an hour or a week indifferently. 
 It took me nine days to go ten miles once. 
 
 But all this is fine camp-fire material. 
 When a party of experienced mountain travel- 
 lers is thus collected, some interesting yarns 
 can be gathered. Adventures are almost 
 always funny as you look back on them, or 
 at least they are strongly leavened by the 
 humorous element. We once went camping 
 with a mighty jolly college professor and his 
 wife. Of course we had our good reliable 
 outfit of animals; but, as naturally, they 
 had to pick up what they could get. Their 
 pack-horse was named Snowball, was white, 
 gaunt, independent, and obstinate. If we 
 all went one side around an obstruction, he 
 generally showed the freedom of his judgment 
 by going the other. He followed all right, 
 but liked to choose his own route. 
 
 That was all very well as long as we were 
 in a forest country where the going was good. 
 
THE BIG COUNTRY 189 
 
 But when we climbed above snowline the 
 case was different. In that sort of travel the 
 leader picks the best way — sometimes it is 
 the only way — and the others tread pretty 
 closely in his footsteps. We told this to 
 Snowball, and predicted trouble : but that 
 ancient animal, with bucolic obstinacy, knew 
 better. Finally the expected happened. We 
 came to a brook running under a snow-field. 
 Naturally this formed snow bridges, more 
 or less strong ; and obviously the proper way 
 to cross that brook was through an opening, 
 and not over a snow bridge. Snowball 
 thought otherwise. The rotten snow caved 
 through. Snowball plunged, heaved, finally 
 turned upside down. We arrived to find his 
 nose and four hoofs visible. 
 
 This was bad enough, but all at once it 
 occurred to our friends that not only was 
 the pack upside down, but in the stream ! 
 The girls raced to the lower end of that 
 snow tunnel. Just in time ! They rescued 
 a potato bobbing gaily in the swift current. 
 
 So while the Professor and I dug out 
 
190 THE CABIN 
 
 that fool horse, and got him to his feet and 
 out of that hole, the two girls stationed 
 themselves either side the stream, like cats 
 watching a mouse-hole, waiting for things 
 to come out the orifice of that black tunnel. 
 Every moment or so one would scream in 
 triumph or dismay. Potatoes, onions, provi- 
 sion bags, clothes, even a pot or so — every- 
 thing but bedding, and that could not get 
 away — shot forth, was captured, and joined 
 its disconsolate companions on the rocks. 
 It did not seem funny at the time. 
 
 One summer, when I was out alone, I 
 made a long ride down into the mile-deep 
 cup of Hite's Cove, out again over the steep 
 ridge, and so into the canon of the Merced. 
 There, to my consternation, I discovered that 
 the new railroad into Yosemite had been 
 laid directly over the old trail, and that no 
 new one had been constructed. The right 
 of way was the only route. To the one side 
 was a drop-off of from ten to thirty feet 
 into the torrential river ; on the other, un- 
 scalable cliffs. It was fully three miles up 
 
THE BIG COUNTRY 191 
 
 the canon before the trail turned off to climb 
 the canon walls. The situation was not 
 appealing, if one met a train — or was over- 
 taken by one — for the curves were so numer- 
 ous and so sharp that there would be no 
 chance for '* down brakes.'* 
 
 I sat down and cogitated for some time. 
 Then a bright idea struck me. I waited 
 patiently until a train passed going up. 
 Then I followed it as fast as I could travel. 
 I argued that in three miles that train would 
 not be likely either to turn around and come 
 back or to pass another. 
 
 It was a bright idea all right. Only at 
 about the mile-and-a-half point I came 
 around the corner on a track inspector's car 
 coming my way. It was a gasoline car, with- 
 out a muffler, and sported a bright yellow 
 canopy top 1 
 
 Everybody's movements were guided by 
 instinctive reactions, for nobody had time 
 to think. The track inspector stopped. I 
 hadn't time to get off, so I threw myself 
 strongly toward the cliff. The two animals 
 
192 THE CABIN 
 
 just flew out into space. They were so 
 terror-stricken that they never even turned 
 around, but jumped plump off the right of 
 way and into the Merced. 
 
 I fell on a pile of stones and skinned 
 myself up somewhat. After I had found I 
 could still walk, I looked over the edge. 
 The animals had lit on a shallow bar. 1 
 clambered down, and after considerable 
 manoeuvring got them back to the tracks — 
 the gasoline car, at my earnest request, had 
 gone on. In ten minutes more we turned 
 off to the ascending trail. A slight twist of 
 Flapjack's forefoot — from which he soon re- 
 covered — and a "busted-up" right hand for 
 myself comprised the list of casualties. For 
 five weeks the latter bothered me enough to 
 call out some ingenuity in camp work and 
 packing. This was not especially funny at 
 the time. Yet can you imagine a situation 
 more inherently comic ? In the depths of the 
 wildest country in California, two mountain- 
 bred animals confronted without warning by 
 a gasoline car with a yellow top ! 
 
THE BIG COUNTRY 193 
 
 Another time I was working my way up 
 through a pass filled with snow. The month 
 was August, but the precipitation had been 
 unusual the winter before, and the zigzag 
 trail was quite buried. Only occasionally did 
 eight or ten feet of it show where a bare 
 patch had melted. As the slope was very 
 steep, it was impossible to walk the animals 
 out over the snow. Therefore I was engaged 
 busily in chopping footholds, in kicking shale 
 into a species of solidity, and generally work- 
 ing like a beaver after the manner of one 
 ''getting through the country." In this way 
 we reached nearly to the saddle of the pass. 
 To go through the gap we had to skirt the 
 upper edge of a living glacier just over 
 sixteen hundred feet in height. I would 
 leave Demi and Flapjack standing while I 
 made trail. After I had accomplished forty 
 or fifty feet of it, I would lead them along. 
 
 Flapjack is the most sensible mule I have 
 ever owned or had anything to do with. 
 He possesses many characteristics I should 
 like to point out to the instinct-only school 
 
 N 
 
194 THE CABIN 
 
 of naturalists — such as a genuine love of 
 scenery, a dog's faithfulness, and innumerable 
 instances where he has worked out original 
 problems by means of at least an extra- 
 ordinary imitation of mental processes. But 
 in the present instance he made a mistake. 
 Becoming bored with our slow progress — 
 Flapjack is easily bored, like most intelligent 
 people — he wandered out on the snow-field. 
 Zip / each hoof skated in a different direction ! 
 Flapjack began to slide on his belly, head on. 
 It was exactly like coasting — the same in- 
 creasing descent, the same momently acceler- 
 ating speed — and a slope of sixteen hundred 
 feet on which to gather momentum ! There 
 was nothing to do. I stood erect and waved 
 my hat at that rapidly disappearing black 
 mule. 
 
 " Good-bye, Flap ! " I shouted. 
 
 Then I began to adjust my ideas to the 
 thought of climbing all that weary way down 
 again. I was alone, and days in from civilisa- 
 tion. It would be necessary to collect from 
 the ruined pack what I could carry comfort- 
 
THE BIG COUNTRY 195 
 
 ably on my saddle-horse. The bulk of the 
 pack, the mule, and his outfit were, of course, 
 a total loss. All these considerations came 
 into my mind, were appraised and adjusted 
 while poor old Flapjack was sliding over the 
 shoulder of the glacier before the last steep 
 plunge. Then I saw him stop with a jerk 
 that seemed almost to snap his head off and 
 hang motionless, a little black speck on the 
 whiteness. Snatching my riata from the 
 saddle and the little safety hand-axe from the 
 saddle-bags, I made my way as quickly as 
 I could over the shale and along the edge 
 of the snow-field to a point opposite where 
 Flap had brought up. Then I cut footholds 
 out; got the rope around Flap's neck; 
 returned to the shale ; took a turn around a 
 projecting and solid boulder, and started up 
 the mule. At the end of the rope he partly 
 scrambled, partly slid in a semicircle to the 
 comparative safety of the shale. Then I took 
 a look to see what had stopped him. 
 
 It was a small triangular rock projecting 
 above the surface of the snow. I looked 
 
196 THE CABIN 
 
 carefully, but as near as I could see it was 
 the only rock on the half-mile expanse of 
 the glacier. Furthermore, it would have 
 been too small to have stopped the mule if 
 he had not hit it accurately. The least pre- 
 ponderance of weight either side would have 
 swung him around it. After that adventure 
 Flap attended strictly to business and did 
 not attempt any more independent excur- 
 sions unless he knew exactly what he was 
 about. 
 
 Sometimes the adventure is of daily oc- 
 currence, but it does not cease being an 
 adventure for all that. Of this class was 
 Old Shppery. 
 
 Old Slippery was an eiderdown quilt be- 
 longing to a girl. It was light as feathers 
 and silk could be; it was very warm; and 
 — the owner assured us — unexcelled for 
 making a comfortable bed. But I had to 
 pack Old Slippery. That was my little daily 
 adventure. 
 
 For not only did Old Slippery earn its 
 
THE BIG COUNTRY 197 
 
 name from obvious characteristics, but it 
 was as delicate as an unboiled Easter-egg. 
 The silk cover was as easily punctured as a 
 soap bubble. The least projection among 
 the constituents of the pack, the smallest 
 twig, the gentlest accidental scrape against 
 a rock, was sufficient to gouge a neat 
 triangular hole. Through that hole floated 
 gently clouds of eiderdown. In that quilt 
 were magicked some five hundred cubic 
 yards of down. I know : for we lost out at 
 least three hundred, and the comforter was 
 still plump and soft. 
 
 Having surrounded Old Slippery with all 
 loving care and soft things, it became neces- 
 sary to tuck in the top canvas in such 
 manner as to protect the quilt against the 
 accidents and incidents of a day's journey. 
 This took time and thought and profanity 
 and stuffing in. Finally we would throw 
 the hitch. Then a corner of Old Slippery 
 would be discovered sticking out just where 
 the first sapling would catch it. We stuffed 
 
198 THE CABIN 
 
 that in. Promptly Old Slippery burst forth 
 at another place. After ten minutes of this 
 the playful old thing would decide to be 
 good, and we would make our start for 
 the day. 
 
 At first one always gets the impression 
 that the start for the day is made only after 
 a good hard day's work is done. So many 
 things have happened ! You have arisen 
 and washed and dressed — no light feat, with 
 the thermometer well below freezing and the 
 meadow white with frost. Then there is 
 breakfast to cook and eat, the dishes to 
 wash, the utensils and food to stow away, 
 the beds to be folded, all the camp to be 
 packed for travel. The horses must be 
 caught, unhobbled — frosty buckles and straps 
 — led a greater or lesser distance to camp, 
 saddled, finally packed. You put out your 
 camp-fire at last with the feeling that it is 
 lucky you do not belong to the union or 
 your time would be nearly up. As a matter 
 of fact it is more the multiplicity than the 
 
THE BIG COUNTRY 199 
 
 duration that has impressed you. By get- 
 ting up at five I can, when alone, be under 
 way by half-past six. A larger and more 
 complex party will take from two to three 
 hours. 
 
 Then begins the day's journey in the 
 freshness of the morning. The air is crisp ; 
 the birds are all singing ; the dash of the 
 stream and the oversong of the trees are in 
 your ears, the dazzle of snow and granite in 
 your eyes. The world is very good. You 
 attack the problems of routes, trails, diffi- 
 culties of the way, with enthusiasm. 
 
 Time slips away on wings for five or six 
 hours. Then somehow the animals begin to 
 be irritating. A certain pack-horse named 
 Bingo irritates you strangely by his habit of 
 walking a few steps from the trail to crop 
 greedily until the very latest moment. Your 
 saddle is getting hard, and shifting does 
 little good. If you are not quite certain of 
 your route, you grow impatient over that 
 fact. You are not tired, of course, but 
 
200 THE CABIN 
 
 you are apt to be a little cross and 
 brooding. 
 
 Then quite unexpectedly a patch of green 
 shows to right or left. You ride down pes- 
 simistically. Yes, there is good water after 
 alL It will do. The saddles and packs are 
 thrown oif, the horses hobbled and turned 
 loose to graze. Everything is in a most 
 discouraging mess. 
 
 Still, you tell yourself, doggedness does it. 
 One at a time you overcome such simple 
 tasks as collecting firewood, carrying the 
 canvas bucket full of water, searching out 
 the grub bags, slicing the meat. The crackle 
 of the fire and the bubble of water cheer 
 you somewhat. You get up energy enough 
 for a wash. 
 
 A half-hour later you are drawing at your 
 pipe with a comfortable sense of repletion 
 beneath a loosened belt. This is a bully 
 place to camp ; couldn't be beat. Running 
 water, fine horse-feed, heaps of firewood, and 
 level places for beds. And just look at the 
 scenerv 1 Where'd you beat that ? Gue§§ 
 
THE BIG COUNTRY 201 
 
 I'll make me a fir bed, and try for trout 
 awhile. Horses seem to be enjoying it. 
 That Bingo is in good shape : he knows how 
 to take care of himself — gets pretty near a 
 full meal every day along the trail I 
 
XVII 
 
 TROUT 
 
 The Eastern trout fisherman is likely to 
 receive a shock when first he angles in 
 the Big Country. 
 
 He is probably accustomed to streams 
 wherein every pool, every riffle, every hole, 
 if not easily accessible, is at least possible. 
 Probably he is used to wading his brooks. 
 At any rate he would consider himself 
 most neglectful and slipshod were he to 
 pass over even a single bit of water where 
 a trout might lurk. If occasionally the 
 chance of thicket or of steep bank secludes 
 a pool from his first attention, he is certain 
 eventually, by the exercise of ingenuity, to 
 drop a fly in that protected spot. 
 
 Also our Eastern brook-fishing is apt 
 to be a leisurely affair. We drop gently 
 
TROUT 203 
 
 down the stream, flicking our flies to 
 right or left, pausing often to whip out 
 thoroughly some especially inviting pool. 
 Once in a while we have to break through 
 a little thick brush or clamber up a steep 
 bank. Then we pant heavily and think 
 it pretty hard going, until we get back 
 again to our amphibious environment. 
 Nor is the case of the hill fishing much 
 different. There is more scrambling to 
 do, and perhaps a trifle more brush. But 
 the progress is always pleasantly and 
 steadily downhill, and never is one sepa- 
 rated far from the beloved stream. 
 
 When our gentle angler comes West, 
 however, the whole logic of the game is 
 changed. Looking down from above on 
 one of the swift torrential mountain 
 streams, his heart is filled with joy. One 
 after another the deep green bubble-shot 
 pools receive the cascades and falls of 
 white water; long dark cliff-hung stretches 
 hint of the big fellows ; hundreds of yards 
 of fluted riffles swirling about boulders 
 
204 THE CABIN 
 
 tell of the smaller fry. He scrambles 
 eagerly down to the stream's edge. The 
 casting is all that could be desired; he 
 gets a strike almost at the first drop of 
 the fly. Three fine fish reward him. Full 
 of pleasant anticipations, he prepares then 
 to move down to the next pool below. 
 He cannot. At this point his troubles 
 begin. 
 
 For, coincidentally, at this point the 
 cliffs rise sheer on either side. The next 
 pool is just around the corner — but the 
 corner is fifty or sixty feet high. Our 
 angler looks up in despair. 
 
 "Have I got to climb over that thing?" 
 he demands fiercely. 
 
 A universal silence seems to give assent. 
 He clambers and clings and slides, over 
 and down — the pool lies below him, but 
 quite out of reach except, perhaps, by 
 means of a rope. From above he can see 
 the big trout rising and falling slowly as 
 is the habit of the mountain fish in the 
 deep clear pools. After a dozen futile 
 
TROUT 205 
 
 attempts, he gives it up. And in the 
 course of the next mile he gets at that 
 fascinating, desirable, irritating stream but 
 three or four times. Also he has climbed 
 and scrambled and scratched himself to 
 a state of panting exhaustion. 
 
 Now everybody knows that the ethics 
 and canons of sportsmen are as the laws 
 of the Medes. Nothing more ironclad can 
 be imagined. Not only is it unsportsman- 
 like to do things contrary to the way you 
 have been brought up to do them; but 
 it is no fun ! Similarly, automatics and 
 pump guns and mechanical fish-hooks and 
 salt logs and jacking and other atrocities 
 of the kind would give a true sportsman 
 no pleasure at all. These are matters of 
 ethics. But then there are also matters 
 of habit. A thing may be quite proper 
 and yet be irritating in conception and 
 execution because it runs contrary to the 
 way we have always done things. It all 
 depends on training, of course. Some 
 people quite sincerely consider bait for 
 
206 THE CABIN 
 
 trout unsportsmanlike. If they cannot 
 catch with a fly, they will not catch at 
 all. Personally I prefer fly-fishing above 
 all others, and would never use any other 
 method if the fish are rising even occa- 
 sionally : but if it is a case of " wums or 
 nothing" with them, I am not the man 
 to deny a worthy trout anything in 
 reason. 
 
 This is just the case of our Eastern 
 angler. It irritates him horribly to leave 
 all those excellent pools unfished. They 
 jJiaunt him. Regret fills his heart. He 
 is thoroughly unhappy about them, and 
 is oppressed with a genuine feeling of 
 guilt at having done the thing incom- 
 pletely. So much of sport is the thorough- 
 ness and smartness with which we do 
 things ! By night all his sacred traditions 
 are shattered. He comes to the conclu- 
 sion that mountain fishing is rather poor, 
 very hard work, and not much fun. 
 
 Of course, after a time he changes his 
 mind. He comes to realise the limita- 
 
TROUT 207 
 
 tions of the human frame as opposed to 
 large, abrasive, and immovable mountains. 
 When this idea has quite penetrated, it 
 forces out the other Eastern-bred notion : 
 he comes to see that the fishable pools 
 are in the minority. As a next step, he 
 learns to ignore the inaccessibles, and to 
 look with practised eye for those places 
 vouchsafed him by the kindness of the 
 Red Gods. He fishes a pool, and walks 
 quite cheerfully by a dozen to fish an- 
 other. 
 
 It is a very simple bit of practical philo- 
 sophy to acquire. Yet you who are anglers 
 will understand. All the old traditions 
 soaked in with the splashing sunlight, the 
 gurgling cold water, the twilight shadows 
 of a thousand days of a hundred Eastern 
 streams have had to be eradicated. The 
 sacredness of What-has-always-been has had 
 to give way. Conservatism and radicalism; 
 institutions and new ideas ; progress and 
 content — why, if the list were only continued 
 a little we would find ourselves in essence 
 
208 THE CABIN 
 
 face to face with all the old antagonisms of 
 our race ! When our Easterner begins to 
 love the mountain fishing, he has undergone 
 more than a change of ideas in regard to 
 trout pools. It would be curious to follow 
 him back to his home, to see his old ac- 
 customed affairs as he will see them now. 
 
 As he looks back on that first day's sport, 
 he laughs at himself. He sees now that, 
 while he did not fish half the pools, he caught 
 twice the fish, of greater weight, and as high 
 a degree of gameness as he was accustomed 
 to in his old haunts. In addition he will 
 remember the crisp mountain air, the great 
 hillsides, the chaos of granite over which the 
 white water boiled, the giants with their 
 snow capes about their mighty shoulders 
 calm against the heaven — that sky of the 
 unbelievable deep clear blue peculiar to the 
 high altitudes, a uniform colour from zenith 
 to horizon. Then he is in a fair way to be- 
 come an enthusiast. 
 
 For one thing, he learns not to be in so 
 much of a hurry to move on after he has 
 
TROUT 209 
 
 struggled to his pool. More likely now he 
 will light a pipe and straddle a boulder, and 
 cast again and again over the creaming or 
 darkling waters. Every once in a while one 
 of the inhabitants will rise to his lure. He 
 confesses to a growing astonishment at the 
 number of these. 
 
 I remember one hole where for two weeks 
 I fished every afternoon. A big yellow pine 
 had fallen out into the stream, and the eddy 
 had scooped a deep hollow in the sands 
 beneath. The swift current boiled up from 
 under it. Thirty feet or so downstream 
 was a sandbar on which one could stand 
 ankle -deep. Beginning at the shoreward 
 end of that log, 1 would cast foot by foot 
 until I touched the swirl around its tip. By 
 that time I had caught my two dozen. There 
 were three of us in the party, and we could 
 eat two dozen a day. Throughout the en- 
 tire period of our stay, except for occasional 
 curiosity, I never fished anywhere else. I 
 suppose each day new fish took the places of 
 those that had been caught. At any rate, 
 
210 THE CABIN 
 
 the supply seemed inexhaustible: the last 
 two dozen came as rapidly as the first. Often 
 I have sat on a boulder, casting occasionally 
 to see if they were ready to take hold, while 
 more restless companions would search always 
 on and on for pools where they were biting. 
 For a long time I would catch nothing : then 
 they would begin to strike. By dark I would 
 have as many as the rest. 
 
 But I must confess that the fascination of 
 wandering is more often in the ascendant. 
 It is fun to scramble over points, to slide 
 down rock shutes, to wade gingerly along 
 submerged ledges, to give your whole soul 
 to getting from this point to that — ^with 
 always the possibility of the Big One, of 
 course. In that manner one is more apt 
 to have adventures than if one should sit 
 still. I have encountered bears on the same 
 errand as myself. Sometimes by the edge 
 of the water one comes upon a red mineral 
 stain, and a tiny fountain welling up through 
 a round hole in the rock. The rubber cup 
 then dips up a drink of the most delicious 
 
TROUT 211 
 
 sparkling soda water. The quaint water 
 ouzel flits up and down the stream. If you 
 are in great luck, you may see her walk 
 calmly down below the surface of the current. 
 How she maintains herself against it, I am 
 unable to guess. In the meantime the little 
 ouzels squawk and cheep like a lot of baby 
 robins in anticipation of a meal. Sometimes 
 the hillsides rise through the pines in a long 
 even slope. Sometimes they jump in rock 
 ledges. Again you feel yourself an atom in 
 the twilight inferno of a deep gorge through 
 which the river runs hollowly. You slip 
 and stumble over boulders: you manoeuvre 
 your rod through thickets : you walk gingerly 
 over long smooth fields of unbroken rock : 
 you wander at ease over tiny meadows, broad 
 bars, where the footing is solid and the cast- 
 ing easy. 
 
 But the casting is always that, once you 
 have gained a casting position. The spring 
 freshets see to it that your back cast has 
 room. 
 
 And always, at any moment, you may 
 
212 THE CABIN 
 
 look up to the serenity of great mountains 
 and flawless skies. They, and the joys of 
 exploration, would be enough even without 
 the trout. 
 
 But the trout are good, exceedingly so. 
 As in most streams, they run big and little. 
 The average mountain rainbow, the fellow 
 you expect generally when you cast into a 
 likely-looking pool, runs from eight to fifteen 
 inches, and is game for his weight. The 
 fingerlings do not bother one much, for some 
 reason. Big trout frequent certain localities. 
 
 I shall never forget one place. It was 
 about nine thousand feet up, in a cup of 
 granite perhaps three or four miles across, 
 and circled on three sides by very tall moun- 
 tains. In the cup was a lake fringed by 
 a narrow band of lodgepole pine and willow. 
 A tumbling, brawling stream fell from the 
 snows into the upper end of the lake. At 
 the lower end it stole quietly out through 
 beautiful open poplar woods for a quarter- 
 mile. Then it fell and leaped and tumbled 
 away down the mountain. 
 
TROUT 213 
 
 The poplar woods were open, as I have 
 said, and flecked with warm sunlight, and 
 full of birds. The river flowed quietly, its 
 surface almost glassy in its reflections of the 
 checker of very blue sky and of translucent 
 green leaves. Yet when I looked closely I 
 could see the waving marks of a strong 
 current and eddy sweeping on, like the 
 almost invisible swirls in a thick green glass. 
 Through them the bottom wavered and 
 trembled slightly, and so I appreciated the 
 volume of water flowing through this quiet 
 glade. 
 
 The light undergrowth grew to the edge 
 of the bank, and the bank itself was chopped 
 off square and steep only a foot or so above 
 the water. In some places it was deeply 
 undermined, the top held together by inter- 
 laced roots. Trees leaned perilously. Some 
 had even yielded, and, falling into the current, 
 had been swept at a long angle with the 
 stream's bed, there to form mysterious holes 
 and shadows. 
 
 I crept to the edge and looked in. 
 
214 THE CABIN 
 
 Through the green water the bottom was 
 plainly to be seen, with all its hills and vales, 
 its old snags, its rock, and the clean white 
 sand. In some places it was at least twelve 
 feet deep, and nowhere less than four or five. 
 Yet every inch of it was visible, as plainly as 
 though in the air, save for that translucent 
 green and the delicate waving swirls like the 
 shadows in thick green glass. 
 
 Trout lay singly, in twos and threes. Some 
 were close to the bottom in plain sight, their 
 gill-covers moving slowly. Others could be 
 made out dimly as shadows in the shadows. 
 All were big. There were no little ones at 
 all. From where I stood — and I could see 
 only a hundred feet or so of the stream — 
 I counted twenty-odd. Judging by the 
 samples I caught later, not one weighed less 
 than three pounds. As for the largest, I'm 
 not foolish enough even to guess at him. 
 
 I was not out to fish that afternoon, but 
 I made a hurried round trip to camp and 
 back to that aquarium. Then, concealed in 
 the brush, I began to manipulate my flies. 
 
TROUT 215 
 
 You fishermen all know how hopeless it 
 seems when you can actually disapprove of 
 your fish in plain view. You cast seductively 
 in front of the biggest in sight. He pays 
 absolutely no attention whatever to your 
 efforts. Finally when you annoy him enough, 
 he fades away. Or else he merely opens and 
 shuts his gills three or four times. After you 
 have cast your arm lame some little fellow 
 rushes madly out from somewhere and seizes 
 your fly. He turns that pool upside down 
 before you succeed in landing him. When 
 the bubbles cease, there is the big one com- 
 muning wisely with himself on the vanity of 
 human endeavour. 
 
 There is one way, however, and that lies 
 through the gates of patience. Of course, 
 if your fish has seen you, then you might as 
 well pack up and move on. But if he is 
 unaware of your existence, and you will cast 
 and cast and cast, and rest, and then cast 
 some more, perseveringly and accurately and 
 skilfully, why, sooner or later that big fish 
 is going to become annoyed. 
 
216 THE CABIN 
 
 '* Great guns!" he will remark to himself; 
 "that red and white thing's a nuisance! It 
 disturbs my meditations." 
 
 Mightily, almost lazily he will rise; turn 
 slightly ; take your fly gently in his mouth ; 
 and, still with dignified deliberation, turn to 
 depart with it. Then is your cue to strike^ — 
 if you can swallow your heart in time. 
 
 I fished cautiously all the afternoon. It 
 would be rash even to guess at the number 
 of enormous trout inhabiting that quarter- 
 mile of stream. They were not rising. Not 
 one in a hundred even knew my fly was 
 skittering across the water ; or, if he did 
 know, he did not care. But then, big fish are 
 never "rising" in the sense that smaller fish 
 rise — hungrily, eagerly, in a rush. Otherwise 
 there would be no more big fish, for they 
 would all be caught out. Yet, by keeping 
 at it, I landed four. They were about of 
 a size. I had no scales, but they were 
 from a half-inch to three inches longer 
 than the first joint of my saddle rod; and 
 that is just twenty-three inches. In the 
 
TROUT 217 
 
 stream were several fish bigger than those 
 I caught. 
 
 I measured them, and returned them 
 carefully to the water, for I was travelling 
 alone, and had no use for so much fish. 
 Then in the half-hour of good light remain- 
 ing, I dropped to where the water leaped 
 down the granite, and caught four ordinary 
 trout for supper. 
 
 The trout hog is always a great puzzle to 
 me. There are plenty of the species roaming 
 around — men who catch a hundred or so fish 
 and leave them piled in a rotting heap. If 
 a man were confined in his fishing to just 
 what he can eat, I could see some colour of 
 reason — though not the slightest excuse — for 
 such a performance. When I travel alone, 
 two or three ordinary trout are all I can 
 possibly get away with at a meal; and a 
 single big one would stump me completely. 
 That would not be much fishing for an en- 
 thusiastic angler. I could imagine a strong 
 temptation to catch "just one more," even 
 if the probabilities were strong that the one 
 
218 THE CABIN 
 
 more would be wasted. As a matter of fact 
 I catch just as many as I have time for — and 
 put them back. This should be done gently, 
 with wetted hand. Then it does not injure 
 the fish in the least: on the contrary it fur- 
 nishes him with healthful and much needed 
 exercise. Only if he bleeds at the gills is he 
 in distress. Then I sUp him in the creel — or 
 old flour sack, rather, in the wilderness — and 
 add him to the larder. In this manner it 
 is possible to enjoy a full day's sport, and to 
 leave the stream almost as populous as when 
 you cast your first fly over it. 
 
 By hooking your scales through the loop 
 of your leader, you can weigh your catch. 
 By measuring off inches on the butt of 
 your rod, you can measure him. Then dis- 
 engage him gently from the hook, slide him 
 in the water, and wish him God-speed. He 
 will lie quite still for a moment or so 
 " getting his breath," as you might say. 
 Then he will drop slowly out of sight. 
 
 I once fished for some weeks where I had 
 an opportunity of making some interesting 
 
TROUT 219 
 
 experiments. Two very large pools lay one 
 above the other. I built between them a 
 loose barrier, but sufficiently close to pre- 
 vent the trout passing from one pool to the 
 other. Whenever I caught a trout, I first 
 nicked his hard gill- cover with a knife, then 
 transferred him to the other pool. At last 
 I had nearly the whole population concen- 
 trated in the upper basin. Then I began 
 to transfer them back again, watching care- 
 fully for signs of injury. Whenever they 
 had been handled with a damp hand, they 
 seemed as healthy as ever. A very dry 
 hand did no injury as long as the grasp was 
 not too firm. But if the fine slime became 
 rubbed from the fish's sides, it seemed to 
 afford opportunity for parasitic or dis- 
 eased growths. Some of the fish I caught 
 as many as eight times apiece. Generally 
 they would rise as eagerly as ever the day 
 after being played to a finish. About 
 fifteen or sixteen hours was the shortest 
 interval. 
 
 My own practice in fishing alone is 
 
220 THE CABIN 
 
 exactly the reverse of accepted fishermen's 
 doctrine : I put back all the big ones, and 
 keep the little six or seven inch fellows. 
 The latter are better eating, and the lone 
 fisherman can do more in the way of 
 numbers. Of course, if one is out with a 
 party of friends, he likes to lug in Levia- 
 than and brag thereon, and do a little ex- 
 hibiting with pride. That is half the fun. 
 But then, Leviathan goes pretty well fried 
 in sections, or broiled, or as basis for a fine 
 old-fashioned "mulligan." 
 
 Trout-fishing here varies as the mountains 
 vary. I would not have you understand 
 that the foregoing descriptions tell it all; 
 only the typical, what you are most likely 
 to find. 
 
 There are streams that flow for miles 
 through wdde alpine meadows, where you 
 can walk along the sod and cast off the 
 bank. There are other streams deep and 
 wide, that resemble our Eastern rivers. 
 There are astonishing little trickles you 
 
TROUT 221 
 
 can straddle, and from which you must 
 fill your water bucket with a cup ; and in 
 their pools are twelve or fifteen inch fish. 
 I do not yet quite understand how they 
 turn around. 
 
 Californians are sometimes very fond of 
 the lake fishing. Certainly the mountain 
 lakes are full of trout, when they contain 
 any at all. Toward evening the entire 
 surface of the water, in all directions, near 
 and far, is ringed by the slowly widening 
 circles of fish rising. One can cast from 
 the bank into almost any depth of water 
 and get from one to three strikes at almost 
 every cast. Three of us caught — and put 
 back — one hundred and sixty-eight trout 
 from eight to fifteen inches in about an 
 hour and a half. Nearly two a minute ! 
 
 And the supply seems inexhaustible. Cer- 
 tain lakes, like those at Mammoth Pass, 
 happen to be on wagon roads. When the 
 hot weather strikes home, the plains people 
 come up into the hills. They rumble along 
 
222 THE CABIN 
 
 in all sorts of vehicles — butcher carts, farm 
 wagons, surreys, buggies, two-wheel carts, 
 grocers' delivery wagons — anything that may 
 be handy. They do not get very far, of 
 course, but they climb up to the pines 
 and the cooler air. They are an engaging 
 lot, replete with babies, phonographs, farm 
 horses, fire-arms, banjos, accordions, and 
 Japanese lanterns. When they settle down, 
 they are planted for the summer. Their 
 chief delight is to go fishing. 
 
 As I said. Mammoth is accessible. Its 
 half-dozen lakes are fished vigorously every 
 afternoon of the season by a miscellaneous 
 and bloodthirsty horde in waders, bare legs, 
 canvas boots, dugouts, and impromptu rafts. 
 Yet the fishing is notable. They bite like 
 bulldogs, and are carried to camp by the 
 hundreds. Possibly they naturally increase 
 too rapidly for their own good, and this 
 thinning out is salutary. 
 
 Sad to say, as a general rule, the trout to 
 be caught in the lakes are not particularly 
 
TROUT 223 
 
 attractive to the experienced angler. They 
 sometimes run very big — as high as seven 
 or eight pounds. But they are born tired. 
 Two or three flops fulfil all fish conventions 
 as to objecting. Then in they come like 
 so many suckers. Also, their flesh is not 
 so hard and sweet as that of their hard- 
 fighting brethren of the streams. They 
 make a very good amusement for the plains 
 campers who want fish^ and lots of 'em. 
 Providence must have invented them for 
 that express purpose. 
 
 Of course this rule has exceptions — 
 everything has exceptions when it is a 
 question of fish and fishing. There are 
 cold-water lakes with big outlets where 
 the fish are game and hard. The lake 
 trout caught in such places as Convict 
 Lake, Tahoe, and Klamath are said to 
 be fine fish. You catch them with a 
 heavily weighted trolling line, and I never 
 did like dredging. As a general rule the 
 real angler will find better sport in the 
 
224 THE CABIN 
 
 streams. Given a boiling torrent going 
 down a twenty-per-cent. grade, a four- 
 pound trout, a six-ounce rod, and a thou- 
 sand tons or so of rounded slippery boulders, 
 and the most exacting sportsman should 
 be satisfied. It is no uncommon thing to 
 follow a big trout a half-mile downstream 
 — when you can. When you cannot you 
 follow him as far as you can. Then if 
 he declines to stop, you must reluctantly 
 lower your tip. Occasionally you can toss 
 your rod to a companion and let him 
 follow to his limits. In the meantime 
 you have raced below to be ready to re- 
 ceive it in turn. This has been done. 
 Billy once hooked a big trout that passed 
 thus through four hands. That rod was 
 passed, tossed, even thrown from crag to 
 crag, until Billy was able to reclaim it at 
 a stretch of slack water, and land her 
 fish. 
 
 The best flies in this country are the 
 Royal Coachman, the Queen of the 
 
TROUT 225 
 
 Waters, Brown Hackle, Montreal, Pro- 
 fessor, and Rube Wood, about in the 
 order named. Furthermore, these are un- 
 sophisticated fish, and they do not give a 
 hang for delicate gradations of hue. If 
 they will not rise to any of the above, 
 they will not rise at all. I should never 
 carry any others were I to outfit my fly- 
 book especially for this country. This, in 
 view of the many varieties affected by the 
 Eastern fisherman, sounds like piscatorial 
 heresy; but I believe it to be a fact. In- 
 deed, as a strictly practical matter, one 
 might go even further. Tie in a Royal 
 Coachman and a Brown Hackle. If you 
 cannot catch them on one or the other 
 of those two flies, the chances are strong 
 that the trout are not hungry enough to 
 rise in paying numbers to any of the 
 others. 
 
 For I hope I have not unintentionally 
 conveyed the idea that fishing is always 
 
 good. That is no more true here than it 
 
 p 
 
226 THE CABIN 
 
 was in the Garden of Eden. A virgin 
 stream is sometimes very poor fishing in- 
 deed. For long stretches the conditions 
 of the water will be such that the pick- 
 ings will be very slim. " One once in a 
 great while" happens here as elsewhere. 
 And probably here more than elsewhere, 
 the fishing hours are apt to be restricted. 
 A great many streams are fishable in full 
 sunlight, but often the trout will rarely 
 rise except in shadow — and there are never 
 friendly clouds in a California summer sky. 
 You must wait until the sun has dropped 
 behind the mountain. Luckily the moun- 
 tains are high. The twilight is no good 
 at all. Just when the Eastern fisherman's 
 experience would lead him to believe his 
 best sport was about to commence, the 
 game is called on account of darkness ! 
 I do not know why this is ; but nine 
 times out of ten it comes true. You 
 might as well unjoint your rod and get 
 back to camp while you can see the way 
 comfortably. 
 
TROUT 227 
 
 But when they do rise, they are wonder- 
 ful ! There are no dull moments. And 
 here as in the East all the blanks are for- 
 gotten. Fisherman's luck ! Here's the best 
 of it to you 1 
 
XVIII 
 
 FLAPJACK 
 
 Flapjack, as you may have gathered, is a 
 mule. But in order to get a good notion 
 of him you must try to imagine a pretty 
 mule. That is of course difficult; but it 
 must be done. 
 
 For Flapjack is of jet and shiny black, 
 save when he is cold. Then his fur ruffles 
 up and he resembles a plush-covered mule 
 with very dark shadows where the nap runs 
 the wrong way. He is small — not over 
 thirteen-two — and is built like a deer, with 
 clean slender legs, a straight back, deep 
 shoulders, proud neck, and a wide forehead 
 in which he stows his generous supply of 
 brains. Of course, his ears are long, but 
 they are covered with a soft black fuzz, and 
 they are wonderfully expressive. If Flap- 
 
 228 
 
FLAPJACK 229 
 
 jack is particularly pleased, they are held 
 pointing slightly back and rigidly parallel. 
 This also means conscious virtue. If he is 
 contentedly walking along the trail with 
 nothing much on his mind, those ears are 
 hung on smooth-working ball bearings, and 
 swing back and forth rhythmically with every 
 step. Now it is the right ear that thus 
 keeps time ; then the left ; finally the two 
 together. Biff! both point instantaneously 
 ahead, and you know Flapjack's interest has 
 been struck. Nothing could be more in- 
 quiring or more astonished or more startled, 
 as the case may be, than those forward ears. 
 They snap into position almost with a click, 
 like the cocking of a revolver. 
 
 Flapjack moves easily and lightly, and 
 his head is always higli and his eye roving. 
 Never does he slouch along the trail half 
 asleep. Even when he takes his earned 
 rest, he never droops all over, as do the 
 other animals. One feels his alertness, the 
 perfect tension of his smooth muscles even 
 in repose. He lifts his feet high and clean, 
 
230 THE CABIN 
 
 with a little pause at the top of each step and 
 a swift down-thrust, in the manner of wild 
 animals not too much startled. On a rough 
 and dangerous trail he handles each hoof 
 separately, and knows where each is to go 
 surely and accurately — a horse generally tries 
 to place his front feet and lets the hind legs 
 follow as they may. I have never seen 
 Flapjack down but once, and that was on 
 the slippery glacier. Never have I seen him 
 stumble. 
 
 So much for the outer mule. All that is 
 satisfactory, of course. When Flapjack has 
 on his full regalia he is a proud-looking little 
 animal. His halter, bell-collar and breasting 
 are studded with bright knobs; his bronze 
 bell, sweet-toned and clear, tinkles merrily ; 
 his pack rig is of black leather, lined gene- 
 rously with yellow sheep's wool; the kyacks 
 are of raw hide with the hair on ; the tar- 
 pauUn is khaki - coloured instead of dirty 
 white. But the most satisfactory and re- 
 markable thing about Flapjack is his in- 
 telligence and his disposition. 
 
FLAPJACK 281 
 
 Of course he is thoroughly familiar with 
 all the details of his business in life: if he 
 were not, he would not be worthy of con- 
 sideration. I can catch him easily, not after 
 the fashion of a horse to which one walks 
 as to a rooted stump, but after a manner 
 of Flapjack's own. When I appear in the 
 meadow with a rope in my hand, he first 
 trots in his high-stepping way directly toward 
 me, stops, shakes his head, runs around me 
 in a half-circle and stops again, his nostrils 
 expanded, his head high, showing every in- 
 dication of a full intention to be a wild, bad 
 mule. But at my first step in his direction 
 he walks directly to me and halts. This is 
 his almost invariable procedure. 
 
 From the moment I bring him near his 
 pack-saddle until I unsnap his lead rope, 
 he never moves a muscle. I can throw 
 bags, blankets, canvases, rattling hardware, 
 ropes, anything and everything all over, 
 around, and at him — he will not so much 
 as bat an eye or wave an ear. I can even 
 drag ropes around his hind legs without his 
 
232 THE CABIN 
 
 jumping forward. And, mind you, he is as 
 full of ginger as a cookie. When the pack- 
 ing is pronounced completed, he nibbles 
 about in the immediate vicinity until I 
 mount. Then he falls dutifully in behind, 
 and during all the rest of the day he needs 
 no more attention to keep him with us than 
 does my saddle-horse's own tail. Plenty 
 of pack animals will keep in line without 
 leading if somebody is ahead and behind 
 them. A great many will follow the saddle- 
 horses, provided there are no other pack- 
 horses with whom to play truant. Flapjack 
 will follow anyway. No matter how many 
 animals we are driving or how much trouble 
 they give us. Flapjack comes along. He 
 leaves his home unhesitatingly ; he leaves 
 feed. I have ridden in the pitch dark with- 
 out seeing the little mule all night, sure 
 that dayhght would disclose him teetering 
 along close behind. These virtues — ^to stand 
 well when packed, and to follow without 
 fail— are two-thirds of a pack-horse's accom- 
 plishments. 
 
FLAPJACK 238 
 
 The third is to take care of the burden, 
 not to scrape it against trees or under limbs, 
 to understand that extremely narrow or 
 extremely low places are not to be attempted, 
 to be surefooted, and not to get rattled in 
 bad places. This virtue, or conglomerate of 
 virtues, is more common, and Flapjack pos- 
 sesses it in full measure. 
 
 But Flapjack, furthermore, is gentle and 
 friendly as a dog. He has never been struck 
 in his life, and he does not know what it is 
 to be afraid of those with whom he is fami- 
 liar. One can pull his tail, or rub his ear, 
 or crawl around under him for the purpose 
 of making some adjustment with absolute 
 confidence. When we walk through the 
 meadow Flapjack fairly mobs us. He fol- 
 lows close on our heels, he nuzzles at our 
 backs, every once in a while he circles to 
 the front and stops us. Often on trail I 
 have had him catch up and lay his Assyrian 
 nose alongside my thigh. Then I would 
 rub him between the eyes or pat his ears, 
 and he would fall back contented. 
 
284 THE CABIN 
 
 I am about to relate an example of his 
 desire for human company which may land 
 me with the nature-fakers. If I were to 
 make Flapjack symbolic of all mules, and 
 spell his name Obrayeesee, and indulge in 
 many capital letters, I should certainly anti- 
 cipate that fate. However, I must risk it. 
 
 Flapjack, be it premised before the tale 
 begins, looks on fences, not as physical hind- 
 rances to freedom, but as gentle hints. His 
 masters place those easily jumped structures 
 as a species of chalk marks to indicate the 
 bounds beyond which they wish Flapjack 
 would not stray. As an honourable and 
 courteous mule, he respects those wishes. 
 But this does not prevent his hopping out 
 when he feels like it, for his slender legs 
 are composed exclusively of watch springs. 
 In justice it must be further stated that he 
 invariably hops in again. 
 
 One afternoon Billy and I walked over 
 to our Supervisor's, leaving two horses and 
 the mule in the meadow. Once there, we 
 decided to stay over night and return home 
 
FLAPJACK 285 
 
 the next day, a pleasant plan which we 
 carried out. About midnight a slight shower 
 of rain fell. On our way back, near the 
 top of the hill, and a half-mile or so from 
 the Supervisor's, we came on a place where 
 a shod mule had stamped for some moments 
 in the dirt road. Tracks of the animal walk- 
 ing led to this spot ; tracks of the animal 
 running led back jfrom it. These marks had 
 been made since the shower, and hence after 
 midnight. 
 
 The tracks led in our direction, turned 
 off at our trail, led to our fence, and hopped 
 over. There was Flapjack feeding in com- 
 pany with the two horses. Some time after 
 midnight — and therefore nine or ten hours 
 after we had left home — he had become 
 worried over us, had jumped the fence, fol- 
 lowed our trail nearly to the Supervisor's, 
 been seized with a panic either over being 
 alone or at something, and returned to his 
 friends the horses. Flapjack can follow a 
 trail by scent. What other solution can 
 you suggest ? If we had taken the horses 
 
236 THE CABIN 
 
 with us, the affair would have been very 
 commonplace, for all members of the equine 
 race detest solitude. But he left his custom- 
 ary companions to follow us up. 
 
 When I am working around the meadow 
 I sometimes have hardly room to swing my 
 axe or hammer. The little mule wants to 
 smell of everything as it is constructed. 
 When I used to do laundry near the fence, 
 his soft black-and-grey muzzle was fairly in 
 the tub. The other day I added a rail to 
 the top of the fence. When Flapjack came 
 up from the foot of the meadow he noticed 
 the change at once, and smelled that improve- 
 ment over from one end to the other. None 
 of the horses paid any attention to it. 
 
 But though he is thus gentle and friendly, 
 you must not get away with the idea that 
 he is like most equine pets, spoiled, cross, 
 lazy, pampered, and full of egotistical and 
 selfish little tricks. No stranger can get 
 near him. He will circle about the intruder 
 with loud snorts of disdain. 
 
 " One thing," said California John after 
 
FLAPJACK 237 
 
 a few moments' experience. '' There ain't 
 no road agent goin' to get hold of your pack, 
 unless they shoot that mule." 
 
 So independent, free, graceful, and spirited 
 is the little animal that he has always seemed 
 to me less a domestic animal trained and 
 constrained to service, as some wild creature 
 that condescends through a great gentleness. 
 He performs his task because he likes it. 
 No one who has watched Flapjack on the 
 trail could doubt it. In our local rides he 
 always accompanies us, just as the dogs do, 
 but without accoutrements, of course. He 
 does not care nearly so much to go un- 
 burdened. When he finds his pack-saddle 
 is to be used, he is delighted, and shows it 
 plainly. Bullet, my veteran mountain horse, 
 is the same way. At home he gets grain 
 and hay and luxurious living and gallops 
 on the beach. Camping he has to rustle for 
 grass, and the labour is hard. Yet he much 
 prefers camping. This is conclusively proved 
 by his delight when I get out a pack-saddle. 
 He whickers and capers around the con-al, 
 
238 THE CABIN 
 
 and shakes his head with joy. Not that he 
 expects to carry the pack-saddle — that is 
 beneath Bullet's dignity — but he knows that 
 pack-saddles mean trips into the open. 
 
 It is a promotion to become a saddle 
 animal. That I have observed again and 
 again. Old Methuselah, who had been a 
 saddle animal when he was young, used to 
 cheer up and put on a heap of style when 
 I would ride him over to the mill occasion- 
 ally. One day I decided to break Flapjack 
 as a saddler — he is just the right size for 
 Billy. We saddled him up, put on a war 
 halter, and stood by for trouble. Flapjack 
 is not mean, but any animal will tear around 
 a little the first time a man climbs on his 
 back. So I swung aboard carefully. As 
 soon as I was in the saddle Flapjack marched 
 off, tail up, ears rigidly parallel, head aloft. 
 He walked straight ahead until I hauled 
 him around to a new direction : then straight 
 ahead again. The spectators shouted with de- 
 light over his air of swollen pride. That was 
 all the breaking Flapjack ever got — or needed. 
 
FLAPJACK 239 
 
 Flapjack is fond of scenery, or at least it 
 interests him in some way. Whenever our 
 way leads to the brink of one of the huge 
 box canons, or out on a shoulder of the 
 mountain so that one can see as over the 
 kingdoms of the earth, Flapjack never fails 
 to march to the farthest overhanging point. 
 There he stands and looks, right, left, ahead, 
 and down, for as long as we will wait for 
 him. I do not pretend to state the basis of 
 his interest, but the facts are as I tell you. 
 Figure it out to suit yourself. 
 
 When we get in at night, first of all Flap- 
 jack indulges in a dusty and satisfying roll. 
 The horses do likewise, and at once start 
 feeding, for the day has been long, and a 
 horse hungers even more quickly than a man. 
 
 But no matter how tired and hollow he 
 may be. Flapjack first of all makes a com- 
 plete circuit of the meadow. Then he circles 
 it back in the woods. Having thus assured 
 himself that nothing is going to catch him 
 unaware, he returns and begins his meal. 
 This trait is to me another interesting rem- 
 
240 THE CABIN 
 
 iiant of the wild-animal instinct that seems 
 so strong in this particular mule. 
 
 In the course of the day's journey Flapjack 
 conceives his place to be number two in the 
 order of march. Of course his master leads, 
 but he objects strongly even to other humans 
 getting that coveted second place. To gain 
 it he fights and schemes. Some poor weak- 
 spirited pack-horses are easy. A nip, a snarl 
 of the white teeth, a laying back of the 
 long ears — that poor trash is shown its place. 
 But saddle-horses are haughty animals, and 
 their riders object to dust. Flapjack must 
 resort to strategy. He makes long detours 
 through the brush or trees in order to pop 
 in when chance offers him a gap. He takes 
 short cuts for the same purpose. When he 
 has apparently given up the struggle and 
 seems to be reconciled to his fate, he is never- 
 theless alert for the smallest chance to move 
 up one. And when he has succeeded he 
 snuggles into his place with so comical an 
 air of content that his victim, if a man, 
 generally laughs good-naturedly and concedes 
 
FLAPJACK 241 
 
 the point. As for another horse, I'd like 
 to see him get the tip of a nose between 
 Flapjack and the leading animal. 
 
 Demijohn is Flapjack's intimate friend. 
 On the trail that haughty and bored animal 
 leads the way for the little mule. In pasture 
 he tells where to go and when to go there. 
 Flapjack knows more now, in his youth, 
 than Demijohn will ever guess at. Never- 
 theless, he obeys the horse blindly, and 
 defers to him, and looks up to him, and 
 worships him. Never but once has he dis- 
 puted authority. On that occasion I saw 
 him deliver the only two kicks he ever 
 accomplished. Previous to the incident I 
 had come to imagine that Flapjack had not 
 a kick in him. 
 
 Naturally when any tidbit, such as a hand- 
 ful of grain, is fed the two together, they 
 eat a moment or so in company, then Demi- 
 john lays back his ears lazily, and Flapjack 
 moves aside in all meekness, without objec- 
 tion, humbly, as a disciple from his master. 
 
 But of one thing has Flapjack proved 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE CABIN 
 
 inordinately fond. On a great occasion we 
 received a sack of sweet corn on the ear. 
 It had been passed along in the kind-hearted 
 mountain fashion, and by the time it reached 
 us had travelled through many hands and 
 by many methods. When we had eaten 
 thereof with greater joy than any but those 
 who know only the canned variety can 
 realise, we dumped the shucks and cobs 
 into a box and carried them out to the 
 horses. Whiskeyjack was absent at the 
 time, so only Demi and Flapjack were there 
 to partake. Flapjack was delighted. This 
 beat barley, oats, hay, carrots, sugar. And 
 when, after a mouthful or so, Demijohn 
 laid his ears back sulkily, and nipped at the 
 mule as a gentle hint. Flapjack deliberately 
 turned around and kicked him twice. The 
 horse was so astounded that he retired down 
 the meadow in a sulk, leaving Flapjack to 
 finish the corn alone ! 
 
 I have had some comical experiences with 
 Flapjack. On one occasion it became neces- 
 sary to cross a river flowing from a lake. 
 
FLAPJACK 243 
 
 It was a deep and rather wide river, but 
 slow. The obvious thing to do was to un- 
 pack, carry the stuff over in front of my 
 saddle, and swim the mule unburdened. 
 But that necessitated many trips, it was late, 
 and I was tired. I hitched my riata around 
 Flapjack's neck, and started in. Immedi- 
 ately the kyacks filled. Their weight sunk 
 the mule. When he hit bottom I heaved. 
 He surged up and forward, blew the water 
 from his nostrils — and promptly sank again. 
 Once more I heaved. We repeated the 
 process. Thus, in long watery bounds we 
 made the passage, poor old Flapjack alter- 
 nating between the bottom and the top. 
 Of course Demijohn swam easily enough 
 with only my own weight atop. When 
 we scrambled out the other bank Flapjack 
 snorted again and again with indignation and 
 disgust. 
 
 About once a week or so, when we are 
 at the Cabin, we saddle up and ride to the 
 mill for mail and supplies. Flapjack trans- 
 ports the latter. The trip is a staid, sober, 
 
244 THE CABIN 
 
 and accustomed one. We never bother to 
 pack very securely. But one day, on re- 
 turning laden with potatoes, we found cattle 
 near our place. Without thinking of Flap- 
 jack we set about driving them out. This 
 necessitated fast riding through the timber ; 
 sudden stops, turns and jumps; shouts; the 
 excited barking of the dogs ; and the crash- 
 ing flight of the half-wild cattle. Flapjack, 
 left alone in the middle of the road, looked 
 about him in vast astonishment.^ Then all 
 at once down went his head, up went his 
 tail, and off he sailed, bucking at every jump. 
 Father laughs every time he tells of that 
 bombardment of potatoes. Here, there and 
 everywhere he went, until the excited jan- 
 gling of the little bell died in the distance. 
 And then after a while, instead of going 
 home, back he trotted high-stepping as usual, 
 and lined up at our sides with an air that 
 plainly said : 
 
 " Well, we did have a high old time, didn't 
 we?" 
 
 1 My father was eye-witness of the performance. 
 
FLAPJACK 245 
 
 I believe he thought we were all out for 
 a grand lark, and wanted to get in the game ; 
 for he was not in the least frightened, 
 
 I have known Flapjack four years — since 
 he was a three-year-old — and I have not a 
 single fault to find with him nor a criticism 
 to make of him. I do not know anybody 
 else of whom unqualifiedly I can say that. 
 That is why he has a chapter all to himself. 
 
XIX 
 
 THE ETHICAL CODE OF CALIFORNIA 
 JOHN 
 
 Caijfornia John is an individual more or 
 less travelled. He has been to various 
 places of which perhaps you have never 
 heard ; such as Honey Lake, and Hoopa 
 Valley, and the country of the Siskiyou. 
 To be sure he has never visited Paris, 
 London, or Berlin, as we have; but then, 
 he has at least heard of them, and that is 
 where he is ahead of us. His wanderings 
 began in the early days when the foothill 
 country was full of placer gold. When 
 so minded he can tell of queer things. 
 For instance, there is a canon of the 
 Chiricahuas in Arizona, happily misnamed 
 Paradise Valley, where a gang of Mexican 
 cattle-rustlers abode — for a while. Then 
 
THE ETHICAL CODE 247 
 
 the rustling abruptly ceased. Paradise 
 Valley became a peaceful range camp, 
 occupied but twice a year at the time of 
 the roundups. 
 
 "And every cow-puncher there has the 
 top part of a skull for a washbowl," says 
 California John. 
 
 With it all he still loves the Sierras the 
 best, and has homed to them in his ap- 
 proaching age. Nevertheless the single 
 thing that impressed him most was the 
 Grand Canon of the Colorado. 
 
 " That place," said he to us one day, 
 " is self-actin ! All this," he waved his 
 hand abroad, "has to be taken care of or 
 it gets ruined by somebody. That's what 
 we rangers are tryin' to do. But the 
 Grand Canon takes care of herself." He 
 slid from his saddle and squatted on his 
 heels as was invariably his habit when 
 really earnest talk was forward. " My idee 
 is about like this," said he: "I believe 
 the Lord made that place just for Him- 
 self. All the rest of the earth He gave 
 
248 THE CABIN 
 
 to mankind. * Go to it,' says He. * Do 
 what you want. Go the limit. Cut down 
 the trees, and dam up the rivers, and 
 paint advertising signs on and over every- 
 thin' you can stick a brush to. I ain't in 
 favour of these proceedings : but it's up 
 to you.' And I reckon we've done it — 
 Injins, buffalo, pine woods, Niagara Falls 
 — all the rest of it. But the Grand Canon 
 the Lord made for Himself. There ain't 
 no water, there ain't no ways of gettin' 
 around, there ain't no possible way of 
 paintin' a sign you could make out with 
 the Lick telescope. They can't dynamite 
 it for stone, or plant parks in it, or build 
 things in it." 
 
 "They've got a big modern hotel on the 
 Rim now," I suggested. 
 
 " Oh, yes," he waved that lauded structure 
 aside. " They can put up things, of course. 
 But a full-grown World's Fair goin' full 
 blast with the blower on you wouldn't even 
 see across that Canon. That little crack 
 will look just the same as it does to-day a 
 
THE ETHICAL CODE 249 
 
 thousand years from now, when our de- 
 scendants are wearin' sky-blue pants with 
 ruffles on 'em and otherwise attractin' horri- 
 fied attention from the angels." 
 
 We laughed together over this, for 
 California John never takes his extrava- 
 gances seriously. Then abruptly he be- 
 came solemn. 
 
 " Son," said he, " the gold light of even- 
 ing on these mountains is a mighty fine 
 thing, but if you don't believe all I've been 
 sayin' you ought to see the Canon at 
 sunset." 
 
 " I've seen it," said I. 
 
 " You remember how she changes, then, 
 slow and solemn, like the shift of scenes 
 in a theatre. Only there ain't no hurry 
 about it. He don't care whether folks 
 has to catch a train, or it's gettin' chilly 
 out there on the Rim, or dinner is ready. 
 And do you recollect how the peaks come 
 out from the other Canon wall, and draw 
 back again, one by one? It's just as if 
 they was answering roll-call. And all the 
 
250 THE CABIN 
 
 colours in the world come out to answer 
 roll-call too, and wait a minute, and then 
 melt back again. The Lord has built Him 
 a fine place; and He's fixed it so we can't 
 never bother it. I think it's mighty good 
 of Him to let us come and look at it." 
 
 "Why didn't you stay there," I asked, 
 " if you like it so well ? " 
 
 ''It takes a mighty good man or a 
 mighty dumb fool to live by the Canon 
 always. It's like sheep that way. It takes 
 apostles or Basques to get along." 
 
 "You seem to have a pretty good streak 
 of religion in you," I remarked in all 
 sincerity. 
 
 "Me!" cried California John in vast 
 astonishment. Then he chuckled. "You 
 may not believe it, but I did get religion 
 once. It didn't take, though." 
 
 He came to a dead stop, his eyes full 
 of reminiscence. I offered him a square 
 of sulphur matches, whereupon he quite 
 mechanically rolled himself a Durham cigar- 
 ette. After the first puff, he went on. 
 
THE ETHICAL CODE 251 
 
 **It was 'way up in the Stanislaus coun- 
 try at the time everybody was looking for 
 gold. I was a young feller then, and 
 hadn't learned much sense. My mother 
 was alive then, and my two sisters, and 
 they put in most of their time worryin' 
 about how my soul was comin' out. That 
 didn't even get to me; but one day along 
 come a girl " 
 
 He paused and his eye grew vacant. 
 
 '' IVe plumb forgot her name ! " he 
 exclaimed, regretfully, after a moment. 
 "Anyway, she was number one on my 
 list. Nothing doing. She was religious 
 from soda to hock, and she didn't look with 
 no favour on my efforts toward polishin' 
 up the flames of hell. 
 
 '' Then one of these yere shoutin' evange- 
 lists came to camp. They don't have many 
 of 'em these days — crazy, long-legged cusses, 
 with long black clothes, plug hats, and 
 language enough to stock a hundred sheep 
 camps and a water-tank. My girl went in 
 strong on the revival he started. First 
 
252 THE CABIN 
 
 thing I knew about it was a rise in the 
 temperature, and sweet smiles, and other 
 encouragin' signs. For a minute I thought 
 I was makin' headway. Then she sprung 
 revival on me, and I see at once it was 
 just to get me to go. 
 
 " I went. The show didn't hit me very- 
 strong until along toward the middle. Then 
 a bright idea come to me. All at once up 
 I got, sailed down the aisle, and flopped 
 into the bench with the rest of the saved." 
 
 The Ranger turned on me a humorously 
 mischievous eye. 
 
 " Well, 1 tell you there was a sensation ! 
 Worst sinner in the state saved ! I wrastled 
 and had the proper allowance of duck fits, 
 same as I'd seen the others do. Then I 
 come through. Hallelujah ! You bet you ! 
 The tinkling cymbals sounded all right ! 
 
 " Well, I walked home with Anna Maria, 
 or whatever her name was, and I give her 
 the holy kiss of brotherhood. But when I 
 sifted into the house I run against such joy 
 over the brand plucked from the burnin' 
 
THE ETHICAL CODE 253 
 
 that I got a hard jolt. My mother and 
 two sisters were so plumb tickled pink, that 
 all at once it come to me what I'd over- 
 looked before. I'd got converted : and now 
 it was up to me to make good ! 
 
 " I climbed to my room as soon as I could 
 get away. 
 
 " ' Look here,' says I to me, ' you're elected. 
 What are you goin' to do about it ? Are you 
 goin' to break three trustin' lovin' hearts? 
 Or are you goin' to quit bosses, drink, poker, 
 and everythin' that enables a man to wobble 
 through this monotonous existence ? ' 
 
 "You see, Anna Maria didn't figure. I 
 reckon the holy kiss of brotherhood didn't 
 come up to anticipations. 
 
 " It was a hard situation. I didn't pre- 
 cisely see me with a long-term halo; but 
 still I wasn't brute enough to kill all the 
 family rejoicin' with a club. Finally I got 
 out a pencil and paper and did some close 
 figurin'. In fact I figured all night. I 
 made out a schedule for what you might 
 call a gradual backslide. In a week I was 
 
254 THE CABIN 
 
 to let out a little inadvertent cuss. In two 
 weeks I was due to play a quiet game of 
 penny ante. And so on. I sort of broke 
 the news to them gentle. In six months 
 I was due for a real hell ripper. You bet 
 it was a good one." 
 
 He squinted sideways at the sugar-pines. 
 
 " It's sometimes kind of hard to live up 
 to these fellows, too," he exclaimed irrele- 
 vantly. " Speakin' of that, isn't it funny 
 how a young fellow has trouble with just 
 livin' ? He's got to take the whole thing 
 apart, and see how it goes. When he gets 
 a little age into him, he just takes things 
 as they come; but when he's young he's 
 got to know all the whys. Now, as you 
 can see, I never was much on religion, but 
 a man's got to have something or other to 
 go by or he gets as shiftless as a Digger." 
 
 " A code of ethics," I suggested. 
 
 " That's it. After you git it you just use 
 it and forget it, same as fingers. Never 
 notice that you do have fingers, but if you'll 
 take the trouble to notice, you'll see that 
 
THE ETHICAL CODE 255 
 
 a baby is plumb curious about them. But 
 while you're getting it, you have lots of 
 troubles, and make heaps of experiments, 
 and are dead serious — and ridiculous. I got 
 up a wonder of a code of ethics once." 
 
 ", What was it ? " I encouraged him. 
 
 ''A man hates to tell how much of a 
 fool he was once, even when he's all over 
 it," grinned California John. " For a general 
 star-spangled idiocy that nobody had ever 
 thought of before, I sure took all medals, 
 cash prizes, and silver casters." 
 
 ''Well, only the sheep follow a flock," 
 I said. 
 
 " Them — and sheepmen and buzzards," 
 added California John, with the grim dis- 
 taste of the cattleman or ranger for wool. 
 '' Well, back in the fifties I made me up 
 an account between me and the Lord. 
 Whenever I did anything I ought not to, 
 I charged myself up with a good stiff fine, 
 and costs, anywhere from two bits to five 
 dollars dependin' on how deep I'd got in. 
 Gamblin' was two bits a chip ; drinks dos 
 
256 THE CABIN 
 
 reales per, and so on. It wasn't only what 
 you'd call police-court cases, either. I rung 
 in fightin', and meanness, and lyin', and all 
 sorts of general cussedness. It was surprisin' 
 what it came to by the end of the year. 
 I wish I remembered exactly, but it was 
 surprisin'." 
 
 *' What did you do with the money ? " I 
 asked him. 
 
 "That's the point. I used to figure out 
 on the other side where the Lord hadn't 
 treated me square. I figured out He ought 
 to send the rain, and dry calvin' weather, 
 and should hold His hand in regard to fire 
 and flood. I charged Him with them things 
 — the actual damages, you sahe'' California 
 John threw back his head and laughed with 
 whole-hearted enjoyment. ''In a year I 
 had the Lord so far behind the game that 
 I could have drunk myself to death at two 
 bits fine a drink and then been certain sure 
 of salvation by some few round dollars. So 
 I give it up, and come to the conclusion 
 
THE ETHICAL CODE 257 
 
 that a man was supposed to be decent in 
 spite of tribulation." 
 
 " What did you find the best practical 
 scheme finally ? " I asked as he rose to go. 
 
 '' Oh, just live along," replied California 
 John. 
 
THE SURVEYORS 
 
 One morning in the early fall I rode out 
 along the ridges, over ravines, across meadows, 
 until I cut the old shake road to our north. 
 There I dismounted. The day was crisp 
 and cool, so I selected a spot full in the sun 
 and sat down to wait. After a very long 
 time, a toiling, creaking vehicle crawled into 
 view. From it descended four men. After 
 depositing bed-rolls, baggage, and instru- 
 ments, the vehicle departed. 
 
 The first of the strangers was a man just 
 past middle age, handsome in an aquiline, 
 long-moustached fashion, a trifle inclined 
 to an office shortness of wind at first, ex- 
 pressing himself with a Western heartiness 
 of manner, humorous, absolutely good-natured, 
 and — as it proved — game as a badger. He 
 
 258 
 
THE SURVEYORS 259 
 
 carried a bulky wooden case which, when 
 opened, proved to contain a transit. This 
 he fitted to its tripod and slanted over his 
 shoulder, nor thereafter did he ever relin- 
 quish it. 
 
 His chief assistant was a man of twenty- 
 five or thirty, alert in manner, very talkative, 
 moving quickly and nervously, full of sug- 
 gestion, and so anxious to do things right 
 that he generally had them figured out all 
 wrong before his instructions were half pro- 
 nounced. A running fire of comment on 
 whatever happened to be doing further in- 
 sulated him from outside admonition. He 
 wore a little stifF-brimmed hat at an angle ; 
 and from his general manner I imagine in his 
 proper haunts he is either a scrapper or a 
 bluffer — probably the former. With it all 
 there was no real harm in him, and he always 
 meant so well and was so anxious to please 
 that one could not remain vexed. He was 
 as irrepressible as a puppy dog. Inside 
 of ten minutes he was calling me ^'my 
 boy." Frozen out of that, he went back to 
 
260 THE CABIN 
 
 " Mr. White," slipped on to '' White," gradu- 
 ated to " Whitey," and ended at " my boy " 
 again ; exactly like the puppy dog discouraged 
 violently from licking one's face. In the 
 course of the days that followed, I could 
 almost tell the time of the clock by the 
 manner of his address. " My boy " was due 
 about eleven o'clock, and again about four. 
 At those hours I nearly always had to bestow 
 a little attention on Tom in order to set 
 his vocatives aright. 
 
 The third member of the party was an 
 Indian named Jack. He was a good Indian. 
 His handling of an axe was excellent, and 
 he could take a line and lay it out with 
 his eye almost as accurately as another could 
 have done so with a pocket compass. It 
 is a comparatively simple matter to go to 
 a point due north of your transit man when 
 the ground is open or on a single slope. But 
 when the sight through the transit is to leap 
 a canon full of trees and brush, and is to dodge 
 far up the opposite slope through the big 
 rocks, it requires considerable judgment to 
 
THE SURVEYORS 261 
 
 thread your way over and through and around 
 all these obstacles and then finally to plant 
 yourself in the line of sight. Furthermore 
 Jack was intelligent. He learned quickly. 
 The reversal of the rod for long-target read- 
 ings he fathomed by observation before Tom 
 had learned how by instruction. He caught 
 on where and when to blaze trees along the 
 line. And he was always ready to work. 
 
 Not so, Charley, the other Indian. Charley 
 was the best-natured animal I ever en- 
 countered ; and he was exceedingly comical 
 to look upon. Otherwise he was not valu- 
 able. He had a face round and shiny as a 
 copper harvest moon, with a few spiky little 
 hairs by way of moustache indicating an 
 approximate centre. His blue jean trousers 
 hung around his hips, and above them sagged 
 the most wonderful and wobbly corporation 
 ever partly concealed beneath a cotton shirt. 
 Charley's sole job was as a mark to back- 
 sight on. All he had to do was to stand bolt 
 upright, holding a peeled wand perpendicular 
 to a stake, while the Surveyor verified his 
 
262 THE CABIN 
 
 instrument's direction by squinting back 
 along the line he had already made. Some- 
 body had to perform this simple task; and 
 it might as well be Charley. After the 
 Surveyor had waved both arms to signify 
 "all right," Charley would wallow and heave 
 and pant until he had caught up with the 
 transit. Then he would sink on a log, wipe 
 his brow, and grin with so amiable a triumph 
 that we could not help laughing. 
 
 Nevertheless, there were times when the 
 Indian in Charley flashed forth a hint of its 
 quaUty. Once our line ran us two or three 
 thousand feet down the mountain-side over 
 a fearfully rough and steep country. When 
 we had tied to our corner down there, we had 
 to climb back. It was a grind, for the brush 
 was thick, the slope very steep, and the high 
 altitude caught at our wind. In the intervals 
 of rest we had a good deal of fun over 
 Charley's predicament. Pretty soon that 
 aborigine dropped behind. 
 
 "Charley goin' die," remarked Jack cheer- 
 fully. 
 
THE SURVEYORS 263 
 
 We toiled on. After a long time we came 
 in sight of the top of the ridge. On the 
 summit stood Charley, who greeted us with 
 a loud and joyous whoop. It is only fair to 
 state that we were at the time headed toward 
 lunch. 
 
 Charley was always able to accomplish 
 marvellous feats when it came to a question 
 of quitting time or of grub. The Supervisor 
 tells a story of having once seen Charley run 
 down a brush rabbit ! It happened generally 
 that we finished our day's work at one of the 
 old survey corners. That made a good start- 
 ing-point for the next morning. Charley's 
 thick head gradually evolved the idea that, 
 in this game, corner meant quit. One morn- 
 ing we finished a half-mile line about ten 
 o'clock, and at once set about looking for the 
 old witness trees of the " established " corner. 
 These, as I shall later explain, are often 
 exceedingly difficult to find. Charley was 
 very active in the search — and successful! 
 He led us to those old witness trees with 
 pride, and capered with delight, and grinned 
 
264 THE CABIN 
 
 expansively, and generally acted as tickled 
 as a dog that has caught a rat. We made 
 our computations, and arose to continue. 
 
 " What ! " cried Charley aghast ; " we no 
 quit 'um here ? He corner ! " 
 
 Poor old Charley could not understand, 
 and for the rest of the day he entertained 
 dark suspicions of us. We were not playing 
 fair. Here he had won the game by finding 
 a corner, and we declined to quit. 
 
 Charley was certainly a marvellous eater. 
 We lunched one day at the lumber camp. 
 It was a good meal, and varied. Charley ate 
 one thing at a time. He would heap his 
 plate full of meat, and eat that. Then he 
 piled it with sweet potatoes, and devoured 
 them. In turn he got away with a plateful 
 each of meat, potatoes, corn, bread and gravy, 
 tomatoes. Then he passed on to desserts — 
 three kinds of pie, doughnuts, bread pudding, 
 preserved apricots, stewed plums. He finished 
 with a chunk of very sweet chocolate cake, 
 and pushed back his chair with a sigh. Then 
 his twinkling little eyes fell on a dish, hitherto 
 
THE SURVEYORS 265 
 
 concealed from him, at the other end of the 
 table. It contained a mess of red beans 
 swimming in watery grease, and several 
 chunks of salt side-pork. 
 
 " Pass 'um beans ! " said Charley firmly. 
 
 Our task was to run a certain portion of 
 the line around the company's timber hold- 
 ings. To do so we had first of all to find 
 a section corner from which to start. This 
 was an affair of some difficulty. 
 
 Probably most of you know what a corner 
 is. For the benefit of others I will describe 
 briefly. 
 
 The original Government surveys are offi- 
 cial for the country they covered and for the 
 details they established. Nothing they did 
 can be changed or altered. The field notes 
 are on record at the land offices, and the 
 later surveyor must follow them. Thus the 
 earlier surveys had to do merely with the 
 outside boundaries of the tow^nships, and the 
 corners of the outside tier of sections were 
 marked and described. Later the section 
 lines inside that township were run. Then 
 
266 THE CABIN 
 
 all the section corners were established, but 
 always with reference to the township lines. 
 If the second surveyor, running a true line 
 west from a section corner through the 
 middle of the township, should happen to 
 come out at the corresponding corner on the 
 other side, well and good. He was lucky. 
 But if he cut the township line north or south 
 of that comer, he must modify his line and 
 all his corners. In this fashion an initial 
 mistake means a whole county cut bias, but 
 that is not permitted to matter. Less con- 
 fusion results from a cat-a-corner section than 
 from a multiplicity of corners. 
 
 The establishment of section boundaries is 
 as far as the Government goes. When, as 
 in the present case, the private owner wants 
 to run through various sections, following 
 his boundaries, he engages a county surveyor 
 who establishes his interior one-quarter or 
 one-eighth corners, but always with due re- 
 spect to the results attained by the men who 
 have preceded him. 
 
 Let us now return to the original surveyor. 
 
THE SURVEYORS 267 
 
 He ran through our mountains back in the 
 early seventies. From his starting corner 
 he ran a "true Hne" north, say. At the 
 end of a half-mile he stopped to establish 
 his first quarter-section corner. This nine 
 times out of ten consisted of something like 
 a " post 3 feet long, 4 inches square, marked 
 J Cor. Sec. VI, set in mound of rocks 3 ft. 
 across base, from which bears N. by 5° W. 
 sugar-pine 42 inches dia. marked on S. side 
 i Cor. B. T., and S. 18^ E. fir 12 in. dia. 
 marked on N. side J Cor. B. T.'' So read 
 the field notes. This means generally that 
 the surveyor in question had his men stick 
 up the post, lay around it half a dozen stones 
 — rarely more — and blaze two " witness trees " 
 marked as above. He is supposed, more- 
 over, to dig two pits north and south of the 
 corner as additional landmarks. Invariably 
 he writes down '' pits impracticable," which 
 relieves him of much labour. A section 
 corner is the same except that the post is 
 larger, and there are four witness trees — at 
 each point of the compass — instead of two. 
 
268 THE CABIN 
 
 Note these facts : that " the mound of rocks " 
 peters down to as few as will surround the 
 post; that in my experience the pits are 
 invariably " impracticable " ; that the witness 
 or bearing trees (hence the " B. T.") are blazed 
 low where a man can swing an axe most 
 comfortably. 
 
 Time passes. The manzanita, chinquapin, 
 and snowbrush perhaps spread their mantle 
 abroad. Snow, rain, wind, frost exercise 
 turn-about their disintegrating influences. 
 Sheep and cattle pass, thrusting the beautiful, 
 peeled new post from the perpendicular. The 
 next heavy snow flattens it to earth. The 
 " mound of rocks " sinks into the leaf mould, 
 covers itself with moss, drapes itself in brush. 
 The fresh blazes on the witness trees first 
 glaze themselves over with a transparent film 
 of pitch ; then slowly year by year the bark 
 draws its edges together across the wound 
 until at last the gap is closed. Underneath, 
 the white tree wood adds its annual rings, 
 until at the last all that is to be discovered 
 of that original broad, fresh carved surface 
 
THE SURVEYORS 269 
 
 is a narrow perpendicular wrinkle, surrounded 
 by bark the least bit lighter in tone thah 
 the rest. In all probability the growth of 
 the forest has furthermore risen to screen 
 it. And that is the " corner " you must find 
 before your work can be accepted. 
 
 It is fun, this game. You have in hand 
 your hasty field notes, jotted down in the 
 absorption of the day's work nearly forty 
 years ago. It babbles of brooks " 3 links 
 wide, course S. W.," and of trees *' thirty 
 inches dia." The brooks have long since 
 dried into stringer meadows, perhaps; and 
 the trees probably look back with scorn on 
 their youthful slenderness of the thirty inches. 
 The party is scattered in all directions through 
 the fragrant forest, spying microscopically 
 for the faintest indication that man has pre- 
 ceded it into this apparently virgin fastness. 
 To the novice the whole affair of that long- 
 past labour seems so futile ! All summer 
 these men worked, and made their records 
 for all time ; and in the short space of two 
 generations the forest has calmly obliterated 
 
270 THE CABIN 
 
 them. What would another generation of 
 it mean ? We must be just in time to secure 
 these old records from total extinction, thinks 
 the novice. 
 
 And finally, one or the other of the party 
 utters a whoop. We all gather to his call. 
 In triumph he points to the wrinkle of the 
 old blaze. "Sugar-pine 42 in. diameter," 
 reads the Surveyor. " She's grown since. Now 
 rustle out your fir." That is a short matter. 
 
 And then comes the wonder of it all. Jack 
 sets to work chopping carefully above and 
 below the old scar. Inch after inch he cuts 
 into the tree, the white chips flying. With 
 a final wrench, a long slab falls away. There 
 is the weather-beaten old blaze, coated with 
 the transparent varnish of the dried pitch, 
 its carving as distinct and clear-cut as the 
 day it was made. And on the slab of solid 
 wood Jack has cut out are those carved 
 letters reversed and in relief, like printers' 
 type. I have seen such slabs as much as 
 eight inches thick. The tree has taken up 
 its growth as though nothing had happened, 
 
THE SURVEYORS 271 
 
 but first it spread its thin varnish between 
 the new wood and the old in order that for 
 all time the Record might be preserved. As 
 long as the forest shall endure, so long will 
 that record stand, so long will the first man's 
 successes and mistakes, his care and his care- 
 lessness, the slip of his scribing tool be 
 cherished on the tablets of the Witness. The 
 next generation would only have to chop a 
 little deeper ; that is all. 
 
 In the meantime the rest of us have 
 been prowling around the brush while the 
 Surveyor sets his transit to determine the 
 exact location of the corner by the direc- 
 tions from the witness trees. In the middle 
 of a bunch of chinquapins we stumble over 
 three or four scattered stones. It seems 
 incredible that these should represent the 
 " mound of rocks," yet in a moment Jack 
 holds up a little fragment of dried, cracked 
 and decaying wood. It is exactly like 
 the thousands of limb fragments scattered 
 everywhere, except that, among almost 
 precisely similar scorings, we make out 
 
 4 
 
272 THE CABIN 
 
 two straight lines at an angle to each 
 other. Worms do not score in straight 
 lines. Therefore we know that we are look- 
 ing upon the marks of the old surveyor's 
 scribe; that they are some part of that 
 '' J Cor. Sec. VI " ; and that this fragment 
 lying in the hollow of Jack's hand repre- 
 sents the " post 3 feet long and 4 inches 
 square." 
 
 It is exceedingly interesting thus to follow 
 up a man after a lapse of forty years. 
 Doing the same work that he did, and in 
 the same way, it is as easy to read his day 
 as though he had passed only the month 
 before. He made his petty mistakes, and 
 was unaware of them, or forgot them; the 
 forest remembered. We can tell when he 
 was getting tired ; where he guessed ; where 
 he shrugged away little responsibilities and 
 accuracies. It was always very evident 
 where one man's survey left off and an- 
 other's began. The individuality of the work 
 was apparent. 
 
 " Ran east on true line between Sections 
 
THE SURVEYORS 273 
 
 24 and 25," went the notes, "79 chains 65 
 links. Established J corner at 40 chains." 
 Alas for veracity ! So it was reported, so 
 paid. The maps were filed and accumulated 
 dust. Perhaps the surveyor has grown grey, 
 and celebrated, and bigger than the old, 
 wild job through the wilderness : who 
 knows? But now after forty years the 
 forest silently bears witness against him. 
 Old surveyor, you did not run 79 chains 
 65 links east. You ran 40 chains and 
 established your quarter-corner, and went 
 on 800 feet. Then it was between three 
 and four of an October afternoon ; you 
 looked down the deep hole into which the 
 line dropped. It was too late, you were 
 too tired, to tackle that five hundred yards 
 or so. You did not want to come away 
 back there next day just for that short 
 distance ; so you sat you down, probably 
 on top this very rock, and computed how 
 far it must be to the township line! 
 
 How do we know ? Because the corner 
 is actually 40 chains from the west ; we 
 
274 THE CABIN 
 
 found it so. But it is not within five 
 hundred feet of 79 chains and 65 links from 
 the township line. This happened to be 
 a "short section," and you would have 
 placed the quarter stake two hundred and 
 fifty feet farther west, had you measured 
 the whole distance. As for the rest, we 
 know where you must have started ; you 
 would have arrived at the bluff by the 
 middle of the afternoon ; this rock is the 
 handiest on which to sit ; and your field 
 notes show that the scene of your next 
 work lay, not near here, but across the 
 township. Besides, we felt pretty tired 
 ourselves when we looked down into that 
 hole. 
 
 We were up and out very early. The 
 crew stayed at the lumber camp, while I, 
 of course, lived at the Cabin. Thus we 
 had to converge at the point where we 
 had left our work the night before. At 
 sundown, or a little before, we would quit. 
 Then it became necessary to cut across 
 country to our respective habitations. 
 
THE SURVEYORS 275 
 
 In this a curious distinction made itself 
 evident: — that between riding through a 
 country with the sole object of getting 
 somewhere, and surveying a mathemati- 
 cally straight line. 
 
 In one case you pay slight attention to 
 details and much to generalities. You care 
 little for the lesser landmarks, such as burned 
 stubs, curious rocks, and the like. No 
 matter how unusual they may be, your re- 
 collection of them is likely to be duplicated 
 a dozen times a day. If you depend on 
 them, you are speedily lost. But the direc- 
 tion of main ridges and the general trend 
 of their laterals, the course of streams, the 
 situation of "pockets," the slopes of the 
 country, " the lay of the land," in short, 
 are of the utmost importance. All day 
 you are busily engaged in constructing a 
 mental-relief map on which you can look 
 down and to which you can refer new 
 features as you come across them. 
 
 In a country of broad outlooks this is 
 not difficult. The nearest peak will fur- 
 
276 THE CABIN 
 
 nish you a vantage-ground from which to 
 understand the framework for a week's 
 journeying. Then you are equipped to 
 plunge down into the canons and forests. 
 Even if everything goes wrong, and you 
 get all tangled up, you can, by a little 
 earnest visualising, fit the discrepancies into 
 the plan of what you have actually seen. 
 
 But in a densely forested mountain coun- 
 try the task has an added difficulty in that 
 you will be forced to substitute, for this 
 first bird's-eye view, a synthesis of your 
 own. You must bring to your assistance 
 all your experience. From the single bone 
 you must, like Cuvier, construct the whole 
 animal. Such a combination of ridge and 
 water-source must in this sort of country 
 mean such a general scheme of things. 
 Then you keep your eyes open for corro- 
 boration. If that corroboration fails, or if 
 your hypothesis is flatly denied by the next 
 hard physical fact, you must figure out a 
 new one on the basis of what you know 
 about all three. The test comes when. 
 
THE SURVEYORS 277 
 
 trusting in the mental-relief map you have 
 constructed out of fragmentary operations, 
 you strike across country you have never 
 seen, to reach some spot you have never 
 visited. 
 
 Nothing affords one greater satisfaction 
 than to find one's reasoning has been correct. 
 Nothing is more confusing than to fail. 
 Nevertheless, practice and experience give 
 most men a considerable facility. Of course 
 they do not analyse matters as I have done, 
 but the elements of the case are always the 
 same. Such men are said to have a good 
 sense of direction. They have— plus a heap 
 of experience. 
 
 While I am on the subject, let me add 
 one word : no man lives who cannot be lost 
 somewhere and sometime. The surer he is 
 that he will never get lost anywhere at any 
 time, the surer I would be in regard to the 
 truth of my statement as respects that par- 
 ticular man. Of course a woodsman would 
 never stay lost; but the time surely comes 
 when the country is strange and the ways 
 
278 THE CABIN 
 
 out absolutely do not exist. A few moments' 
 abstraction or inattention at a critical point 
 will do it, especially if the inattention is 
 complete — that is, if the subconscious mind, 
 too, is absent from its post. When a man 
 tells me he has never been lost, I conclude one 
 of two things : either he has not had really 
 extended experience, or he is not entirely 
 frank, either with himself or with me. 
 
 When following a transit, however, the 
 opposite state of affairs obtains. Here you 
 are tied to your instrument. However the 
 country lies, you go due north — or south, or 
 east, or west, as the case may be. Generali- 
 ties are of no interest except as their features 
 cross the narrow straight line of your progress 
 — except as they interpose canons, ravines, 
 streams, brush, or hills to your onward march. 
 Your task is to open a straight "sight" for 
 the surveyor. You are very much interested 
 in small details ; in fact, a single feathery 
 twig may blot the crossbars of the glass. 
 It is a game of almost complete absorption. 
 When night falls you look about you on 
 
THE SURVEYORS 279 
 
 a strange country. Between this and your 
 last observation for your mental-relief map, 
 a day's work has intervened. You straighten 
 your back and look about you. 
 
 " Well, which way home ? " is the invari- 
 able question, and it is well to guess right, 
 for darkness is near at hand. 
 
 It is a game, like the hunt for old corners, 
 and its winning brings a mild victor's satis- 
 faction, as well as a warm and early supper. 
 
 The day's work itself was full of variety. 
 On arriving at our last station of the day 
 before, we at once prepared for the next 
 *' sight." Tom, with his brilliantly checkered 
 rod, went ahead. Jack and I cut out any- 
 thing that interfered with the clear sight 
 through the little transit telescope. Some- 
 times we had luck. Tom could retire six or 
 seven hundred feet down a long fresh aisle 
 or across a canon. Again the big trees and 
 rocks, or the brows of hills, or a tangle too 
 large to cut out would bring the rodman to 
 within a few feet of the instrument. Jack 
 and I swung our axes for an hour at a time. 
 
280 THE CABIN 
 
 Again we had nothing to do but saunter 
 along the high, open, rocky ridges, occasion- 
 ally blazing a tree to indicate the course of 
 the boundary. Always the Surveyor clung 
 stoutly to his transit. 
 
 The Surv^eyor, as I intimated some space 
 back, was game as a badger. He came into 
 this rather high altitude directly from the 
 plains, and he was not in the best of shape 
 for mountain travel. Nevertheless, he stuck 
 to it, and climbed all the steeps, and worked 
 through without complaint until nightfall, 
 carrying over his shoulder that piece of field 
 ordnance of his, and a little hand-satchel 
 containing his notes and computation tables. 
 Among other things he brought with him 
 a mule fully sixteen hands high, on which 
 he used occasionally to ride to and from camp, 
 when camp was very distant. The first 
 time he mounted this tremendous animal, 
 it bucked with him. The handle of the 
 hand-satchel broke, and papers flew like flakes 
 in a snowstorm. The Surveyor stayed with 
 it, and only dismounted when one of us 
 
THE SURVEYORS 281 
 
 seized the animars head. We loosened the 
 back cinch, as a possible cause of war, and 
 quite as a matter of fact the Surveyor started 
 to remount. 
 
 "I don't know as he'll let me ride him," 
 was his only remark. 
 
 The Surveyor was to me a marvel of 
 patience as respects Tom. Tom was eager 
 to do the right thing, but rattle-brained. 
 He listened to the first three words of direc- 
 tion, instantly supplied his own conclusion — 
 generally a wrong one — and acted on it. 
 Then it took a strong counter-suggestion to 
 head him right. That counter- suggestion I 
 should have proffered with a club. From 
 our position in advance, the usual interchange 
 was about like this : 
 
 Surveyor (shouting): ^'Try to get as far 
 back against that tree as you can. No, this 
 side the tree. Not so far ! No, a little at a 
 time. No, not that side, this side." 
 
 Tom (excitedly) : " Well, I can't tell what 
 you do want. Why in hell don't you tell 
 me just where you do want me ? " 
 
282 THE CABIN 
 
 Surveyor (sweetly and patiently): "That's 
 just what I'm trying to do, Tom. Try 
 again." 
 
 The man was always wrong; and he re- 
 peated stupid mistakes. I wondered how 
 the Surveyor could possibly present to him 
 always that front of calm and patient pla- 
 cidity. One day I happened to be back with 
 the instrument. Then I discovered that the 
 conversation went more like this, the italicised 
 portions being uttered in a low voice. 
 
 Surveyor: "Try to get as far back against 
 that tree as you can, you mutton-headed mud- 
 turtle. No, this side — lucky there's only two 
 sides or you'd get it wrong oftener, you thick- 
 witted idiot. Not so far. Of course you'd 
 do it wrong. No, a little at a time. / 
 wonder how many times Tve told you that. 
 I ought to get a phonograph and make you 
 carry it. No, not that side, this side, a^ I 
 befo7*e remarked eight thousand separate, dis- 
 tinct, and several times." 
 
 Which seemed to me an admirable system. 
 It relieved the Surveyor's mind without in- 
 
THE SURVEYORS 283 
 
 ducing a row. Tom was incurable; and the 
 Surveyor, with a large wisdom, had early 
 realised that fact. 
 
 Our line soon developed that obstinate, 
 resistant, almost inimical personality so often 
 met in natural forces. It invariably crossed 
 the highest, steepest hills and the deepest, 
 most precipitous canons, when easy '*sags" 
 and passes were just off its course. All day 
 it would cling to the open rocky ridges while 
 the sun shone clear and warm. Then it 
 would rain over night. Next day we would 
 find ourselves neck-deep in acre after acre of 
 shower-wet brush. In three steps we would 
 be soaked through, and would so remain. 
 By noon the sun would have dried the bushes ; 
 whereupon ironically we would emerge once 
 more into the open country. 
 
 But always we made our day's distance, 
 and when night approached, though tired, had 
 left our records in the keeping of the forest 
 for all time. Back tramped the friend who 
 was then visiting us at the Cabin and I, to 
 where we had last left our horses. As the 
 
284 THE CABIN 
 
 sun dipped lower, we rode down through the 
 silent forest. 
 
 At this time of day the sunlight falls in 
 a yellow gold on the distant ridges glimpsed 
 through the trees, a yellower, weirder, deeper 
 gold than I have ever seen elsewhere. The 
 shadows rise cool from the darkening ravines. 
 Twilight comes swiftly in these latitudes, and 
 as swiftly gives place to night. By the time 
 we had reached the summit of the ridge above 
 the Cabin, Billy had already lit the lamp. 
 We yelled an announcement of our coming ; 
 the dogs cut across lots through the brush ; 
 Flapjack, leaving his customary position in 
 the rear, tinkled ahead and merrily leaped the 
 fence to the meadow. 
 
XXI 
 
 THE JOURNEY 
 
 It takes as long to go to the Cabin as it 
 would to go to Chicago. The first three 
 days are very hot. On a cool fresh noon 
 the thermometer stands from 90 to 95 
 degrees ; on warm days from 100 to 105 
 degrees ; and on hot days from that on 
 until the mercury explodes the bulb. This 
 is fine for dried fruits, of which the pro- 
 duction is enormous ; for umbrella trees, 
 with the black shade ; and for horned toads, 
 of which, however, the visible supply is 
 gradually decreasing. It is not so desir- 
 able for him who rides ; and still less 
 pleasant for him whose unfortunate lines 
 follow (over dusty roads) the slow progress 
 of the stage. The heat beats from the 
 hills and cuts as from an opened furnace 
 
 285 
 
286 THE CABIN 
 
 door; the dust, wafted by a gentle follow- 
 ing current of air, envelops the vehicle in 
 a cloud ; the countryside is parched and 
 brown, awaiting the annual rains ; and the 
 ground squirrels and burrowing owls and 
 coyotes and brush birds merely irritate by 
 a useless and senseless activity. Moreover, 
 the stage leaves the railroad at six in the 
 morning, and drags uphill until five of the 
 afternoon ; which is a long time. 
 
 The first two hours are not so bad. Even 
 in the hot country the early morning keeps 
 a certain freshness of the night. The horses 
 are lively, the country flat. Generally we 
 let the dogs run, and they range wide, chas- 
 ing madly after ground squirrels. But by 
 the time we reach the foothills the peculiar 
 burning-glass quality of the sun is begin- 
 ning to strike in. The horses fall to a 
 walk. The dogs drop in behind, exhibiting 
 inches of pink dripping tongues. Seat 
 cushions get hard. Then we round a corner 
 and stop opposite a broad field between 
 two hills. In the distance is a barn from 
 
THE JOURNEY 287 
 
 which emerges an old man leading fresh 
 horses. When he has delivered these 
 animals to the driver, he brings to us the 
 basket he is carrying, from which — and 
 from the great kindness of his heart — he 
 distributes fresh figs or peaches and apricots 
 according to the month. This old man 
 has a long white beard, and a ruddy skin, 
 and a cheerful blue eye, and is the first 
 of our landmarks. 
 
 For, as we go on, we lose our sense of 
 proportion as respects time. No one can 
 tell, after the heat has begun, whether it 
 is ten o'clock or two. Generally it feels 
 as if it should be six o'clock of day after 
 to-morrow\ The only means of estimating 
 progress is by the landmarks. After we 
 had been over the stage ride once or twice 
 these become unforgettably impressed. They 
 are absurdly simple. There were, for in- 
 stance, the Surly Family, who never 
 answered our greetings ; the House with 
 the Twisted Tree as a verandah post ; the 
 Dog who comes after the Mail ; the Two- 
 
288 THE CABIN 
 
 Storied Adobe ; the Wabbly Bridge ; the 
 old Gold Workings; the Leaning Chimney, 
 of stone ; the First Pine ; and as many 
 more as you please. Until we had been 
 over the road five or six times, these land- 
 marks held to us no sequence. We could 
 not have told you which came first or 
 second or fourth or last. They were so 
 many isolated, distinct pictures. Merely 
 we were certain that somewhere in the 
 course of the long hot day they existed. 
 Sometimes, toward the close of the journey, 
 hoping to persuade ourselves we were 
 almost arrived, we tried to think we had 
 been mistaken. Certainly we had not 
 passed the Two Old Men's Cabin, with the 
 fig trees and the flowing well ; but we 
 must have been mistaken. We had seen 
 them somewhere else. The journey's end 
 must be over that ridge, and between here 
 and there was obviously no more room 
 for landmarks. So we tried to argue the 
 non-existence of the Two Old Men; but 
 inexorably at last they would shoulder their 
 
THE JOURNEY 289 
 
 way into the weary hours of our day. The 
 journey's end was not over that ridge; 
 our landmarks decHned to be wished 
 away. 
 
 But though we grew wearier as the day 
 advanced, compensations came with the 
 hours. We were climbing slowly but 
 surely, and the oak trees, the buckthorn, 
 the chaparral were constantly thickening 
 and growing taller. Rocks covered with 
 lichens, red as paint, outcropped. Ravines 
 and deep gashes cleft the hills. Running 
 water flowed in what lower down would 
 have been dry barrancas. From one point 
 we had seen the bold rocky serrated line 
 of Shuteye, the snow still clinging to its 
 crest. And as we drew slowly but surely 
 nearer, the azure of our Ridge deepened 
 to violet, then to slate ; and at last, with 
 the sunset light, to the deep, beautiful 
 rose-pink and amethyst of evening. 
 
 And then we strike a little down-grade. 
 The horses trot ahead. We cross two 
 bridges, and pull up opposite the shaded 
 
290 THE CABIN 
 
 broad-roofed house. Aunt Belle comes 
 out to greet us. We descend stiffly, and 
 shake ourselves, and wonder if we will 
 ever be able to get all the dust off. For 
 we are coated with it, our faces are ash- 
 grey with it, at every move we smoke 
 with it. 
 
 Next morning we saddle up, pack Flap- 
 jack, and set ourselves to the last steep 
 climb. 
 
 At first the chaparral, the manzanita, 
 the digger pines follow us. But as we 
 mount the steep side, slowly the vegetation 
 changes. Yellow pines, increasingly dense, 
 replace the scattered diggers. Here and 
 there a dogwood's fresh green and the 
 broad cream petals of its blossoms shine 
 in bright contrast. The light olive of 
 snowbrush, the vivid green of bear clover, 
 the polished leaves of chinquapin, perhaps 
 even a tiny patch of azaleas offer a great 
 refreshment to the eye. There is no more 
 brown and powdery grass. The air, while 
 still warm, bears on its tiny wandering 
 
THE JOURNEY 291 
 
 breezes just a taste of crispness. Still, the 
 plains and foothills lie below us, and the 
 breath of them follows us scorching ; the 
 trees on the slope are of ordinary size — 
 we are even yet in California. 
 
 But after three hours or so we make a last 
 scramble over the rim. 
 
 Around us are the Trees, our great, beauti- 
 ful Trees. The grass is green, the water 
 sparkling, the birds shouting aloud with joy, 
 the sky blue. Flowers are all about us, even 
 to the edges of the melting snow-banks. 
 California has been whisked away. We are 
 back again in our magic country, and other 
 places are not. It is as sudden as that ; the 
 mere topping of a hill. 
 
 We ride along the old road, spying eagerly 
 for the little changes. Winter, the gardener 
 of these mighty domains, has been at work, 
 pruning the limbs with his shears whose twin 
 blades are the Wind and the Snow. The 
 fragments lie everywhere, but the tall, noble 
 trees tower stronger and straighter for the 
 
292 THE CABIN 
 
 shearing. Only here and there one of the 
 brittle firs has lost a top or fallen full length 
 to the ground. We spy out the strange, 
 brilliant flames of the snow-plant; we listen 
 for the hermit thrush; we note the job of 
 axe work old Winter has left us to do before 
 wheels can traverse our road. Over the sky- 
 line, down through the long aisle of the road, 
 we espy Theophilus. We greet him with a 
 shout. 
 
 Ten minutes later, having shovelled the 
 snow off the verandah, we are gazing into 
 the darkened interior. 
 
 " Goodness ! What a mess ! " cries Billy. 
 
 She hunts her stubby little broom; I get 
 out the axe. Before getting to work we 
 step together to the edge of the verandah 
 and look down the vista of the meadow to 
 the new-young Spring. The peaceful accus- 
 tomedness of it all descends softly on our 
 spirits like a mist. We have never been 
 away. Everything is as it was. The old life 
 of the great spaces takes us familiarly by the 
 hand. We do our daily accustomed tasks 
 
THE JOURNEY 293 
 
 and pleasures, and at night fall asleep in the 
 open. And then 
 
 Suddenly we awaken late at night. It is 
 pitch dark, and the wind is high. A heavy, 
 swift rain is beating down on us fiercely. To 
 our sleep numbed faculties it seems better to 
 bear with those ills we have than to rush 
 into unknown evils of wet brush on the way 
 to the shelter of the Cabin. Therefore we 
 pull our canvas quite over our heads and 
 snuggle down in the blankets. Occasionally 
 in a half-sleep we shrink from a wet space. 
 The pelt of the rain lulls us. When we 
 finally awaken after daylight, we find the 
 outside of the canvas almost a solid sheet 
 of ice. 
 
 That day we notice several things ; the 
 meadow is eaten down; the horses, restless 
 for the low country, huddle in the upper 
 fence corner; the birds have all departed or 
 fallen silent ; the pine needles have for some 
 weeks been sifting down as the great trees 
 thinned their tops in preparation for snow. 
 
294 THE CABIN 
 
 By these signs we know that the hour has 
 struck. 
 
 Therefore we pile everything in the middle 
 of the floor, shutter the windows, board up 
 the fireplace, wire the gates ; bid Theophilus 
 farewell, and ride away. Even before we 
 have surmounted the little swell of our hill, 
 the squirrels are swarming the shed kitchen ; 
 an impudent finch pulls away a chunk of 
 mud from our chimney. Every year there 
 is so much to do over again — clearing up 
 that which the forest has sprinkled down 
 over our belongings ; cutting out the dead 
 trees ; bracing and repairing; mending fences; 
 pruning encroaching and persistent growth. 
 The thought will not be stifled that perhaps 
 we shall not be able to come one year — and 
 another, and another. And then, perhaps, 
 our friend the Forest will conclude that we 
 are not coming back any more, and quite 
 gently will begin to take the tiny clearing 
 to herself. She can do this very swiftly, 
 adapting and changing what she cannot 
 absorb. Billy thinks old Theophilus, Theo- 
 
THE JOURNEY 295 
 
 philus the cynical and wise, will stand guard 
 for us always. I respect, but do not under- 
 stand, Theophilus. He is quite capable of 
 deciding cynically to ally himself with the 
 wild forces. He is indifferent. And whether 
 the undoubted Spirit of Wisdom with which 
 he is animated could hold its own against 
 the Spirit of the Woods, I am not sure. 
 Near the back gate Billy has a grove of pines 
 two inches tall which she is cherishing for 
 remote generations. My private opinion is 
 that before these tiny seedlings will have 
 grown tall enough to cast a shadow over the 
 Cabin, the sentinel pines, swaying gently 
 just beneath the sky, will signal their brothers 
 of the Merced to the North, their sisters 
 of the Kaweah to the South that at last 
 these little human activities are indeed one 
 " with Nineveh and Tyre." 
 
NOTE 
 
 In all the extent of the old White-Pine belt of the 
 Eastern and Northern States the next generation will 
 be able to look upon no sample of the forest that was. 
 The stumps, even, are rotting away. The yellow pine 
 timber of the South will have vanished and left no 
 sign. Your children's children will have to believe as 
 much as they are able of the descriptions to be found 
 in the books they will exhume from the libraries. 
 This conclusion is not the sentimental imagining of 
 a pessimist. The remaining pine forests, such as they 
 are, are in the hands of private owners, and will sooner 
 or later find their way to the lumber piles. Replant- 
 ing on an extensive scale is ultimately inevitable ; but 
 replanting will produce a crop of trees in rows, not a 
 forest. 
 
 This, I think, most of us have come to understand. 
 What we do not realise is that those of us who have 
 seen the great woodlands of California should rejoice, 
 for there too the big fellows are doomed to vanish. 
 
 How about our immense National Forests.? How 
 about Conservation ? 
 
 287 
 
298 NOTE 
 
 It is true we have set aside for the public vast 
 tracts of woodland, but the National Forests are for 
 use and not for integral preservation. They are 
 intended to be lumbered oft*, just as private holdings 
 are meant to be lumbered. The only difference is 
 that the Forest Service aims to cut the ripe trees in 
 such a manner as to leave the woodland in a condition 
 to produce a future supply. In the perfected use of 
 our resources, when private holdings have been cut 
 over, and we turn for our lumber to Government 
 reserves, all the full-grown mature trees will be 
 harvested. The forest itself will be preserved, both 
 as a watershed and as a growing and perpetual supply, 
 but it must necessarily change its character. The 
 big trees will all be gone ; and never more will they he 
 seen again, 
 
 A moment's figuring will show why this must be. 
 Suppose an acre of forest land will produce 40,000 
 board feet. In a virgin forest this amount will be 
 comprised in say three or four huge trees four hundred 
 years old. The trees are cut down : a new growth 
 springs up. At the end of eighty years there may 
 be twenty trees cutting 2000 feet apiece. At one 
 hundred years five of the twenty will have died from 
 overcrowding, but the fifteen remaining will have 
 made sufficient growth to maintain the total at about 
 40,000 feet. From this time on the rate of increase 
 is just about balanced by the rate of thinning. Purely 
 
NOTE 299 
 
 as a commercial proposition it is better sense to cut 
 the twenty smaller trees at eighty years than to wait 
 for the three or four big ones ; to harvest five crops in 
 the length of time necessary to grow one of the old- 
 fashioned sort. In the conserved National Forests no 
 more than in the wasted and slashed private holdings 
 can the future hope to look upon the great sugar 
 pines and firs in the glory of their primeval majesty. 
 
 The only hope of that is in setting aside national 
 parks for their preservation, as we have set aside 
 national parks for the preservation of other things, 
 such as geysers, battlefields, canons, sequoias, and 
 grass. In some of these numerous reservations, par- 
 ticularly in those dedicated to the so-called Big Trees, 
 necessarily grow many specimens of the various pines 
 and firs. But they are only specimens. To preserve 
 intadt the dignity and majesty peculiar to these 
 forests it would be necessary to set aside especial Sugar 
 Pine Parks from districts w^here such species par- 
 ticularly flourish; and this has nowhere been done. 
 If somewhere along the Sugar-Pine belt ^ some wisdom 
 of legislation or executive decree could duplicate the 
 Muir Woods on a greater scale, or the Sequoia 
 National Park on a lesser, we would avoid the 
 
 ^ The very best specimen of Sugar Pine Forest in Govern- 
 ment control is situated on the south end of Whiskey Ridge in 
 Madera County. Plans are now forward to cut this timber 
 under Government supervision. 
 
300 NOTE 
 
 aesthetic mistake we made in tossing to memory alone 
 the visions of our old primeval forests of the East. 
 We had sense enough to set aside a portion of our 
 sequoias, but that apparently was only because of 
 their scarcity. Probably sugar pines are now actually 
 too abundant to be bothered with. We are rapidly 
 remedying that difficulty. 
 
GENERAL LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA— BERKELEY 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the 
 
 date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
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 JUL 2 6 1954 
 
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 JAN 13 ^9561^1 
 
 RECD 1.0 
 
 FEB 21963 
 
 LD 21-100m-l,'54(lS87sl6)476 
 
 MAR 1 5 195G 8 
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 JAN 3^982 
 
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 MAY 1 4 200^ 
 
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