# A La California/Chapter 10

CHAPTER X.
AROUND THE MOUNTAIN CAMP FIRE.
AROUND THE CAMPFIRE.
​the recollections of the wild life of other days; or, as Beranger would express it:
"The brave days when we were twenty-one."
And of all places on earth for solid comfort in camp there is none like California. The pure, dry, mountain air is always so healthful and invigorating, and the nice, dry ground is worth all the spring mattresses in Christendom for a bed. And then it never rains in California during the spring, summer and autumn months. Given a shot-gun, a rifle, fishing-tackle, blankets to sleep in, a frying-pan, coffee-pot and cups, a little flour, salt, pepper and a few sundries, and a bunch of matches, and, with two or three jolly companions—it is none the worse if the party is half made up of ladies, so that they are possessed of sense and know how to rough it and enjoy it—your "outfit" is complete.
"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."
Better one month of camp life in the California mountains, than years on years of life at the fashionable "watering-places" and "summer resorts" of the East and Europe.
Ponce de Leon sought in vain for the Fountain of Youth in the swamps and forests of Florida—he was looking" in the wrong direction. I found the fountain years ago up in a quiet cañon, under the madrono trees, in the mountains of California; and every time I drink of its waters and camp by its side, Time, at my bidding, turns back in his flight, and I am only a boy again.
We lunched with such hearty satisfaction, and found the mountain air and scenery so much to our liking, ​that we were loth to leave it and return to the city. So we took a vote on the proposition, decided to go into camp for the night at least, and, having dispatched Bill to Calistoga for blankets and cooking apparatus, proceeded to make ourselves at home.
There are always people who will go poking around hunting for trouble and disagreeable things wherever they happen to be. Curse all such people, I say! What is the use of it?
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," is the wisest saying between the lids of the bible, and I travel on it. We had one of these people in our party, and he knocked around in the bushes until he found a rattlesnake. It did not bite anybody, and was not looking for anybody to bite, and if it had not been stirred up with a stick and set to rattling, no one would have known it was there. As it was, it frightened the ladies and destroyed the pleasure of the party for hours. More fool the man who found it.
I can recall one incident in my lifetime, and one only, in which snakes had a healthy effect and rendered a service to humanity. Some ten years ago the San Francisco bar numbered among its members many jolly, good fellows, who were given to free indulgence in the pleasures of the table, and not unfrequently passed the limits of prudence, and wrestling too ardently with old King Alcohol, were thrown and severely hurt. Among them was Mike Durfee, now a strictly temperate man, a successful lawyer and an exemplary citizen, after nearly all his old associates have succumbed and passed away. When Mike ​"went on a tear" it was a long and desperate one, and its result was a foregone conclusion. The reporters for the daily press of San Francisco were sitting one morning in their special quarter in the Police Court room, taking notes of the trials and sentences of the thieves, vagrants, burglars, wife-whippers, drunkards, and all other offscourings of humanity who attend the daily levees of his honor, when Mike, who, in pursuance of his time-honored custom, had been "running all night," and was just on the debatable ground between sudden reform and delirium tremens, came in, and leaning up against the partition which separates the reporters from that of the shysters, fell fast asleep. Seeing him in that position, the writer reached over to the chair always occupied by poor old Dick R——— (Rattlesnake Dick, as we used to call him by way of affectionate endearment, was a special favorite with all the reporters of that day), and pulled out a little roll of curled hair from the cushion. This hair was rolled into a hard wad, about the size of a large marrowfat pea, and dropped quietly inside of Mike's shirt-collar, where it lodged without in the least disturbing his slumbers. The morning wore on and the business of the day was nearly concluded, and still Mike slept on. At last a case was called, in which Mike was interested, or supposed to be, and the bailiff in attendance shook him by the shoulder, with the emphatic adjuration, "Here Mike, wake up; your case is called!" Mike awoke with a start, and stepping out promptly in front of the Judge's desk, threw out his right arm in oratorical style, began— ​"Your honor, I propose——" At that instant the ball of curled hair, which had been confined between his shirt-collar and his neck, set free by the change in his position, commenced rolling down his chest upon the unprotected cuticle, like a spider with ten thousand sharp, clawed feet, going after his prey in a hurry. Mike felt it, and every nerve in his system thrilled in response, as if struck by the shock from a galvanic battery. Springing about four feet clear of the floor, he yelled in wild despair, "Whoop! Hell's Blazes! Snakes!" and came down with a jar which shook the whole room, with hair on end, eyes in frenzy rolling, and face of the hue of death; fairly gasping for breath, he snatched at his collar convulsively, tore it open, and following the descending serpent with desperate haste, tore every button off his shirt bosom in succession, grasping the dread monster at last as it paused in its career at its waist, where his pants were cinched so tightly that it could go no further, drew it forth, with hand trembling so that he could scarcely hold it, and sank faint, sick and helpless into a chair. Meantime the commotion in the Court room was something indescribable. The Judge sprang to his feet in astonishment and ill-concealed apprehension; the spectators and members of the bar, under the impression that Mike had gone suddenly crazy, or been violently attacked with the delirium tremens, were seized with a panic, and upsetting chairs, benches and each other in their haste to get out of his reach, fled from the room, as the demon fled from the chamber where the fish of Tobit lay—probably ​holding his nose as he did so—while to crown the uproar and confusion, a tall policeman who had been sitting with his feet braced against the large upright stove, and his chair tipped back, straightening himself out in his effort to rise and join in the flight, sent the stove end over end on the floor, the long pipe following suit, and coming down on the affrighted crowd joint by joint, flinging clouds of sticky coal-soot and smoke in all directions. When the stampede was over at last, and Mike had so far recovered from his attack of snakes as to be able to comprehend the situation, he arose, tottered over to the reporters' desk, and thus freed his mind: "By——, if I murdered the man who put that centipede in my bosom, any jury in Christendom would render a verdict of justifiable homicide! But, boys, it's my next deal, and I'll be—— if you ever get a chance to play that on me again! If it had got down into my boots I'd never have drawn another sane breath so long as I lived. As it is, I'll never draw another drunken one, damn you!"
And Mike kept his word like a man, stopped drinking entirely, devoted himself to the practice of his profession industriously, rose step by step in public estimation, and now holds an important office, to which he was elected by the votes of his life-long friends and acquaintances, many of whom to this day tell with infinite gusto and roars of laughter the story of Mike Durfee's snake.
We built a glorious camp-fire in the little opening like an artificial clearing in front of the great madroño, and with the remnants of our lunch and the spoils of ​the forest and mountain streams, got up a supper that a prince might envy. Did you ever roll a mountain trout in wet paper or green leaves and roast him like a potato in the hot ashes? If not, you have yet to learn the first lesson in gastronomic enjoyment. Soyer was a fool! I will match a California mountain trout so cooked against all the "made dishes" he ever produced, and trust to any jury on earth for a verdict in my favor; no, in favor of the trout, I mean. After supper, when we had made up our quarters for the night and gathered ourselves comfortably around the blazing camp-fire, the fun commenced. Few of the stories brought out on such occasions will bear the test of repetition in print. It wants the mountain air, the wild, romantic surroundings, the jolly companionship and good fellowship to give them the hearty zest which makes them so enjoyable at the moment. How quickly the "forty-niners" go back to the mining-camps and the wild scenes of those early days, and live over again the life of the pioneer gold-hunters, who poured in a torrent over the Sierra, and, in an almost incredible space of time, searched every cañon, nook and crevice of the mountains for the precious metal, tore up the soil of every hillside from Siskiyou to Fresno, marring and disfiguring the whole face of nature for all time, and then leaving their cities and villages, which had sprung up like Jonah's gourd in a single night, to fall to decay and slowly disappear from sight, and almost from memory even, scattered far and wide over the whole earth, little dreaming of the true wealth of El Dorado ​which they left, untouched and undeveloped, for a priceless heritage to those less adventurous souls who should come slowly plodding after them in other years. Of all that mighty host, not more than one in a hundred remains in California to-day. In neglected graves, in the red earth of the Sierra, in the shadow of the cross of Calvary, under the laurel and willows of Lone Mountain, in the great depths of the sea, in the trenches of innumerable battlefields, in far-off Australia or Southern Africa, in Alaska, in Arizona, in Mexico, in Nicaragua, they sleep their last sleep.
Wherever gold was to be sought for, wildernesses to be reclaimed, suffering to be endured, blood to be shed, they wandered, and fought, and died by thousands. They were a rough set—ready with the knife and the revolver, free-handed and liberal withal to the last degree—rich to-day, poor to-morrow, hopeful always, and game to the last When the placers of California are exhausted, and the-orchard and vineyard cover every hillside, the stories of their reckless adventures and wild career will be repeated again and again, and listened to with interest by every class in the community. "The days of '49" will ever be memorable as marking the most striking and wonderful epoch in the history of the Pacific coast. After them everything will seem stale, and flat, and tame to the youthful reader of history.
As the hours of evening wore on, one and another took up the story of pioneer life, and many an anecdote, new to me and hitherto unprinted, was ​related by eye-witnesses. Among them was the following:
After the first rush to the placers, and when the building of permanent towns had fairly commenced, lumber fit for building purposes became in great demand, and in the forest near the sea coast, where transportation was readily obtainable, immense camps sprung up, and the scenes of the flush times in the mines were repeated. Lumber was worth hundreds of dollars per thousand feet, and money was gained and lost with a lavishness and rapidity almost incredible in these days. In one camp in the redwood forests of Humboldt, not far from the present town of Eureka, there were some six hundred men at work, and business was lively, in every sense of the word. There were two "stores" at which articles for miners' and lumbermen's use—heavy clothing, groceries, provisions, and notably whisky and cards—were dispensed at round prices. Every store in those days was a saloon, and a gambling-house as well; and poker, monte, faro and fights were the order of the day and night. It was no uncommon thing for a prosperous gambler on a Sunday morning to knock the head out of a barrel of whisky, put a tin cup in it, and set it in the middle of the store, for all comers to help themselves free of charge. And it was the dearest whisky man ever drank at that, for nine out of every ten who partook of it left from ten to a thousand times its nominal value at the gambler's bank before he went home that night. The feast of Belshazzar was nothing to the wild carousals which took place sometimes in ​that camp. There were six of us in our cabin—no two from the same State, I think—and a pretty good crowd we were generally. But whisky and gambling will tell in the end, and they did on us. Among the party was one tall, finely-built, athletic man, of some twenty-eight or thirty years of age, who went by the name of "Kanoffsky." The name would indicate a Polish Jew, but he was evidently nothing of the sort, and the name was like that of half the others in camp, merely assumed through caprice or the desire to conceal identity while the possessor was laboring to retrieve a broken fortune or a ruined character. I always thought that he was a collegian, probably a graduate of Harvard or Yale, and he was undoubtedly a New Englander of good family. Curiously enough, his boon companion was a rough, uncouth, uneducated Missourian, who went by the common nickname of "Pike," about the last man in the world one would think to attract the sympathy and secure the confidence of an educated gentleman, such as "Kanoffsky" evidently was. But misfortune and mining excitements make strange bed-fellows. Their intimacy was casually remarked upon by everybody in camp, but in those days we thought little of any social phenomena—we had little time or inclination to think long and seriously about anything—and for a long time nothing important seemed to come of it. But at last an event occurred which startled and excited the whole camp. One dark, stormy Sunday night in the mid-winter season, when the wind roared through the forest in broken, savage blasts, and the ​rain fell in torrents, at brief intervals snatches of star-light intervening, Kanoffsky and Pike were absent until far past midnight, and we had all retired to our bunks with a certain undefined feeling of impending trouble, which every one has felt at times, but which no one can ever fully explain and account for. At last Pike, with an uncertain step, was heard coming in alone. He seated himself before the huge log fire, which had burned well down, but still gave off a ruddy glow from its great heap of fresh coals, partially lighting up the entire cabin, and drawing off his wet boots, remained toasting his feet for some time in moody silence. To inquiries as to the whereabouts of Kanoffsky, he replied somewhat testily that he did not know: that he had left him down at the stores half drunk early in the evening, and knew nothing more about it. His manner was peculiar, and produced the impression on myself and companions that he had been in difficulty with some one, probably over some gambling affair, and was "out of sorts," as well as a little drunk. While he sat there over the fire, one of our party got up, went outside and brought in another back log, which he threw upon the fire to prevent its burning out entirely before morning, and compelling us to rekindle it with matches and wet wood—a task of some difficulty. As he turned back from the fire, he remarked, "I stumbled over something outside there which I cannot make out! It felt like a bag of shot!" Pike looked up uneasily but said nothing. The man who had been out took a brand from the fire and stepping back to the door, ​stooped down and examined the object over which he had stumbled. With a puzzled air he lifted it up and brought it inside. It was, as he had said, like a bag of shot, and proved to be a shot-bag filled with gold-dust. There was blood in great blotches on the bag. We all sat up in our bunks to look at it, and the inquiry broke from each in succession as to whom it belonged.
"Well, damn you, if you all must know, it's mine!" growled out Pike at last.
"Where the mischief did you get such a bag of dust as that?" said one.
Pike, who now seemed now to be half drunk and half crazy, replied, "Well, it's none of your damned business anyhow; but if you must know, I got on a little spree down at the camp, and some of us cleaned out that Jew store."
Starting from my bunk, I exclaimed: "Boys, there has been murder here, sure as heaven. That old Jew and his son never submitted to be robbed while they had the breath of life left! Pike, you must consider yourself a prisoner."
The words were hardly out of my mouth, when Pike sprang up, and grasping me by the throat hurled me back upon the bunk with a savage imprecation, swearing that he would kill me on the instant if I did not take them back. All three of my companions were on him at once, and though he struggled like a madman, as he was, we got him down at last and tied him. Then he suddenly changed his tune, and tried to laugh it off. It was only a joke, he said, and ​nobody had been hurt. Untie him, and he would go back at once with the dust.
We were more convinced than ever that there had been murder, and one of the party volunteered to ride over to the main camp, some mile and a half distant, and find out what had occurred, while the other three kept guard over Pike. He started off and was gone about two hours. Just after daybreak he returned with a crowd of companions, all deeply excited. They had gone to the Jew's store, found it closed but not locked up, and on entering with lights, had beheld a spectacle frightful beyond the power of words to describe. The store was kept by a Jew of some fifty-five or sixty years of age, and his son, a boy of eighteen or nineteen, both of whom usually slept in the place. The old man lay on the floor of the main store-room, horribly chopped and mutilated with a hatchet, his skull fractured, jaw broken, one ear chopped off, and a great number of cuts on his head, face and breast, but still breathing. The floor was covered with blood, like that of a slaughter-house, and the marks of a desperate struggle for life were everywhere visible. In the back room they found the boy literally hacked to pieces and cold in death. The drawers had been forced open and rifled, and a trunk, kept under the counter and used for storing gold dust, coin and valuables, for want of a safe, stood smashed open and empty on the floor near the body of the old man, who had evidently fallen in attempting to defend it from the robbers, who had entered by the front window and rear door simultaneously. The news spread like ​wildfire through the camp, and in a short time Kanoffsky, who had been out in the woods, undoubtedly hiding his share of the plunder, was arrested on his way back to our cabin. The party arrived at our place, provided with a rope, and fully prepared to make Pike open his mouth, and tell the whole story, or "swing for it" instanter. At the sight of the rope he weakened, and related how it was all done.
The party, consisting of four persons—himself, Kanoffsky and two others who had escaped on horseback to the mountains and were never arrested—had planned the robbery some weeks before, and waited patiently for a dark night to carry it into execution. After the robbery and murder, Pike, in a spirit of recklessness or insanity—he could never give any reason for his conduct—started directly for our cabin, intending to hide the bag of gold-dust in a hollow stump, or some similar receptacle convenient to the place, until he could get it safely inside the house; but finding none in the darkness, brought it on until he reached the door, then laid it down where it was found, and went in to think the matter over and decide how he should dispose of it. Had one of our party not gone out to get the log to replenish the fire, it is probable that he might have succeeded in getting it hidden after all, and possibly escaped suspicion of being connected with the murder, as the two of his companions who escaped would naturally have been credited with the entire transaction.
A Lynch Court was organized immediately, Kanoffsky and Pike tried, found guilty, and sentenced to ​be hanged. All business was suspended for the day in the camp, and nothing else was thought or talked of.
Kanoffsky denied all connection with the affair from first to last, and the place where he had hidden his share of the plunder was never found, though search was made for it for years.
A similar murder was committed in Tuolumne county in 1851, and the money, amounting to several thousand dollars in coin, buried by the murderers near the cabin. It was sought after for years, but it was not until twenty years later, in the summer of 1871, that a party of miners sluicing away the hillside where the cabin had stood, unearthed it and shared the spoil between them, all the original actors in the tragedy having passed away meantime. The plunder hidden by Kanoffsky may possibly be unearthed in some such manner years, or centuries even, hence. When the execution took place a minister was sent for, and he labored earnestly for hours with the murderers Pike and Kanoffsky, but all in vain—not a sign of repentance or contrition did either give. Led out at last to the tree on which they were to die, the halters were placed around their necks, and they were asked if they had anything more to say. Pike said he had told the whole story and had nothing more to say. Kanoffsky called me to him, and, holding out his hand, said, "Well, good by, old fellow; I can't blame you! When it's all over, write to my———"
WHEN SHALL WE THREE MEET AGAIN.
​take this handkerchief out of my breast-pocket, and do me the favor to tie my hands securely behind me. I might go up after the rope and make the entertainment too lengthy. It is getting late, and the audience will want to adjourn as soon as possible. Please slip the knot a little further around in front so that it will come just under my ear. All ready; now go on with the performance!" The cart started off on the instant—down went both the men, their bodies swayed convulsively in the air for a few moments, and all was over.
Who or what Kanoffsky was we never learned, the secret of his real name and history dying with him. That night all hands in camp went on a general spree, and the carousal was kept up until far towards day-break. The keeper of the other store furnished the liquor, and got blind drunk on it himself before the spree was over. Everybody admitted that he kept very mean liquor. Among the crowd were two young fellows, less intoxicated than the rest, and they finished up the performance by going out and cutting down the bodies of Kanoffsky and Pike, bringing them into the store, and setting them them up against the wall. They then took the storekeeper, propped him up between them, and left him alone with the dead. When he awoke from his stupor next morning and looked around him, the face of a ghastly corpse, with the rope still around its neck, grinned at him from either side; and on the floor at his feet were scrawled with chalk the familiar words: "When shall we three meet again!" He went out of that place on the ​dead jump, yelling "murder" at the top of his lungs, and it was days before his nerves became quiet enough to enable him to mix a cocktail with anything like his accustomed skill and neatness.
Practical jokes were common in those days, and the jokers were by means fastidious as to the manner of playing them or their result. If life and limb were endangered, so much the better. I remember a man in Placerville, then called "Hangtown," from numerous little episodes in its history, which had resulted disastrously to parties involved in them, who owned a mule, which was admitted to be the champion animal for pure, unadulterated viciousness on the Pacific coast. He would start on the slightest hint. The rattle of a tin pan was poison to him; and in running away, he always made it a point to knock down and injure somebody. If he stampeded, and did not get a chance to kill or maim some one, he felt he had to account for a day wasted, and would stand for hours in deep dejection, his ears hanging down limp and lifeless; then suddenly rush across the street, whirl around and kick with all his might at a child or woman, by way of getting even and making up for lost time. It was a standing joke with the jolly boys of Hangtown to lend him to a party of newly arrived miners, to pack their traps to some placer mining-camp, and at the hour for starting gather in front of the express office to see him go off like a rocket, scatter everything right and left, and break for the chaparral, leaving the astonished gold-hunters to gather their traps and ​lament over the blasting of their prospects at their leisure. It was as much as a man's life was worth to go within reach of his heels; and it was necessary to muzzle him to keep him from eating everybody who came within reach of his jaws. One day a remarkably green specimen of the veritable "down-east Yank" came into Hangtown from the plains, and inquired for the nearest and best place to make a fortune in the diggings. He was kindly directed to a promising gulch, and, as he was hard up, the use of the champion mule to pack his grub, tools, blankets and traps was generously tendered him. He proposed to start at eight o'clock next morning, and all the jokers in town, comprising the larger share of the male population of the place, were on hand at the appointed time to see him off. Promptly at the time, the greenhorn from the land of steady habits made his appearance, and commenced to pack the mule. The heavy aparejo was placed on his back and securely cinched; flour, beef, bacon, etc., etc., strapped on that, and then a miscellaneous collection of pans, kettles, shovels, picks, etc., etc., corded on top of all, and the load was completed. Up to this time the mule had stood there as quiet as a lamb, but the fun, as all save the greenhorn in that goodly company well knew, was about to commence. The owner of the mule invited all hands to take a drink, at two bits a glass, and the invitation was cheerfully accepted. They all shook hands with the victim, and bid him God speed on his journey as he came out of the saloon and made ready to start. The piazza and sidewalk were crowded, and ​everybody was ready to yell at the moment the signal was given. Judge of the surprise, indignation and disgust which took possession of the crowd, when they saw that infamous mule walk off like a pet lamb with that confiding victim of their pleasantry, and disappear in the distance without so much as giving a snort, a kick, or even a parting look behind him at the friends and companions of his youth! The owner of the mule watched him until he disappeared over the hill, then invited all hands in to take another drink. He was dead beat, dumbfounded and non-plussed. What influence could have been at work on the brute to induce him to thus suddenly go back upon every tradition of his race, and forfeit his long and well-earned reputation, he could not for the life of him imagine, and he got blind drunk while puzzling his mind over the problem.
AN UNEXPECTED FIND.
​him out a mining-claim notice, which he at once posted on the tree as directed. There was not the trace of a "color" anywhere near that tree. In fact, it was evident to the eye of a professional miner at a glance that gold would never be found there. But the green-horn, in blissful ignorance, pulled off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and went in at once to dig a prospecting hole. The party in the gulch below saw him gradually sink down into the earth and disappear, as hour after hour he plied the pick and shovel with sturdy arm and determined will, and many were the "winks and nods, and wreathed smiles," to say nothing of broad grins and hearty guffaws which went around at his expense. About four p. m. they heard a shout from the prospecting hole in which he had disappeared, and a moment later he came out with a bound like a deer, and yelling like a madman, came down the face of the hill twenty feet at a jump, holding high above his head a nugget, or "chispa," of pure gold, weighing over $900. All was excitement in the camp in a minute. The chispa was examined and its character decided at once. Then they examined the hole, and decided that he had struck upon a pocket, or seam, of decayed quartz, where the gold set free had not been washed, and had remained undisturbed in its place. Such pockets often paid enormously. A lucky Irishman once found one near where the Catholic Orphan Asylum now stands, on the hill above the town of Grass Valley, took out a wheelbarrow-load of gold in a few hours, went raving mad over his suddenly acquired wealth, and died in the State Insane Asylum.
​Even as late as October, 1871, such a pocket was struck by a drunken Swede, near Georgetown, El Dorado county, and he took out $100,000 in a single day, then went on a drunk, which he has not yet got over.
Such pockets are good things to have. The company in the gulch, in which the owner of the mule was a large stockholder, after some bargaining bought the claim for $10,000, paid him down in gold-dust and orders on their partners, and hurried him off for Placerville early next morning, lest he should repent of his bargain and want to back out. Next morning they were at work there bright and early, while he was collecting his money in Placerville, and getting ready to "go down to the Bay"—i. e., to visit San Francisco. This was on Wednesday. The mule was delivered to his delighted owner, and, in consideration of his good services, enjoyed tall feed in a livery-stable for the rest of the week. His proprietor, anxious to inspect his new source-of untold wealth, hired a horse and started at once for the gulch.
On Saturday he returned with a face as long as the moral law, and black as a thunder-cloud. The party who purchased the victim's claim, himself included, had worked it for three days in succession, and given the whole side hill a thorough prospecting. They found two small nuggets, aggregating about $12, the first day; nothing on the second; and the third day was even as the one before it. They were sold, bilked, swindled, wronged, out and injured to the tune of $10,000. What became of the greenhorn they could ​never discover, and to this day they have the impression very strong in their minds that he was a "fraud from the word go," never saw Massachusetts in his life, and had put up the whole job on an unsuspecting and confiding community. If he had ever visited Hangtown again, the place would have earned an additional claim to its popular designation. But that guilty mule received his reward. On the morning following the return of his affectionate proprietor from the gulch, he was found in his stall with his back broken. It was suggested that he had dislocated his vertebrae in the vain effort to kick a fly off the end of his nose with his hind feet, or in attempting to reach the roof of the stable with his heels, there being nothing else in reach for him to exercise his strength upon in a playful manner; but his heart-broken owner knew better, and wisely kept his own counsel. As an expert and a life-long advocate of the decencies and amenities of life, I give my unqualified professional opinion that it was done with a club—and served him right. A few such examples as that unworthy mule afforded would utterly dissipate and destroy all one's confidence and trust in human nature.
Rough practical jokers though these old miners and frontiersmen always are, they are proverbially sensitive to newspaper criticism, and ready at all times to resent any liberty taken with their names or reputations. In an earlier chapter I have related how the man who fell from the roof of a three-story building on the corner of Montgomery and California streets,in San Francisco, compelled me to retract the ​assertion that, as he fell past the second story window, he, seeing a party inside playing seven up, and noticing that the dealer was turning the Jack from the bottom of the deck, called out "None of that!" It is ten to one that if the owner of that black-hearted mule is still living, and ever reads the above truthful account of his adventure, he will sue me for damages for libel on account of the insinuation as to the manner of the death of the animal.
It is only two or three years since an old and valued friend, a kind-hearted, energetic and determined frontiersman, to whom I am indebted for many an act of true politeness and hospitality in a country where such words have something more than a conventional meaning, wrote to me as follows:
Wickenburg, Arizona,—— , 186-.
Dear Col.:—We have had a very unpleasant affair here this week. Dick Snelling, whom you will remember, got on a spree, and being told that a Chileno, or a Portuguese, had threatened his life, got a shot-gun and started hunting him on the street. He unfortunately met a man who looked like the man he was hunting for, and shot him dead, and in the excitement of the moment scalped him. Now, you know that I never favored scalping white men, but Dick is as good a fellow as ever lived, and if he had not been drunk he would not have done it. He has got a nice family, and for his sake and for theirs I would not like to see an exaggerated account of the affair get into the papers. Will you oblige by seeing that no sensational account of it is given in San Francisco? Your friend,
The camp at last is quiet; the last story has been told, and the tellers, one by one, all save myself, have dropped off into the arms of sleep. All is silence in the mountains. Not a breath of breeze disturbs the foliage of the trees, and outside the camp not a living object is to be seen. The moon, which had risen over the eastern mountains, floods valley and hill, forest and mountain, with golden light, beautifying and glorifying the whole landscape with its touch. The glassy green leaves of the great madroño overhead or low and glisten in the moonlight like a cascade of molten silver, and the dark laurels beyond the canon are transformed into a golden-foliaged grove, such as glitter, rank on rank, by the banks of the rivers of Paradise
A dog which accompanied us on the expedition raises his head from time to time, and peers furtively into the dense chaparral, uttering a low, uneasy whine. His ears are sharper than ours, and he is conscious of the presence of an enemy unknown to us. Suddenly he springs to his feet, and, darting past the dying fire to the edge of the chaparral, utters a wild, angry bark, and in an instant a heavy body goes crashing away through the bushes, with a long, sharp "Yap-yap-yap-yah-hoo-ooo!" From the hillside above, from the canon in the shadow below, from rock and glen, and glade and chaparral, comes a quick response; and for ​five minutes it seems that there are half a thousand instead of half a dozen angry, prowling coyotes howling around us. The infernal chorus dies away at last, and once more all is silent in camp and on the mountain.
The grey dawn creeps slowly over the eastern mountains ; the horizon takes on the roseate hues of the inner surface of the sea-shell, then glows with gold and royal purple ; and, as the forest air is filled with the song of birds, and all nature rejoices in the glory of the springtime, the sun rises grandly over St. Helena, and the whole landscape glows like molton gold at his touch. On the bank of the grand canal, between Lakes Chalco and Tezcuco, in the valley of Mexico, stands a fonda, upon whose wall is painted the inscription, "A La Sol de California." Who can stand here and behold such a scene as this, and not sympathize in his inmost heart with the author of that inscription?
And here, companions in my wanderings, friends of my heart, I leave you, one and all, and reluctantly say good bye! Together we have galloped through the valleys and climbed the mountains in search of health, curious adventure, strange sights and scenes, and the beautiful in nature, in the glorious land of the madroño. Perchance we have not accomplished all we anticipated when we started out; have missed something for which we sought; failed in something which we desired. But we have seen much to remember, something that was new and strange, and cheated care ​and toil out of some right pleasant hours. I trust that you have been repaid for your trouble, and enjoyed yourselves as I have. If so, I am glad, and we may at no distant day renew our acquaintance, and in broader fields and other lands seek for grander and more stirring adventure. But, in any event, let us still be as we have been, good friends; and as we part this morning here beneath the madroño tree, let us shake hands all round, as is the goodly custom of the country, and say with reverent sincerity, each to each—Adios!