Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-06-04
IN THE REDWooDS.
A VISIT TO LOGGING CAMP IN MEN.
DoCINo COUNTY.
woodmen and Bun-punchsrs-How the
Trees are Felled-Nature Unadorned
Some Fish Stories.
MENpocrNo COUNT. Nav. ISL

here asked the red-naired, pretty COM
plexioned school teacher this morning as she
stirred her coffee. She looked at me curl
ously, too, as though had been hybrid,
new and strange, half of country and half
of city. Women do manage to get hold of
fashions somehow. Here have I come into
the wilds with wardrobe to suit my ex-
petition, and do protest every woman l
have seen has been arrayed in style. The
pretty calicoes, the piaids and stripes, the
kid shoes and buckled slippers, the en-
broidered hose, the long gloves, the two
braided coiffure-I declare for it, all are
here, and alone smack of genuine rustic.
ity. There is widow woman near, with
a grown-up daughter, and they two keen
up the farm, and do most of the work and
all the overlooking. | mean to 90 there ON
washing day to see if can find pair OF
stout shoes and plain dark dress to keep
company with my own. But how did /
happen TO come here?
LEFT SAN FRANCISCO
A few days since, following the resinous
scent that came from Mendocino, and
longing to plunge in among the redwoods
of which had always heard so much. It
was by-waY, an unbeaten track, an un-
trodden path | wanted, where dark dress
and stout shoes would not put me to shame,
and I thought | should find it hereabout.
Ali me, it was dismal journey up the
tossing water, for huge vomitings and
retchings that tore their way up from
empty stomachs came from every wretched
little stateroom on the crowded boat, and
despairing women, supporting head on
hand, so sea sick, sat everywhere in the
small saloon. It was too rough to land me
at the place had thought to go, so it hap
pened that | came on to Point Arena, a
strange, weird, dreary and desolate place,
or SO it looked that day as l stepped upon
the long wharf and gazed about me. A
point of land, grano, barren and hard,
stepped out determinedly into the sea and
the breakers crawled up to it's feet like
dogs, then snapped and showed their rows
OF teeth and sprung aloft, in another mo-
ment to fall back beaten and discounted.
A cold, neutral tint was over it all, and l
A little basin of smooth water lay beside
this barren point and to the wharf that
cut the basin in half we had chung.
GREAT CHUTE
For lumber, long and steep, descended
upon the other hand, and some one faceti-
ously suggested it as means for getting
returning passengers aboard. Aswift rush
and rumble seemed to Turk about it, and
the thunder of descending lumber broke
with loud silence in the ear. 1t is as if
something unknown had died around the
bleak and rugged point, and still unknown,
oppressed the air like brooding mystery.
The lighthouse reared itself, further up,
upon it's low tongue of land, like tall,
slim pillar with cap ON its head, and a
little, whistling, moaning wind ran all
around that froze me like an imagined
whisper in the night. The very waters
had shuddering. sobbing voice, and very
glad was to rattle away two miles into
the town. Then next day l rode inland
through the redwoods, and rested in a
sunny clearing of the forest, where the
straight trees march away in endless phal-
ark through dim vistas on every side, and
the dark joyousness of the wilderness
sleeps yesterday, to-day and tomorrow in
the hollows of the hills like flower that
blossoms in shade.
THE GARCIA RIVER,
a smile in summer, wild roar in winter,
makes its way through one of the many
canyons, bright and clear and cool, the
pebbles it murmurs above shining as plainly
as through mirror. 1t is nectar to drink
of the draught it offers, and l shall never
toss in fever again that its soft rush and
the cool drip, drip, drip OF its runlets does
not haunt me in dream. It is peopled
with darting trout, and one days catch
lately, one-man power, was 375 OF the too.
confiding morsel. 1t is an unbeaten track,
plentiful. One fisherman, wonted to the
ground, goes ont of an afternoon, puts
three hooks on his line, and comes in with
couple of hundred. These are not wild
tales, but the truth, and the river bank is
rough and beautiful tramp beside. Deer
haunt the woods, and there is enough of
shooting in its season. hear sly tales up
here, though, of how presuming deer, out
OF season, come go close as to frighten the
sportsmen, who in self-defense shoot off
their guns and bring in venison, which
comes to table under the name OF flesh of
the mountain sheep
A sAw-MILL
Lies within stones throw, busy, buzz
ing thing that startles the forest with its
scream and makes havoc among the woods.
About seventy-fiye men are in force alto.
gether, and their hours are long and hard.
At 6 in the morning they begin. The chop.
pers come from their cabins, hands and face
and clothing ofttimes still black with the
char from burnt trees of the day before
With them are the bull-punchers, the
swampers, the Cinnamon who grease the
skids, the bankers and the snipers, and
they all set away to the woods. The mill
hands go to the mill, bat let us follow the
blackened woodmen and be off to the hills.
The boss of the woods places his squads,
and each chopper selects his tree. Erect
ing frail scaffolding some feet from the
ground, two men mount, right and left
chopper, and the doom of that straight,
strong trunk is sealed. Rapidly and surely
the men swing their shining axes and the
chips fly. Every ineision shows the stump
left smooth and fiat as if cut with saw,
and the trunk shaping down to point.
The blows come hard and fast, and harder
and thicker, and the great tree begins to
creak and groan, and tremble at its tas-
seled top, and the choppers retreat In a
moment the tree is fallen, carried down by
its weight, having resisted its best for seve-
raj hours of time. So unerringly does the
choppers eye take its calculation that the
mighty trunk falls just along the line he
has chosen for it, lying free and unen-
tangled captive that just toes the mark.
It takes experience to know how, and the
chopper gets S65 month, sometimes as
high as $50, and board. After the chop
per comes the swamper, who cleaves away
the branches and underbrush, and leaves
the long trunk to the barker, who strips
off the bark. Then the sawyers come, who
divide it into leugths. and then the sniper,
who deftly turns with his cleaver the for
ward end of each log to keep it from
catching in the earth as it is dragged. The
five-yoked teams of oxen and bulls are