Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-11-06
UPPER SACRAMENTO.
A WEIRD MOUNTAIN DRIVE AT
NIGHT.
The Beauties of Stage-Coaching-
Exploring the Personality of
an Unknown Driver-Etc.

the afternoon, the train at once enters q
gallery of exquisite landscape pictures.
Autumn has been busy with her palette,
and with wonted prodigality she has
dashed her vivid colors on every side. The
water-worn rocks are gray, and waving
punches of grass grow among them. Here
and there broad reach of stony bank
makes the camping place of some Indian
family, whose dugout, tied beneath a
willow, sways with the motion of the
water. The little cabin, or rather hut,
built of brush and weather-stained canvas,
or oftener of brown shakes, has nothing
about its appearance to disturb an artist,
though its wretched discomforts and the
absence of all that is supposed to distin-
guish the home of man from the lair of a
beast would give many good people, who
have not had their hearts calloused by es-
thetics, greater pain than could the con-
temptation of its rich brown shades and
unobtrusiveness upon the face of nature
give pleasure. These wild people, who if
dressed in skins or bark would ap-
pear to advantage amid such sur
roundings, are rendered graceless
and often ludicrous by wearing
the cast-off clothing of our civilization /;
they seem, as they hover about their camp
fire at night, groups of grotesque creations
of disturbed fancy. The river narroWs
and rapids white with foam take the deep
crimson of the sunset from the clouds
above and look uncannily like blood The
sunlight is soon gone and only by looking
up to the tops of the surrounding, precipi-
tous canyons, where the pines are sill
houtted against the sky, can anything be
seen but unbroken darkness. The town of
DUNsMUIR
Is reached at about 8 o'clock. Imagine
a town composed entirely of huge lanterns,
for the tents of every shape and size which
loom up on all sides seem like nothing
else. Il is a scene from the Arabian
Nights" and it would hardly surprise one
if he were TO be lifted into the air at any
moment and carried away. However, the
painted signs, I" restaurant" i" saloon" and
barber-shop," in letters not the least Ara
bic, tell with the most prosaic certainty
that the scene is real. Such is the place of
Dunsmuir, and it remains in my memory
like half-forgotten dream; the confusion
of cars, the kissing of steam from the en-
gines, singing and shouting men within
and without the tents, pistol shots and the
crying Of a baby
To add to all this hubbub, the tarber has
lost pet mountain-wolf, and rushes about
searching for it and asking everyone he
meets if they have seen it, and many join
in the hunt.
The town has vanished, and whirl out
into the darkness, into the stiffness so
dark and still it seems after the hour spent
in that lantern town, that a wonderful
food of peace comes over me, and l forget
and forgive all that the world has had of
evil for me. There is one sound though,
but it seems so in harmony with the sur
roundings as actually TO be a part of the
quiet-it is the even beat of the horses
boots upon the earth road.
! am seated upon the stage-box alone,
for the driver, who is at my side is so en-
veloped in great blanket coats and muffiers
as to be properly considered as not being
outside at all. A lamp in front and one on
either side cut passage through the dark
ness for US to follow in, and the six horses
trot briskly along guided by the mysterious
intelligence conveyed to them by the null
titude Of lines which issue from the great
bundle at my side, within which, | pre-
sumo, sits the driver. These lines are so
many, crossing and recrOssng so many
other lines, that l am confused while look
ing at them. They would be a puzzle even
mine the trees as we pass.
MONSTERS ARE THESE TREES,
cunning straight as an arrow up into the
star-lit sky, their messy, ribbed bark show
ing for the moment as we pass, tells its
story of storm and winter weather. Some
times a letter box, with open mouth, clings
to the tree convenient to my reach, like a
little beggar asking for aims or a Just
for
ing with satisfied cachunk whatever
is dropped into their eleemosynary throats
Sometimes we 90 down, down, down into
the darkness, and l involuntary cling to
the seat and hold back; then beneath some
railway trestleWork, the cross beams and
upright pillars of which form piece OF
lacework which, massive as it really is,
looks, on account of its perfect proper
TONS like an airy growth or fragile struct-
ure of Jack Frost. Clouds of steam rise
from the bodies of the horses, and we
slowly toll up some steep grade,
but are gone at once when we
gain the level road at the summit. What
do not the genii OF our lamps reveal as we
spin along? Now on the right multitude
Of round, moss stained stones become gil
ants skulls when seen in the light of ones
magic lamps, and they grin with horrible
contortions as the trembling shadows creep
over them-a fearful Golgotha. Now the
half-burned, whitened trunk of a fallen
tree becomes graceful female figure, then
suddenly changes 10 an ugly crone, and
vanishes; awful and fantastic creatures
spring out from gnarled branches and twist
ed roots Here and there fires are burning
in crimson and orange flames creeping
through the halt-damp grass and eating
their ways like q cancer into the forest.
- Il 1
progress, witches and COLLINS amid the
dense, pitahy smoke frisk with impossible
gestures as though it were the last night
of October / have not seen the driver,
yet he may, for aught l know, be one Of
the motely crew which is all around Us
he sits unmoyed, huge shapeless mass OF
blankets bound about the middle with
bit of bale rope. l recall to mind
with distincmess those pictures on
the old Mill Bridge at Lucerne.
The dance of DEATH" they are called /;
perhaps this is Death on the stage coach
who sits by my side so silently. I have
read of beautiful girls Disgusting themselves
rs men and driving stage coaches in order
TO support aged mothers, lame brothers,
etc Perhaps this is one. The idea suits
me better than the first one does; but IN
less this girl be greatly disguised with
lHAilN luis VI btillhStc. tllGl waist dDDQl
which the bale rope clings so closely can
not be the waist of the lovely heroine Of
such romances. If it is, l think l after
all prefer my first companion. Thus,
the mystery deepens the more I think
of it and become possessed Of a wild de-
sire 10 open that impenetrable, wooden
she'll The air is brisk and seems to crack
as we rush through it; the new, crescent
moon is in the sky with horns turned up;
the breeze from Mount Shasta is laden
with scent of frs and pine My journey is
drawing to a close, so | determined upon
bold experiment to learn who or
WHAT TRIs Is BESIDE NE
On the box Taking couple of cigars
from my pocket hold them out to the
bundle, in much the manner OF a child
feeding an animal at the menagerie; ;
before | am aware of it they are gone.
Something darts from somewhere and my
hand is empty. I have seen nothing. An
inarticulate tone, however, issues from the
blankets it sounds suspiciously like that
which poor Red RidiDghood once heard
from her grandm0ther's bed, so il is with
JOY that see lights ahead and the board
upon which is painted, in large letters,
Sisson's 81
The stage stops, the horses steam, Ian
terms flash and voices sound. The fire
from the broad hearth throws out well
coming band TO us I climb down and
stamp my cold feet, and the inside passen-
Il uinar,t1tr I -,