The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-03-09
CALIFORNIA STORIES.
The Last of the Mustangs-Grizz lilies
and FrOntiersmen.

From the Netc YORK tribune.
The mountains of San Luis Obispo offer
some of the strangest frontier scenes and
types to be found on the Pacific coast. The
region was one of the last strongholds of
the native Californians Helen Hunt Jack
son collected a good deal of material few
months before her death in the old town of
San Luis, from the Spanish priests there
and would perhaps have written another
Californian novel if she had had one more
year of life. She thought that the region
combined to remarkable degree the pecu-
liar charms OF Northern and Southern Cal
ifornia. and she often spoke of its waste
wealth Of literary MATERIAL
My thoughts were turned to San Luis the
other day by the news from there that a
man had found band of wild orses in the
mountains and had captured about twenty
in a corral. There are four or five bands of
wild horses that take care of themselves in
the unfenced mountains of the Upper
Sierras, but none In the Coast range, north
of San Luis. They are descended from
Spanish mustangs" and are as wild and
worthless for any kind of work as it is
possible to imagine. In one case in early
| times, Spanish landowner was persu AIDED
| to buy an American pillow and sow some
wheat. He had four or five mustangs tied
TO the plow-beam, put boys on the mus
tangs, and ran them across the fields, with
several Iudians hanging to the plow-handles
| Every now and then tue mustangs flew out
on the plowed ground and clicked for all
they were worth" After a little while the
old Don was heard to say: What men
| these Amer cans arel How hard they work
for nothingp And SO he went back to his
brush harrow.
One of the characters of San Luis died a
| short time ago. He was a frontiersman,
known over thousands of square miles Of
| mountain and valley as "Uncle Billy of
| Josephine" He was a grizzled giant, GER
| tainly the coolest and strongest man il the
| region, and he kept a saloon for the quick
silver MIXERS. postoffice and a store. He
was blacksmith, a school trustee, and a
| few things besides, especially wheel-horse
at camp-meetings. One night two Mexican
mi ers in his saloon tried TO rob tie old
man. The door was shut but he threw the
| foremost Mexican through the panels into
| the road, and then, putting his arms about
the three others, showed them en- masse
through the spinters and fragments of the
| broken door. zone or two of them Mexi.
| caus stuck their knives into me- said I'm
Gle Billy afterward, "but never showed |
was hurt, and after they were thrown ouC
they craw.ed away" In fact, one knife
! tnurSU was clear through his arm; but on
the other hand, he crippled most of the
Mexicans for life.
There were plenty Of grizzlies around the
moun aims fifteen years ago. ard / hear of
them, even now. Every one in the noun
tains has an immense respect for the grizzly.
An old frontiersman tells me that few
years ago he was hunting stray cattle, and
he came on new settlers caOin beside an
oak IN a mountain valley. He stayed with
the settler over night, sleeping in a blanket
before the fire. During the night they
! heard a great noise outside The settler
| looked hastily out and reported that a large
| bear was at the meaC-safe, VIII ch hung
under the oak tree. Ire frontiersman was
asked - shoot II, but said he would not risk
| H., with only revolver aud a shotgun. Tho
wife Of the settler remarked that ey nero
both towards, and she would dive IL of
with broom. They lockedfthe or, pre-
vented or from going out, aud shortly
after heard the meat safe fall ana roll INFO
the gucb. Ln the morning they found that
aB old horse had become entanglod ia tho
ropes of TIE meat safe, aud BaaAy tom IL