command the time and services of your host, his wife, his man-servant and his maid-servant, his ox and his ass. Perhaps I have been unusually fortunate in this matter, but no more unstinted hospitality and genuine anxiety to please could have been shown than I have experienced at these resorts. Mr. Dickens of the "Mountain House," on Tom Ki creek, for instance, worked for an entire afternoon, with his man, to build a dam needed to add a few inches to the depth of our swimming hole in that cold but refreshing stream. We were speaking of going to some place two or three miles away, and one of the party objected to the distance. 66 Why, you people talk as if you were afoot! There are four horses out there in the barn waiting to be hooked up any time you want to use them." And he took an entire forenoon to show us where the gray squirrels were thickest upon Cave ridge, and provided horses for us to ride, and all these things with no thought of making an extra charge for them. Let me try to give the story of a typical day at such a resort as I have in mind. We rise early, at six or before. This is best; for the various noises about the house, of men walking on the bare floors and porches and of all the hungry animals demanding their breakfast, make sleep difficult after that time. Then, too, the glories of early morning, sung to us all our days and never really believed so long as we stay in sight of a brick wall, are here in all their reality. The wild creatures know it, and are astir everywhere. The stream is ruffled with little circles made by the leaping trout, and the birds are making the air vocal with their matins. And by the way, the dwellers in the comparatively hot and dry valley and mesa lands of central and southern California know but little of the great chorus of feathered minstrels that makes the Sierra or northern woodland counties glorious for bird music. Why should the birds stay where fields are parched and barren, where the leathery live oak is the freshest thing in the landscape, when they can live amid perpetual greenery, where brooks continue to flow and flowers to bloom? Breakfast consists of trout we caught the evening before, broiled squirrel, abundant milk, cream, and eggs, and other products of the place, a repast fit for a king. We are all in hunting costume, the Madam in short skirt of corduroy and high hunting boots, with game pouches in her hunting jacket; for she is a keen hunter and a good shot. Immediately after the meal we sally forth. "Doc" has his rifle, the Madam and I light single-barreled shotguns. Hers is a twelve-gauge with specially loaded cartridges of forty-two grains, smokeless. This light charge and the rubber pad on the butt enables her to shoot all day without laming her shoulder from the recoil if she is careful. Sometimes she gets excited and holds the gun so loosely that the kick discolors her cheek, but she does not notice a little thing like that if she gets her squirrel. We leave the house and its clamorous surrounding of hissing geese, cackling hens, squealing swine, and lowing cows, and strike up the hillside of Cave ridge. We follow the cattle paths and stop often to breathe; for it is a tough pull of several hundred feet. "Newt" is with us and trots ahead about fifty yards on the lookout for squirrels. Newton deserves a more formal introduction. He is usually a hog dog, and unless checked has relapses into that sort of a dog when we meet fierce-looking groups of "razor-backs" on the hillside. But he is a squirrel dog, too, and after once seeing us shoot a gray understands perfectly our purpose. The dogs of this region have developed the "division of labor" to a high degree of exactness. A "deer dog" is good for nothing to hunt squirrels with, and a varmint dog" is useful only to keep the wild members of the cat and skunk families away from the rancher's poultry. One result of this division is that every ranch-house has a corral back of it in which is a pack of yelping hounds and dogs of lesser degree. Even before we reach the top of the hill swish! there goes a squirrel, and Newt after him in eager pursuit. We forget that we are out of breath with climbing and rush after. Soon Newt has him treed and gives the sharp, shrill bark that notifies us where. We find the dog standing with uplifted head and wagging tail at the foot of a great fir tree. Up there, among those crowded branches our quarry lies, crouched flat on a limb, but one bright eye and a plume of tail showing to those directly beneath. We circle out around the tree in different directions, peering up anxiously to get the first glimpse of the gray. The Madam throws herself flat on her back, to look up with greater ease. At last she spies him, and with a cry of, "I see him!" she rises to take aim. Crack! and down he falls, hard hit, but fighting to catch a fresh hold on a lower limb. As he reaches the earth Newt is upon him. But the little fellow is game, and he catches Newt by the lower lip and sends his sharp teeth in until they meet. Newt yelps lustily, and at last shakes him off and ends the business with a swift bite at the back of the neck. The victim is a fine fat little fellow, measuring about twenty-four inches from tip to tip, of which full half is the plumy tail. His fur is fine in color and texture and the Madam means to have it tanned for use with others in making a rug as a trophy of skill. It may be some little time, half an hour, before we find another; for the gun has alarmed those near by, and at best they are sharp little fellows, and hide so securely as more often than not to elude the closest search from the ground. When the tree is very high, they often get far beyond the effective range of the shotguns, about eighty feet vertical, and then the Doctor's rifle is called into play,always supposing that we can see the cunning little beggar at all. 66 It takes two to shoot a squirrel out of a tree," Doc says, referring to the trick they have of hiding on the opposite side of the trunk and keeping it between them and a single huntsman. In July the squirrels are on the high ridges, feeding on the fresher shoots of the conifers. A little later the hazel nuts will draw them down to the lower levels, and by October they will be as busy as bees in the white oaks, gathering in the supply for winter quarters. A good mast makes squirrels abundant and fat, while a smaller supply of acorns and nuts causes them to seek other regions. In the present year they are scarcer than usual, owing to a poor acorn crop last year. The prospects for 1898 are good, however, and that year is likely to repeat the abundance of 1896. In that year, Mrs. Templeton of Ukiah one morning shot five squirrels out of one tree with a rifle, all but one through the head, a testimony of her skill as well as of the abundance of game. All winter the squirrels live on their garnered stores, though if there is but little snow the grass is a help to them. In the Vol. Xxx-5 spring they feed on a variety of the fresh growths, and so round out the year to our starting point. But whether we get much game or not, who cares? The trail along the top of the ridge is a delightful walk, now through a grove of fine firs, with here and there a great yellow pine, now through an oak region where white oaks, black oaks, iron oaks, and tanbark oaks, make a grateful shade, now through clumps of manzanitas and madroños with their rich brown boles and branches and glossy leaves, now out on a little clearing 99 carpeted with the rich golden fox-grass and giving a clear view of the country round. We can see the valley at our feet with its tortuous road and occasional ranches, the opposite slope covered with dark green conifers, and scarred in one place by a great black "burn," and the blue ridges beyond on both sides, dark wooded or covered with the gray-green chemise, (pronounce the ch as in church, and spare your blushes,) or the ruggeder chaparral. The ridges grow bluer and bluer in the distance until on the east they are crowned by the impressive wall of the Sanhedrim, towering over six thousand feet into the clear heavens. The rests at such view points, where the breeze cools the heated brow and blows away from the brain the last of the mists and wearinesses left there by business, fill the soul with a grateful sense of freedom and peace. But look! Away down the slope there, just at the edge of the chaparral are a doe and her fawn, feeding on the fresh green leaves. She is quite within shot of the Doctor's rifle, but as safe from it as if a thousand miles away; for he is a true sportsman and a law-abiding citizen of the county, as these protected creatures seem to know. All through our trip it has been a thing that has appealed strongly to our honor to see how boldly the quail have shown themselves. They are mated now, and every little pair, A DRAUGHT OF CAVE CREEK |