NO BEATEN PATH HERE

As we start on, a jack rabbit is seen ahead in the path. He hears us as soon as we see him, and stops short to sit up on his haunches and raise his long ears to make out what is coming. It is a far shot, but we give him one for luck, and he bounds away down the hillside in great leaps. Newt takes after him at the fire, but soon discovers the nature of the beast and comes back with a great disgust in his manner, as if to say, "Do you take me for that kind of a dog?"

On the upper slopes of the trail we hear a muffled boom, boom! and the Doctor declares it is a grouse drumming. By carefully taking the direction of the sound we trace it to a great fir just ahead, and spend much time.

in trying to see the cunning bird in the branches. At last we are convinced that there is a mistake somewhere and that no living thing could have escaped our long continued gazing. Just then, away he sails from one of the nearest branches, and we are all too astonished to think of raising our guns, even if we would have done it if we could.

But the description of such a walk, like the walk itself, must end somewhere. To tell of all the delicate flowers everywhere to be admired, of all the trees that make the woodland beautiful, of all the signs of wild life in this solitude, of all the fair vistas and delicate colorings in sky and earth, would fill many volumes, and be as wearisome as the living reality is delightful.

At noon we return to the house, glad to seek refuge from the heat of midday. A generous dinner is ready, still mostly made of wild game of several sorts. Siesta follows, that sensible custom of our predecessors in the land, to whom the morning and the evening made up all their days.

By three o'clock signs of life again occur; for the Doctor is rigging up the tackle and overhauling his book of flies for a fishing trip. At four we go down to the creek, seek our separate bowers of willow greenery which serve as dressing rooms, and array ourselves for a plunge in the cool waters. Just a dip and a swift swim or two up and down the deep water of the hole, perhaps thirty yards, and we are ready to come out, refreshed and invigorated. It is too cold to stay in long.

FERRY ON EEL RIVER

Fishing in Tom Ki (which being interpreted from the Indian is "Tom's valley," as U-ki-ah or Yo-kiah is "South valley ") is much like fishing in any mountain stream where the waters are cold, riffles abundant, and the trout plenty but wary and gamy. They will take the live earthworm or grasshopper and yet more readily the brown hackle or the royal coachman from the fly book, and more eagerly still the little whirling silver spoon. The time of day seems to make but little difference in the spoon fishing, which the Doctor explained on the theory that they bit at that supposing they were attacking a strange kind of fish coming to poach on their territory, and not in the attempt to get food. Bait they took readily only early and late, their feeding hours.

It is a pleasure to fish in a stream where you have to break away the bushes to get to your place of vantage, and so are sure that for that season at least yours is the first hook that has dropped in that pool. A well worn footpath by a stream is a most disheartening thing to an angler.

Supper is late, because six or so, the usual hour, is supper time for the fish as well, and we cannot bear to leave the creek as long as we can see to cast a miller. But finally we gather at the house again, the Madam and I dodging up the back way to avoid meeting the home-coming cattle, among which two bulls and a red steer, are objects of our special respect, although the Doctor says that the old gander guarding

the goslings, in the front yard, or the mother of swine protecting her litter of pigs, are really more to be feared. At any rate, we escape all dangers and display our catches to a quickly formed mutual admiration society.

After supper there is but little lingering. A brief time spent in cleaning our guns, swapping yarns as to adventures of the day and of other days, planning for the morrow's start, and we are ready to turn in and sleep as soundly as honest weariness gained by abundant exercise in the open air can make us.

Under the present game laws, and the observance of them, the deer of Mendocino are on the increase. The ranchers, no doubt, occasionally shoot a buck out of season for food, but they for their own interests are careful not to molest the does and not to shoot more than they actually need of the bucks. The pot hunter and the man who shoots deer for their skins have effectually been shut off.

One day the Madam wished to take a photograph of the Doctor in the character of a deer hunter, and she gathered in a deer dog to give realism to the picture. They went up on the hillside a few hundred yards, just to get away from fences and signs of cultivation. At the critical moment, to make the dog look interested they motioned to him in the noiseless command used by deer hunters to go seek. He at once started off with a deep wow-wow, and to the aston

roll or drop into their burrows. Unless shot through the head or heart, they are almost sure to escape. They are fine eating though, in spite of the prejudice some people have against them; for their less active habits and more abundant food, make them fat and tender.

And yet, as Joaquin Miller has said, if you wish to get the best of any California outing do not take a gun. A camera, perhaps, will do little harm, but the very best way is to go quietly with as little paraphernalia as possible, dressed in russets and grays which blend with the landscape, and make yourself as much as you can a part of the surroundings. Then, if you are quick with ear and eye, you shall learn wonderful things; for in these unstudied wilds, you may easily look upon secrets of nature that are shared only by yourself, the creature you are watching, and the Maker of all.

Now, it may be I have succeeded in giving enough of the spirit of such an outing to rouse in you a wish to see these things for yourself, and you are asking for definite information how and where to go. But I do not mean to give it to you. Not from selfish reasons altogether, although any large number of people going to one of these little resorts would ruin it for such purposes as I have been writing about. But how do I know that you are worthy of having my pearls cast before you? It may be that you are of those who would be offended because there are no finger-bowls, or because the "help" sit with you at meals and the men do not always don a coat to come to table. It may be you are of those whom poison oak makes miserable, or who would be frightened out of all comfort by seeing a rattlesnake, as I did, on the first stroll away from the hotel.

And if you are the right sort, enough hints have been given. More would take from you that delightful sense of discovering for yourself and of having found by your own acuteness just the most charming spot on the footstool. To find such a place as has been described is well worth the trouble; for it is hard to see how any sane mind can fail to enjoy it more and to get more good from it than from a stay at any of the trumpeted resorts where the fashionables gather.