STEEP TRAILS 



and marry a Spanish woman. People mine for 

 irrigating water along the foothills as for gold. 

 He is now driving a prospecting tunnel into a 

 spur of the mountains back of his cabin. "My 

 prospect is good," he said, "and if I strike a 

 strong flow, I shall soon be worth five or ten 

 thousand dollars. That flat out there," he 

 continued, referring to a small, irregular patch 

 of gravelly detritus that had been sorted out 

 and deposited by Eaton Creek during some 

 flood season, "is large enough for a nice orange 

 grove, and, after watering my own trees, I can 

 sell water down the valley; and then the hill- 

 side back of the cabin will do for vines, and I 

 can keep bees, for the white sage and black 

 sage up the mountains is full of honey. You 

 see, I've got a good thing." All this prospec- 

 tive affluence in the sunken, boulder-choked 

 flood-bed of Eaton Creek! Most home-seekers 

 would as soon think of settling on the summit 

 of San Antonio. 



Half an hour's easy rambling up the canon 

 brought me to the foot of "The Fall," famous 

 throughout the valley settlements as the finest 

 yet discovered in the range. It is a charming 

 little thing, with a voice sweet as a songbird's, 

 leaping some thirty-five or forty feet into a 

 round, mirror pool. The cliff back of it and on 

 both sides is completely covered with thick, 



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