chiefly on the trucks. Being the one 

 daily train we had a caboose behind, 

 and the rest of us was freight. With 

 frequent stops for breath or water, 

 the engine puffed, puffed up hill at 

 least ten miles an hour. But no 

 matter, for the iron horse toiled 

 through a vast orchard and when it 

 gave a long wheezing hiss and put on 

 brakes to rest, merrily Silverton 

 jumped off and foraged for the ripest 

 figs and Nimrod for the rosiest 

 peaches, until gorged with the best 

 of California's cornucopia, we were 

 glad to leave the fruit belt, puffing, 

 blowing and bumping our way to- 

 ward the Sierra, calm "sentinels of 

 the sky." Once among them the 

 engine banked its fires and expired. 

 We were at the terminal, Goldville. 



Nowhere is the air so clear, the sun 

 so grateful, as in the mountains, but 

 likewise never do the clouds seem 

 so black nor human passions, stripped 

 of some of their civilised trappings, 

 show themselves more flagrantly. 

 I am thinking of what happened 

 during the two hours spent at Gold- 

 ville. Nimrod and Silverton were 

 busy with the Ordinary Man getting 



