STEEP TRAILS 



promptly be placed on your good behavior, 

 and, your wants being perceived with quick 

 insight, complete hospitality will be offered 

 for body and mind to the extent of the larder. 



These men know the mountains far and near, 

 and their thousand voices, hke the leaves of a 

 book. They can tell where the deer may be 

 found at any time of year or day, and what 

 they are doing; and so of all the other furred 

 and feathered people they meet in their walks; 

 and they can send a thought to its mark as well 

 as a bullet. The aims of such people are not 

 always the highest, yet how brave and manly 

 and clean are their hves compared with too 

 many in crowded towns mildewed and dwarfed 

 in disease and crime ! How fine a chance is here 

 to begin life anew in the free fountains and sky- 

 lands of Shasta, where it is so easy to live and 

 to die! The future of the hunter is Ukely to be 

 a good one; no abrupt change about it, only 

 a passing from wilderness to wilderness, from 

 one high place to another. 



Now that the railroad has been built up the 

 Sacramento, everybody with money may go 

 to Mount Shasta, the weak as well as the 

 strong, fine-grained, succulent people, whose 

 legs have never ripened, as well as sinewy 

 mountaineers seasoned long in the weather. 

 This, surely, is not the best way of going to 



46 



