26 Life in the Open 



town of Garvanza, eight miles from Los Angeles, and 

 entered a well-wooded pass, where the dogs took a scent 

 and ran a mile along the San Rafael Hills. The scent 

 grew fresher, until finally a roar of sounds indicated 

 something brought to bay at the foot of a giant syca- 

 more in an almost impenetrable jungle of scrub oak, tall 

 briar rose, and other brush. Using my heavy crop I 

 broke a way in, to find one of the dogs wedged in a 

 hole, surrounded by others who were so crazed by the 

 proximity of the game that they fell all over me. I 

 managed to seize the hound by the hind legs and pull 

 him out by main force, and with him came, not a lynx, 

 but a raccoon, which had seized the hound by the paw 

 and held on with the grip of a bulldog, held on until I 

 pulled it completely out, and the dogs fell upon it. 



The arroyo was from fifty to one hundred feet deep 

 here, its sides precipitous, filled with underbrush and 

 large trees ; sycamores and black oaks growing on the 

 banks, cottonwoods, alders, and others in the centre and 

 on the sides, with little meadows here and there above 

 the stream. The wild grape had climbed many of the 

 trees and interlaced them in a radiant drapery of green, 

 forming a natural jungle for the wildcat, raccoon , and 

 fox. The hounds presently caught a scent, and after a 

 short run treed a large lynx, a process that was repeated 

 half a score of times before she was finally captured, 

 proving a most gamy animal. 



The Arroyo Seco, a river of verdure if not water, 

 reaching down from the mountains, is a natural park, 



