CHAPTER XIV 



COACHING AND ANGLING IN THE SISKIYOUS 



WADSWORTH plucked the "amaranthine 

 flower of fate " and wore it near his 

 heart, and as faith begets courage, it would 

 seem to be essential to those mortals who are 

 fond of angling and its variants, as coaching 

 along the high Sierras. By this you are not 

 to understand that this pastime is dangerous. 

 Statistics show that a man is much safer com- 

 ing down some " whirlwind pass " behind a six- 

 in-hand of flying horses between the Feather 

 and Sacramento than he is in the streets of some 

 great cities addicted to electric cars, and next 

 to ballooning and aeronauting the sport is most 

 exhilarating and delightful. Again, to adapt a 

 time-worn adage, if one falls from an aerial 

 motor car or a flying machine where is he? but 

 if thrown from a stage down into the manzanita 

 and chaparral of a steep caiion, there he is, 

 which, in a sense, is consoling. But this possibly 

 is an unnecessary divertisenient. 



I have taken some remarkable stage rides in 

 California, one of which was denounced as crim- 



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