158 East and West 
not only a place where school did not keep, 
but where there were no fences,—a region 
ample and wild and satisfying where the eye 
was not offended by petty bounds. It is not 
so easy to-day to find a place where there are 
no fences, but it still seems a good and pleasant 
thing. 
So, because of this lure of the Sierra, I find 
myself in the neighbourhood of Dutch Flat, 
proprietor for a brief season of a wickiup,— 
a cot-bed under the stars, surrounded by a 
circle of brush to keep off small animals—and 
free to roam and to reminisce under the pines. 
The days are warm and dry—dry as only they 
can be in the Sierra in summer—and the air 
smells of pine needles. The roads, or rather 
the road, is a foot deep in dust—the red Sierra 
dust. Some little distance away runs a flume 
and there are trout in the wide swift-flowing 
ditch above. The pines are very black at 
night, the night air fresh and cool, and it is 
good to light the fire in front of the wickiup. 
As I sit on a log watching the blaze and the 
firelight on nearby trunks and on the drooping 
branches which fringe the intense blackness 
above, the roar of the flume comes to my 
ears and arouses the memory of other days, 
associated with roaring flumes and gold 
