FOREST ANt) STREAM, 
[Aug. is, tgoi 
To Elysium by Bucfcboard. 
1q Three Jaunts— Jaunt the First, 
'tnts is the vetaCions chronide of A five hiittclrcd nlilo 
trip by bnckboafd into the Northern California wilder- 
ness far beyond the toot of the locomotive whistle, under- 
taken by a tenderfoot with one companion in search of 
health, game, and experience, and how they won all three. 
He has often since fared northward across those sun- 
baked red clay ridges, where the manzanila clusters 
thickest ; through those live oak openings, sward car- 
peted like an old world baronial park, and into the 
cathedral calm of the pillared redwood forest, but the 
incidents of that first California outing are etched more 
deeply upon his memory than is the hunt of yesterday, 
and so he writes it. 
The tenderfoot had been ill — not dangerously ill, but 
just sick enough to make him utterly miserable and un- 
comfortable, a nuisance to himself and a nuisance to 
those about him, although they were far too kind-hearted 
to admit it. His doctor insisted upon his remaining in 
bed, and all through the latter half of a distinctly hot 
June he lay there, Icicking and thrashing, while his old 
hound Rondo now and again gave tongue from his ken- 
nel, as if to say: "Deer season opens July 15 — get a 
move on you !" As visitors were not inhibited, they kept 
dropping in, singly and in pairs, with a hearty "Hello, 
old man, how are you making out?" and each with a 
story to tell of a projected deer hunt, while the sufferer 
grinned and grizzed. There was to be no deer hunting for 
him that season. Eheu! He raised the temperature of 
that room several degrees after each visit. 
It was on the morning of the second of July that Bob's 
six feet of brawn and sinew projected itself into the 
sick room. He looked the patient over critically, half 
listening to his jeremiad. "See here, Marin," he said, "I 
don't think there is such a terrible lot the matter with 
you. You look more peaked and a trifle thinner than when 
I saw you last. You will never get well in here. Can you 
stand ? Steady ! That's the business ! Where do you keep 
your clothes? In this closet? Now I tell you what I arn 
going to do with you ; I am going to dress you— studs on 
the bureau, you- say?- — and you are going down to sit on 
the porch, and to-morrow morning you and I will pull 
out of this oven and travel north where there is running 
water, big trees, fat bucks, and things. How would you 
like that, my hearty? Doctor will not let you go? We 
will see about that. There, now, you look as smart as a 
June bride." 
Bob was a friend worth having. How he cast a 
hypnotic spell over that easy-going medico; by what 
good-humored raillery he overcame the doubts and 
scruples of the invalid's family; ho\v he packed the tent 
and camping kit down from the attic, cleaned and oiled 
rifle and shotgun, overhauled the fishing tackle, rolled the 
blankets and spare clothing in canvas bags, prepared a 
list of rations for two men for thirty days and saw that 
it was properly filled at the suburban grocery, need not 
be written here. When during that long busy day he 
found time to rig a hood of drilling over the front seat 
of the buckboard and have his horse rough-shod, is a 
mystery to the writer, but he did find time. At 6:30 
o'clock the following morning the eyes of the early San 
Rafael commuter were greeted by the apparition of a 
very large and very bony sorrel horse drawing a well 
laden buckboard, while the "best hound in the county" 
acted as lookout from the top of the dunnage. Bob was 
helmsman and his course was northward. 
The first three days were comparatively uneventful and 
the heat was appalling. The road ran through the vine- 
yards and orchards of Marin and Sonoma counties; 
through fruitful valleys lush with ripening grain; past 
Petaluma, a Newark in embryo, where they spin silk and 
weave blankets, and where every hillside looks as though 
it had been sprayed with whitewash. 
"Chickens," explained Bob. "A man named Dixon, 
who lives a few miles west of here, has ten thousand of 
them." 
"Why are they all white?" 
"I'm treed," said Bob. 
Pretty soon the voyagers met a denizen of the valley 
who seemed conversationally inclined, and whose wealth 
of whisker begot confidence. "Pass him out that chicken 
proposition," whispered Bob. "Folks up here breed noth- 
ing but white chickens because the hawks, which are all- 
fired plenty hereabouts, cannot be hired to touch a white 
chicken,'' said the aged stranger; and he said it unblush- 
ingly. Perhaps it is true. At all events an Italian 
rancher near Cotati and a Dane on the outskirts of Santa 
Rosa gave the same explanation. "And neither of them 
knew English enough to lie scientifically," commented 
Bob. 
Forty -two miles seemed far enough for the first day's 
journey — at least the old sorrel thought so, and said so, 
in horse talk. The buckboard's passengers needed no 
tent that night, nor indeed was that sine qua nan of 
Eastern outings put into commission until many days 
later. Beneath a telegraph pole a few miles out of Mark 
West the camp was pitched, and soon the bacon was 
sizzling in the frying-pan, while the coffee brewed and 
"Goliath," for so the horse had been christened for the 
trip only, peacefully champed his ground barley. It was 
glorious, lying there snug in the blankets beneath the 
wagon, while the southwest trade wind, sobered by_ its 
50-mile revel among the apricot groves and sunny vine- 
lands, cooled one's temples and wafted the smoke of the 
two pipes in wreaths that shaped themselves in the moon's 
shimmer into wide branching oaks, l)eneath whose shade 
giant bucks seemed to browse and ruminate. 
"I wonder what the 'coons and skunks think about 
those white chickens? I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that 
old Whiskers couldn't fool a coyote that way. Mr. 
Coyote has been too long in the poultry business for 
that. Now, a hawk might be educated into the belief that 
those gobs of whiteness drifting across the landscape 
were just ghosts^ — chicken ghosts, of course; but a coyote 
is as materialistic as a Chinaman or a Harvard professor, 
and he would first devour the fowl and then, if so 
minded, speculate on its wherefor, post-prandially, when 
be felt strong and hearty"— here Bob's kigubrations were 
interrupted by the advent of a tramp, who wanted 
whisky, but compromised on a pannikin of claret 
"Gen'men," he said, when the last drop of claret had 
disappeared, "I know I don't look it, but I'm a worker, 
I am. I've the promise of a jot tipW from my old boss. 
He's up at Crescent City with the show. Ever hear of 
Sprigg's Circus? No? Well, he's him. He's goin* to 
show plumb up the Coast to Puget Sound. No, siree, no 
California in his'n. It was this way. Four months ago 
the old man would have it that there was bushels of rhino 
to be made showin' tro' them dlu-ned mountings an' 
gulches nort' of here. Said them mounting people an' 
buckeroos an' sech ain't ever see a show. Said they'd 
tumble a top 0' themselves to get into it. Said as how, 
w'en we struck the fruit belt, them dagos an' Eytalians 
an' Swedes, an' Swiss, wid seventeen kids in the family, 
would come a-whoopin' an' a-pilin* inter that old circus 
fit ter split the tent. 
"Well, gen'men, we started. Bizness Was bum, aii' it 
kep' gittin' bummer an' bummer. Along about Yreka we 
showed to thirteen white men, t'ree Injuns and a Chink, 
an' the old man had to leave the African lion in soak. 
But Sprigg's nerve was all O. K., you bet! Say, if you'd 
catch an' bottle the old man's nei-ve, you'd run all the 
injines in Nort' America wid it. He kep' right along 
tellin' us geezers t'ings v,'ould get better, w'en a blin' 
man couldn't help noticin' that they was pizen bad an' 
graderly gittin' so dam pestiferous bad that grub for us- 
selves, widout mentionin' the an'mals, kep' all hands on 
the hustle all the time. We was showin' tro' them little 
flyspeck towns up in Del Norte, w'ere five's a crowd an' 
fourteen's a riot, an' was workin' sout', sheddin' an'mals 
an' cour'osities at every pint. At Cottage Grove a jestice 
levied 'tachment on the bosses ; but the old man com- 
promised on the brindled gnu, a cage of snakes, an' the 
twin armadillers. That's w'en I lost most of my teeth. 
At Acorn they grabbed four of the bosses for keeps; at 
Yager, more bosses ; at Blocksburg t'ree cages of an'mals, 
an' jugged six of the boys for chicken stealin'. Calkerlate 
they t'ought we could live on wind, same as snakes ! 
"Round Valley finished the bizness, for a fac'. Them 
buckeroos swooped in an' cleaned us out Took the tent 
Took the Sacred Ox of the Braymins, w'ich them un- 
(ooted chil'ren of nater worship as their God, an' ackerly 
barbecued him — that's w'at them gazabahs done ! I cat 
a chunk of him, too, an' he was tuffer'n fracazood boot- 
heels wid the brads left in. This was the wind-up. Some 
of the boys stayed in the valley; some shinned out for 
the Coast. I went to work cuttin' tanbark till I made a 
stake an' then I made tracks for 'Frisco. But the old 
man was there ahead of me. Stumped w'en the show 
busted? No, siree; that ain't his sort lie had an' old 
plitg of a camel that none of the creditors wouldn't have, 
'cause as he'd eat more'n five bosses, an' the las' I seen of 
.Spriggs he was a-deck of that camel wid its nose pinlcd 
sout' — ^that is till I see him in 'Frisco. Say, he lived high. 
I'm tellin' yer. Let on to them jay countrymen that he 
was an Arab chief a-travelin' to tlie Paris Exposish, an' 
was takin' a short cut 'cross lots ! .They stuffed him 
fuller'n a p'leceman of venison, hog meat, an' saleraltts 
biscuit, an' buzzed him about his 'country' — an' him a- 
born in Stamford, Connecticut! 
"At Ukiah, w'ere the railroad from 'Frisco got tired 
an' quit, he put up at the Gran' Hotel, an' the camel at 
Miller's livery stable. He was a-figgerin' how he'd make 
a raise to jump the town, w'en along come old Bob 
White who owns most everything up around Cahto, an' 
he took a shine to Spriggs an' passed him twenty; an' 
the old man wep' on his neck an' guv him the camel I 
He did, for a fac'. Well, gen'men, w'en the old man 
struck 'Frisco there was nothin' doin', an' his brother up 
Seattle writ him sayin' as how if he could work his way 
up there they could get trusted for an outfit Nothin' 
for it 1 They passed the old man over the railroad 's far 
as Ukiah, but he couldn't hang up them Oregon stage 
roosters no how! Along come old Bob White again. 
'Wat are you a-doin' here?' said he. 'I'm stuck,' said 
Spriggs;' 'if I only had a boss I'd make State Line all 
hunky, an' soon as I strike Oregon I've plenty friends,' 
said he. 'I'll fix yer,' said White. T've plenty fine bosses 
up to my ranche. Take this letter up there to my son 
Jim — it's only sixty miles from here — an' he'll give you 
a mount all right' 
"Gen'men, the old man took it, an' may I be hornswig- 
gled if Jim didn't trot out that dadblasted old whan- 
geree of a camel ! 'Here's yer Buceefeelus, you bald- 
headed old fakir !' said he ; 'an if you don't ride him off 
tliis ranch in t'ree shakes of a bull's tail, I'll sic them 
dogs on the pair of yer.' Gen'men, the old man done it. 
He rid that camel into Seattle. Got any tabaker?" 
Breakfast by lantern-light and a start at the first 
glimpse of dawn brought the wayfarers into Healdsburg 
in the early forenoon, and just outside this thriving 
village Bob shot a coyote slinking along the chemisal. 
It was a rattling good shot, too — ^200 yards uphill, with a 
.22 caliber short cartridge. The hotel cooking tasted 
pretty good for a change, and a glass of beer brewed by 
an old German, who had never learned the modern art of 
sophistication, and whose whole brewery could be stowed 
away and lost in a corner of one room of a metropolitan 
establishment, was a treat often to be mentioned when 
the travelers were far beyond the beer belt. Better hops 
are grown in this valley than in Bavaria, which possibly 
contributed not a little to the excellence of this rural 
brew. 
Pieta, famed for its brawling brook, no less than for 
the gamy trout that lurk therein, was reached two hours 
before nightfall, and there, poised on a rock in mid 
stream, stood an Indian, fish spear in hand! While Bob 
unhitched Goliath, Marin, whipped the stream with royal- 
coachman, black-gnat, brown-hackle — it made no differ- 
ence what, the trout responded to every lure. Ah, me! 
Iliose were halcyon days, "consule Planco," brethren of 
the angle ! 
But look! The Indian strikes! His naked, sine\yy 
arm shoots downward and the thong about his wrist 
tightens. He lifts his spear, and there, transfixed upon 
its single barb, writhes a two-pounder ! Pieta Creek still 
liolds a few such whales, but he who would win the fel- 
low of that Indian's catch nowadays must be sound of 
wind and limb, and wary to boot; for, verily, in these 
days of general education, the trout, too, have had their 
schooling. Tlie big fellows seem to have been through 
college and started on a post-graduate course! 
"How many you catch?" itiquired Bob of the Indian, in 
that peculiar baby-talk in which n:any of us clothe our 
thoughts when we address people whose tongue is not 
our own. He had nine — all of about the same size. After 
dinner a stroll around a spur of the foothill revealed his 
shack, himself smoking in the doorway, while "Kis brood 
of youngsters, not too liberally clad in clouts and gunny- 
sacks, squabbled with two wolfish dogs in the dust at his 
feet Had he any baskets? He smiled, superciliously, it 
seemed. Pshaw! What had a brave to do with baskets? 
They are women's work. "Give old Muck-a-muck an- 
other shake out of the box," Bob suggested. A handful 
of tobacco purchased his attention. He called his squaw 
in his own language, Pomo. Now, the Pomos, as a 
people, would never capture a prize in a cotiipetitive 
beauty contest, but of all the Pomos that have fattened 
on scrambled grasshoppers since the original pair left 
their primeval home, somewhere in the Japanese archi- 
pelago, no doubt, and stranded on California, there never 
was a more hideous old Pomo than that Pieta squaw ! 
But her baskets ! The veritable "bam-tush" and of the 
finest weave ! The Eastern public were not educated on 
the subject of Indian baskets in those days. To-day ana- 
line dyes and patterns designed by house decorators and 
woven to order have well nigh destroyed the Indian's 
unique art ; but when such baskets are unearthed nowa- 
days, the fortimate collector marks the day with a white 
stone, and gladly pays for his prize its weight in double 
eagles. The buckboarders that night got three such 
backets for a single five-dollar gold piece. 
"We're getting into God's country," said Bob, next 
morning, as he contemplated with satisfaction unalloyed 
the rockgirt gorge, where, far below, Russian River 
writhes and twines, like a wounded snake. "The air is 
different up here, and the people, too, are different. See 
that scrawny little foothill ranch 'cross the canyon. I 
bet 3'ou a Missourian lives there. How do I know ? Well, 
this mountain country was peopled originally by two 
emigrations — one from old Pike, the other from up Lake 
Champlain way. All the Pikers built their houses broad- 
side-on, with a porch running the full length of the 
hou.'-e. The Champlainers built theirs end-on, with a 
cubby-hole of a porch in front, just as they did back 
East The valley people down yonder turn up their noses 
at ttiese mountain folk and their 50 by 100 potato patches. 
T'aey say they're shiftless, lawless, worthless. Don't you 
believe it. There's a higher sense of honor, a nobler 
recognition of the rights of his fellow men and a more 
correct conception of his own rights, a more genuine 
respect for those elemental principles of eternal truth 
upon which all man-made laws are grounded, or ought to 
be; a fuller hospitality, and more old-time American 
patriotism stowed away in the carcass of one of these 
husky old moimtaineers than you could discover with a 
microscope if you dissected a town full of those hy- 
phenated Americans who raise fruit four months in the 
year and hades 'tween seasons. Handy with the trigger? 
Yes, sir, when the quarrel's a just one. Here's where. 
Uncle Sam will have to come when he needs men, and he 
will not have to round them up, either. Hark! Those 
hounds are running something. Bet it's a deer !" 
The buckboard was checked on the verge of a sheer 
descent, where the road winds in and out among a scant 
growth of manzanita, and directly ahead, in the shadow 
cf a Valparaiso oak, stood a gaunt figure in a 'coon skin 
cap, with a long barreled rifle resting lightly in the crook 
of his arm. He stood as motionless as if carved in- 
granite, his eyes fixed on the road before him — the em- 
bodiment of an Idea — dead past resurrection — one of the 
scattered few still carried on that muster roll that 
reaches through the centuries, linking Plymouth Rock 
to Oklahoma — an American backwoodsman ! Uncover to 
this man, ye children, native to the soil, who buzz and 
whirr in city hives! Have ye plenty? His unrequited 
toil bestowed it Have ye peace? He made that peace — 
made it, gun in hand, as peace with honor ever has been 
and ever must be won, in many a French and Indian raid 
in old Colonial days; in the trenches at Lexington; be- 
hind the sand bags and cotton bales with Jackson at New 
Orleans; in the Everglades of Florida and the cane- 
brakes of Alabama; amid the muck of blood and sweat 
and cannon smoke and dying men upon the glacis at 
Chepultapec ; throughout those long, drear days of Civil 
War; again when the lava beds yielded their meed of 
fawning devils and Canby's foul murder was avenged ; 
when Sitting Bull surrendered and when old Geronimo's 
band of cutthroats sulkily stacked their arms in the 
parade ground at San Carlos. Have ye great cities? 
His ax cleared their sites; his unerring rifle guarded 
them in their infancy; his untutored brain framed their 
earliest laws and framed them wisely. Have ye liberty — 
God's supreme gift to man? With his life blood he 
bought it — a heritage for you and for your children's 
children forever. 
Such were Marin's thoughts as he gazed at the old 
frontiersman, dimly conscious the while that the hounds 
were drawing nearer. A violent wrench, as Rondo, heed- 
less of chain, somersaulted from the buckboard, ad- 
monished him that something was about to happen. It 
happened. A noble four-pointer sprang into the road 
and for an instant stood there, with quivering flank and 
foam-flecked chops, but for an instant only. Up went, 
that long Kentucky rifle, a cr-ack, the thud of a round 
ball impacting on taut hide — and the deer lay dead in the 
dust, with his four feet stretched to the cardinal points. 
"Howdy, boys!" said the old man, as he swabbed out 
the gun with its brass-mounted cleaning rod. 
"Broke his neck?" queried Bob. ; 
"I calc'lated to break it That's a fine hound you've 
got thar. Trained on varmint?" 1 
"No, on deer." 
"Pity! Thar's the makin' of a right sassy bear dog in 
hnn." 
"That is a beautiful weapon of yours ; may I examine ' 
it?" It was Marin who spoke. Proudly, reverently, and 
without a word, as a young mother passes her firstborn 
over for inspection, the old hunter handed Marin the , 
rifle. Beautiful was it in very truth, from the buhl-work' 
of its highly polished walnut stock, with a cheek-piece 
and a cunningly wrought patch box in the butt-plate to 
the hand-carved hammer, lock-plate and trigger-guard, 
along five feet of Damascus barrel half octagon and 
coffee-brown, clear to the inch-long Rocky Mountain 
fore sight, added, no doubt, by its present owner. How, 
Marin yearned to call that noble relic his; how base, 
covetousness kept gibbering words, not to be spoken, in 
his ears; how cold calculation took inventory of the 
hunter's years, his probable necessities, and weighed them 
against the gold that quaint old Bernal Diaz says "all 
men love so well," should not be written here. Iv was 
