FOREST AND STHEAM 
[AvG. iOflj. 
To Elysium by Buckboard. 
la Three Jaunts— J aont tfae Second. 
Uriah was a cheerful, kindlj' little town in those days, 
and the character of its inhabitants has not changed, 
although the railway has moved ahead into the wilder- 
ness. The voyagers passed two days there right pleas- 
antly, and had they accepted all the invitations to go fish- 
ing which they received, the buckboard would still be 
standing in Miller's barn and Golialh, if living, would 
be the equine wonder of the country. But the zvander- 
lust was gnawing at their heartstrings, and they felt 
that in that shadowy Somewhere, away beyond those 
purple mountains, the wild things of the woods were mar- 
shalled in line, anxiously awaiting their coming. It would 
never do to disappoint such obliging quadrupeds, thought 
the buckboarders, and so, on the morning of the eighth, 
they tore loose from their snug moorings "at the first 
crack of dawn" and were well across the valley before 
Ukiah's piscatorially disposed citizens, with their hos- 
pitable intentions, were afield. 
Even at so early an hour the highway presented a pic- 
ture of life and color. From a cloud of orange dust in 
the distance the rhythmic jingle of bells broke u^on the 
ear, and then a mule-train lumbered into view, its two 
and sometimes three wagons linked together with heavy 
steel cables, while the driver, perched up aloft in a sort 
of crow's nest, urged onward his happy-go-lucky team 
of eight or ten mules and horses, with twenty-five feet of 
whiplash and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of stones 
and cuss words. Again, skirting the snake fence, as ii 
despising the white man's road, came a family of In- 
dians, the old buck, gorgeous in a scarlet shirt and over- 
alls of blue jean, shuffling along in the lead; then his 
sons in store clothes, maybe, and lastly, well to the rear, 
the squaw, her head swathed in a party-colored shawl, 
her papoose in a basket on her back. "That old acorn- 
and-frizzled-grasshopper-cruncher must he a dowager 
duchess at least," said Bob, as a particularly ill-favored 
crone, smoking a short and very black clay pipe, waddled 
by. "What makes you think so?" "Her tribal marks. 
When these Pomo girls get full grown three lines are 
tattooed in blue from the corners of the mouth and 
center of the lower lip to the point of the chin, and as 
she grows older these lines are made wider. If her hus- 
band is a person of consequence, or if the woman dis- 
tinguishes herself in any way — is the champion basket 
maker of the village, or the like — she is entitled by tribal 
law to thicken her lines very materially. Now, that hag 
looks as if she had been fed on huckleberry pie from the 
day of her birth and had never had her face washed. 
■Hello! There's the rancheria and an Indian school, too, 
if I'm not greatly mistaken." 
Now, Boh had a genuine bachelor's love for children, 
and when that red and white schoolhouse hove in sight 
he changed the reins to his right hand, while his left went 
groping through sundry pockets for stray dimes and 
nickels. In the doorway stood a sweet-faced nun, and 
her charges, who ran all the changes in the color scale 
from smoked ivory through fiery copper, cinnamon- 
brown and sage green to light amber, romped and shouted 
in the yard beneath the live oaks. 
"Come here, little fairy, and tell me what your name 
is," cooed Bob, to a demure and pretty miss of eleven, 
who, forefinger to lips, was making ox eyes at Rondo. 
"I'se Sara Bernhardt, who'd you fink I was, you ole 
fool you !" and a very pink tongue shot out between very 
white teeth and wriggled derisively. Poor Bob ! "It's a 
waste of time trying to educate these — ahem! — Indians. 
Gee 'lang!" was all he said. 
Russian River was crossed by a ford, the bridge, a sub- 
stantial looking structure, being boarded up at both ends. 
"What's the matter with the bridge?" Marin inquired of 
a traveler, who was watering his horse in midstream. 
"Nawthin' as I've hear'd tell of. That thar bridge cost 
the county a sight of money, and the supervisors 'lowed 
as how thar warn't no sense in usin' it up a-drivin' over 
it in summer when the river's low. Say, how'll you trade 
for that thar houn' dorg?" But Rondo remained with 
the buckboard. 
Angle Creek — ^well named it was, forsooth — was 
reached before luncheon, and Marin, who was prospect- 
ing for a bathing place, discovered that the pool which 
he had selected was fairly alive with big trout. _ For- 
tunately he made the discovery before plunging in. A 
"coo-ey" brought Bob and the tackle, and for an hour 
those two knew the joy known only to him who whips 
virgin water. But one hour brought a surfeit, for, as Bob 
phrased it, "one soon tires of fishing when the fish fight 
among themselves to see which will get caught first." 
It was a long, hard pull for Goliath up Angle grade, 
but the buckboarders lightened his load by walking, while 
they drank deep draughts of the pure mountain air and 
watched with never-ending wonder the marvelous 
panorama of pinnacled gorge, foaming cataract, the 
forest's opaque greens blending into hazy purples, the 
tiny recessed glens, tawny with ripened wild oats, unroll 
at their feet. In one of these a doe, two fawns and a 
stag were placidly feeding, the buck; as usual, at the edge 
of the timber, ready to dissolve into its leafy shadows at 
the first hint of danger. The crested mountain quail, a 
new bird to the wanderers, challenged from every coppice 
or strutted in jaunty independence before them, "like a 
Hieland chief in his ane glen," Bob thought. "And how 
unspeakably good it feels to be alive!" he added, and 
Marin echoed his words in his inmost soul. 
At the head of the pass, beneath Black Bart's rock, the 
scene of many a hold-up, stood a buckboard, and with 
that easy freemasonry of the road, which is soon learned, 
the travelers opened conversation with its occupant as 
soon as they were within hailing distance. This proved 
to be a most fortunate encounter. During the stay in 
Ukiah, while Bob talked "camel" to Miller, Marin had 
availed himself of the opportunity to interview all and 
several of Miller's drivers, and as a dry driver can 
scarcely be expected to shine as a conversationalist, he 
had irrigated them thoroughly before beginning. The re- 
sult was a plenteous crop of notes about the road, the 
people living along it, the outlook for game, possible side- 
trips, good camping grounds, and the like. Upon one 
point all hands were unanimous, and that was that if the 
buckboarders could win permission from one Beauregard 
Bowman, of Rattlesnake Creek and its dependencies, so 
to speak, to hunt over his land, the measure of their de- 
sires should fairly brim over. And thus it came to pass, 
in that noontide confab on the mountain crest about deer, 
bear, dogs, and men, Bowman's name was mentioned. 
"I wish to gracious we could get solid with him," said 
Marin; "I understand that he's a good deal of a crank — 
don't allow anybody to kill spike-bucks on his ranch, and 
has had a lot of fellows fined for violating the game 
law. Now, that form of crankiness is by far too uncom- 
mon in California. Do you know him?" "Yas, sorter 
casual like. I see him when I was dressin' jest afore I 
left home. Boy.s, he's one of the durndest, orn'riest, no- 
ccunt galoots in this yar county. Ain't got no more eddi- 
cation than a burro. Don't kiiow nawfthin' 'cept bars an' 
hogs. Lives all alone wit' his ole mother an' a 'tarnation 
slew of bar dogs a-top of a mounta'n so durn steep that 
they have ter feed the chickens buckshot ter keep 'em 
from rollin' off the ranch. Most folks up thar won't have 
nawthin' ter do wit' him, nohow. Reckon he thinks 'bout 
as much of me as of the hull bilin' of 'em. Ef you boys 
can 'range ter meet me t' Cummings 'arly Thursday, I'll 
make that ole hog-buster take ye on a bar hunt ; I will, 
by thunder, ef 1 have ter lass' the critter an' snake a 
double diamond hitch on him. Camp under the big tan- 
bark 'longside the crick," and with a promise to keep the 
•appointment without fail, the buckboards parted company. 
At the Angle ranch on Walker Creek, tucked away in 
a fold of the mountain, the wayfarers first heard mention 
made of an animal that was destined to furnish food for 
speculation until their return to a country where books 
of reference might be got at. They were turning over a 
collection of lynx, coyote, fox and raccoon skins, and 
among them were several pelts closely resembling 'coon 
skins, only narrower. 
"Them's mountain cat," said the sheep herder who was 
doing the honors. 
"What do they look like?" asked Bob. 
"'Bout same's a cross 'tween 'coon and cat, I reckon." 
"Ever hear of him, Marin?" 
"He's a stranger to me," and when the shepherd was 
out of earshot: "This shows you what country people 
are. Now, that fellow has probably lived here all his life, 
with every opportunity for independent observation, and 
yet he gabbles that nonsense just because somebody 
equally ignorant told it to him when he was a boy. Any- 
one with good eyesight can see that these are the pelts 
of young raccoons." 
"Well, I don't know about that. It appears to me that 
the head is dif¥erent and the whole pelt's slimmer, any- 
how. You remember that those Washington scientists 
were all at sea on the bear question till the old Huskies 
out in the Rockies set them right." 
"Bob, this is positively too bad for you ! For an edu- 
cated man with some faint traces of refinement, which, 
by the by, would he accorded a fuller recognition if you 
would wash that shirt of yours, to echo the errors of the 
vulgar, is unpardonable. What you term the 'bear ques- 
tion' was recondite, and its determination depended on 
dentition and a dozen other things. This is a simple 
proposition, as easy as rolling off a log." 
It was a famous war while it lasted! The combatants 
renewed their supply of ammunition at 'every halting 
place. The strange animal was nocturnal — "'Coon," mut- 
tered Marin. He had a predilection for poultry — "Got it 
legitimately!" In winter he had been known to invade 
dwellings — "Clear evidence of immaturity!" He was 
sometimes known as a ring-tailed cat — "Proof positive ; 
the common raccoon is so styled in parts of New Jer- 
sey!" Thus Brigadier Bob rained verbal grape and 
cannister day after day into General Marin's redoubt, 
while that grizzled veteran kept him on the hop, by days, 
dodging shrapnel, and even routed him up at night to 
defend his position against a general sortie. It was the 
last week of the outing, and Marin was seated on a log 
at the bottom of a sparsely wooded canyon, listening to 
Rondo's music drawing nearer, when he caught a glimpse 
of an animal with a 'coon's tail but a round, feline head, 
mincing with cat-like tread along the projecting limb of 
a huge laurel. At that instant the brush began cracking 
and a forked horn crashed into view, only a second later 
to be hurled into the bracken a plunging, quivering, 
stricken thing, its crimson life-tide welling through the 
ragged gap in its foreshoulder. Cruel sport, my masters ! 
When Marin had finished his humane but hateful task, 
that ring-tailed paradox had vanished; but that one 
glimpse had been enough. He didn't say "'Coon" to Bob 
again that journey. Once in San Francisco, Webster and 
the Century cast a flood of light on the subject, thus: 
"Cacomixle {Cacomixtl, etc., Mexican). A. N. A. 
carnivore." 
"{Bassiris astuta) about the size of a cat, related to 
the raccoons. It inhabits Mexico, Texas, and California," 
The gentleman who made the wood cut in Webster's, 
however, must have had the grandpa of all the cacomixles 
for his model, for his Bassiris looks as though he had 
wild turkey for dinner every day and a double helping 
Sunday. But to get back to the buckboard. 
"That is the old Walker homestead," said Bob, point- 
ing to a big white house standing desolate and alone on 
cleared land below in the canyon, "They were among the 
earliest settlers here, a father, mother, and seven small 
children. One day the father took sick and that night he 
died. The poor wife was at the barn before sunrise, 
hitching up for her twenty-mile drive to fetch aid to bury 
him, when a cry from the house called her. Her eldest 
son and her six-months-old babe had been stricken. And 
so, one by one, they sickened and died, and when, with 
reverent hands, a passing drover lifted their wasted forms 
that he might the better peer into their faces, all were 
dead save one— a little girl. At the bed-head of her little 
one, half reclining upon it, lay the mother, a cup of water 
on the floor beside her, her cut and torn hands clasped in 
prayer, as if, in the supreme hour of her suffering, when 
that terrible weakness which precedes dissolution clutched 
her, she had heard her child cry for water and had 
crawled to the well and brought it ere the Healer of Sor- 
rows mercifully brushed her brow with his ebon_ pinion." 
Within a rudely fenced inclosure by the wayside sleep 
those eight side by side, and Marin plucked a California 
poppy from one of the two larger mounds in remembrance 
of the brave, true heart beneath. There was little laugh- 
ter in their camp in Little Lake Valley that night, and 
their camp-fire talk touched mainly upon Donner Lake, 
the sufferings of the pioneers and the heroism of the 
pioneer women. 
"This is Eel River water," said Bob, as he performed 
his morning ablutions, while Marin officiated at the skil- 
let. "Walker grade is the watershed. Everything south 
of there, after leaving the Bay, flows into Russian River, 
and every stream that we shall cross for two hundred 
miles north of here as we jog through this chain of nar- 
row valleys finds its way somehow into one of the three 
main branches of Eel. If our map is to be depended upon, 
we should make Willets in an hour." But, whether the 
map was at fault or the opportunity offered by a flock of 
wild doves to get the commissariat ofl^ its bean and bacon 
basis proved irresistible, this hamlet of eighty souls was 
not reached until 8 A. M. To-day Willets is a railroad 
town with 1,200 inhabitants and a $40,000 hotel, which 
the old-timers speak of in awestruck whispers. 
The travelers were now beyond the Ultima Thule of 
the advertising solicitor, and hence, if anybody had any- 
thing to sell, he stuck a notice on his front fence and 
patiently waited for somebody to drive by and see it. 
These_ quaint signboards, with their homely spelling, were 
sometimes humorous, sometimes pathetic. One on the 
outskirts of Willets read : 
sHAKes FUR bARtER 
N. b. FUR MOst ANitHING. 
"Bet that fellow's a Down-easter," said Bob. "He has 
intuitively struck the key-note of all successful advertis- 
ing." Another sign, on a neatly painted gate, through 
which they caught a glimpse of a plaintive little flower- 
bed, weed-choked, caused a different emotion. It read: 
THIS RANCH FOR SAIL 
COS: WIF DEAd. 
"A man cannot accomplish much in this country, single- 
handed," mused Bachelor Bob. 
"Nor in this life," replied Benedict Marin. 
At Sherwood, imposing enough on the map, but con- 
sisting in reality of one log cabin with a rough board 
annex, the road forked, one finger-board reading 
"Cahto 12 Miles;" the other, "Laytonville 14 Miles." 
"Which is the better road?" asked Ma,rin. "Nuther," 
came the cheerful response from a patriarch, who was 
busy patching his harness with bale rope. "Ef you travel 
Laytonville way, you'll wish ter gracious you'd a cum by 
Cahto, an' ef you take the Cayto road you'll swar that 
ef Laytonville's worser nor that then it's the goldurndest 
road in Mendocino." "I vote for Laytonville," cried Bob, 
and for the first and only time the buckboarders had to 
make a dry camp. However, on their return, they essayed 
the Cahto road, and found that the aged unknown's sum- 
mary was as accurate as it was succinct. There may be 
worse traveling somewhere — but why discuss a theological 
problem ? 
Laytonville, the outfitting point for the Round Valley 
Indian Reservation, offered few attractions, but the road 
beyond it was a good one and a plunge in a white sul- 
phur spring outside the town was a treat; for, be it 
understood, there are cleaner ways of journeying than by 
buckboard. They counted seventeen deer on hillside and 
in canyon that day, and the big tanbark by Rattlesnake 
Creek was reached early in the afternoon. "I wonder if 
that hog-buster's friend will show up to-morrow?" 
"Never fear ! I only hope the Buster himself will prove 
to be half as good a fellow." 
When Marin disengaged his head from the blankets 
next morning he noted with surprise that a third 
blanketed figure lay beside Bob, feet to the embers, and 
that Goliath had been joined by three companions during 
the night. The figure stirred and sat up. It was their 
friend of Black Bart's rock, but he was alone, "Howdy ! 
he cried, cheerily. "How you fellers can sleep ! That 
houn' thar started a growl when I kum up with the 
hosses; but I spoke soft ter him, an' he shet right up 
closer'n a bar trap," 
"And where is Bowman?" 
"Durn his pesky hide, the critter's strayed oflf the 
ranch somewhar; leastwise he's not to hum. Shucks! 
That don't make no sort er difference. Put yer boss an' 
buckboard in Cumming's barn, an' kum up ter breakfast." 
With some misgivings the buckboarders complied, A tall, 
gentle-faced lady, whose erect carriage contrasted 
strangely with her snow white hair and gold-rimmed spec- 
tacles, met them at the doorstep. "Mrs. Bowman," said 
their guide, "'low me ter 'duce some folks from the Bay, 
Av'ich seein' as how your son ain't ter hum I've — " 
"Beauregard, quit your fooling! Gentlemen, I'm right 
glad to see you," And how Bowman enjoyed his joke! 
His laughter shook the dishes on the breakfast table and 
started his fourteen bear hounds baying in their kennels. 
After breakfast, while Bob and Bowman packed the 
camp kit on the old buckskin mule, Marin watched Mrs, 
Bowman feed her pet bear — a three hundred pounder 
anchored to an oak in the corner of the orchard. With 
her apron full of apples she seated herself on a projecting 
root, while the unwieldy brute stood on his hind legs be- 
side her, drooling with an anticipative rapture that was 
fairly idiotic. One by one she handed him the apples; 
he grabbed them with outstretched paws and shovelling 
them into his great mouth, while tears of unadulterated 
joy trickled from his eyes and mingled with the stream of 
apple juice. Once, when her attention _ was diverted 
momentarily, he gently insinuated his nose into her apron, 
but a fillip and a word caused him instantly to withdraw 
it, whimpering and rubbing his face with his paws, a pic- 
ture of woe, so comical and yet so nearly human that 
Marin did not know whether to laugh or to feel sorry for 
him. One thing was certain— Mrs, Bowman's fillip would 
not have harmed a mosquito. 
The start was made on horseback with the pick of the 
pack— eight hounds— leashed in couples by link and 
swivel and old Buckskin with the baggage bringing Up 
the rear. Every animal on the ranch knew what was ex- 
pected of him and did it without being told. The dogs 
took their places in the cavalcade and kept them, although 
