A thousand deaths by Jack London

and adequate development of resources which so far have been no

more than skimmed, and casually and carelessly skimmed at that.

This region of the six counties alone will some day support a

population of millions. In the meanwhile, O you home-seekers, you

wealth-seekers, and, above all, you climate-seekers, now is the

time to get in on the ground floor.

Robert Ingersoll once said that the genial climate of California

would in a fairly brief time evolve a race resembling the

Mexicans, and that in two or three generations the Californians

would be seen of a Sunday morning on their way to a cockfight with

a rooster under each arm. Never was made a rasher generalisation,

based on so absolute an ignorance of facts. It is to laugh. Here

is a climate that breeds vigour, with just sufficient geniality to

prevent the expenditure of most of that vigour in fighting the

elements. Here is a climate where a man can work three hundred

and sixty-five days in the year without the slightest hint of

enervation, and where for three hundred and sixty-five nights he

must perforce sleep under blankets. What more can one say? I

consider myself somewhat of climate expert, having adventured

among most of the climates of five out of the six zones. I have

not yet been in the Antarctic, but whatever climate obtains there

will not deter me from drawing the conclusion that nowhere is

there a climate to compare with that of this region. Maybe I am

as wrong as Ingersoll was. Nevertheless I take my medicine by

continuing to live in this climate. Also, it is the only medicine

I ever take.

But to return to the horses. There is some improvement. Milda

has actually learned to walk. Maid has proved her

thoroughbredness by never tiring on the longest days, and, while

being the strongest and highest spirited of all, by never causing

any trouble save for an occasional kick at the Outlaw. And the

Outlaw rarely gallops, no longer butts, only periodically kicks,

comes in to the pole and does her work without attempting to

vivisect Maid’s medulla oblongata, and–marvel of marvels–is

really and truly getting lazy. But Prince remains the same

incorrigible, loving and lovable rogue he has always been.

And the country we’ve been over! The drives through Napa and Lake

Counties! One, from Sonoma Valley, via Santa Rosa, we could not

refrain from taking several ways, and on all the ways we found the

roads excellent for machines as well as horses. One route, and a

more delightful one for an automobile cannot be found, is out from

A Collection of Stories

30

Santa Rosa, past old Altruria and Mark West Springs, then to the

right and across to Calistoga in Napa Valley. By keeping to the

left, the drive holds on up the Russian River Valley, through the

miles of the noted Asti Vineyards to Cloverdale, and then by way

of Pieta, Witter, and Highland Springs to Lakeport. Still another

way we took, was down Sonoma Valley, skirting San Pablo Bay, and

up the lovely Napa Valley. From Napa were side excursions through

Pope and Berryessa Valleys, on to AEtna Springs, and still on,

into Lake County, crossing the famous Langtry Ranch.

Continuing up the Napa Valley, walled on either hand by great rock

palisades and redwood forests and carpeted with endless vineyards,

and crossing the many stone bridges for which the County is noted

and which are a joy to the beauty-loving eyes as well as to the

four-horse tyro driver, past Calistoga with its old mud-baths and

chicken-soup springs, with St. Helena and its giant saddle ever

towering before us, we climbed the mountains on a good grade and

dropped down past the quicksilver mines to the canyon of the

Geysers. After a stop over night and an exploration of the

miniature-grand volcanic scene, we pulled on across the canyon and

took the grade where the cicadas simmered audibly in the noon

sunshine among the hillside manzanitas. Then, higher, came the

big cattle-dotted upland pastures, and the rocky summit. And here

on the summit, abruptly, we caught a vision, or what seemed a

mirage. The ocean we had left long days before, yet far down and

away shimmered a blue sea, framed on the farther shore by rugged

mountains, on the near shore by fat and rolling farm lands. Clear

Lake was before us, and like proper sailors we returned to our

sea, going for a sail, a fish, and a swim ere the day was done and

turning into tired Lakeport blankets in the early evening. Well

has Lake County been called the Walled-in County. But the

railroad is coming. They say the approach we made to Clear Lake

is similar to the approach to Lake Lucerne. Be that as it may,

the scenery, with its distant snow-capped peaks, can well be

called Alpine.

And what can be more exquisite than the drive out from Clear Lake

to Ukiah by way of the Blue Lakes chain!–every turn bringing into

view a picture of breathless beauty; every glance backward

revealing some perfect composition in line and colour, the intense

blue of the water margined with splendid oaks, green fields, and

swaths of orange poppies. But those side glances and backward

glances were provocative of trouble. Charmian and I disagreed as

to which way the connecting stream of water ran. We still

disagree, for at the hotel, where we submitted the affair to

arbitration, the hotel manager and the clerk likewise disagreed.

I assume, now, that we never will know which way that stream runs.

Charmian suggests “both ways.” I refuse such a compromise. No

stream of water I ever saw could accomplish that feat at one and

the same time. The greatest concession I can make is that

sometimes it may run one way and sometimes the other, and that in

the meantime we should both consult an oculist.

A Collection of Stories

31

More valley from Ukiah to Willits, and then we turned westward

through the virgin Sherwood Forest of magnificent redwood,

stopping at Alpine for the night and continuing on through

Mendocino County to Fort Bragg and “salt water.” We also came to

Fort Bragg up the coast from Fort Ross, keeping our coast journey

intact from the Golden Gate. The coast weather was cool and

delightful, the coast driving superb. Especially in the Fort Ross

section did we find the roads thrilling, while all the way along

we followed the sea. At every stream, the road skirted dizzy

cliff-edges, dived down into lush growths of forest and ferns and

climbed out along the cliff-edges again. The way was lined with

flowers–wild lilac, wild roses, poppies, and lupins. Such

lupins!–giant clumps of them, of every lupin-shade and -colour.

And it was along the Mendocino roads that Charmian caused many

delays by insisting on getting out to pick the wild blackberries,

strawberries, and thimble-berries which grew so profusely. And

ever we caught peeps, far down, of steam schooners loading lumber

in the rocky coves; ever we skirted the cliffs, day after day,

crossing stretches of rolling farm lands and passing through

thriving villages and saw-mill towns. Memorable was our launch-

trip from Mendocino City up Big River, where the steering gears of

the launches work the reverse of anywhere else in the world; where

we saw a stream of logs, of six to twelve and fifteen feet in

diameter, which filled the river bed for miles to the obliteration

of any sign of water; and where we were told of a white or albino

redwood tree. We did not see this last, so cannot vouch for it.

All the streams were filled with trout, and more than once we saw

the side-hill salmon on the slopes. No, side-hill salmon is not a

peripatetic fish; it is a deer out of season. But the trout! At

Gualala Charmian caught her first one. Once before in my life I

had caught two . . . on angleworms. On occasion I had tried fly

and spinner and never got a strike, and I had come to believe that

all this talk of fly-fishing was just so much nature-faking. But

on the Gualala River I caught trout–a lot of them–on fly and

spinners; and I was beginning to feel quite an expert, until

Nakata, fishing on bottom with a pellet of bread for bait, caught

the biggest trout of all. I now affirm there is nothing in

science nor in art. Nevertheless, since that day poles and

baskets have been added to our baggage, we tackle every stream we

come to, and we no longer are able to remember the grand total of

our catch.

At Usal, many hilly and picturesque miles north of Fort Bragg, we

turned again into the interior of Mendocino, crossing the ranges

and coming out in Humboldt County on the south fork of Eel River

at Garberville. Throughout the trip, from Marin County north, we

had been warned of “bad roads ahead.” Yet we never found those