oad-faced, flat-nosed, small-eyed, unkempt, frowzy, undersized,
thickset, clumsy, they have not a trace of beauty about them, either young
or old. They are just useful, nothing more; and as you look at them and
at the burdens they bear, you wonder whether, when the Woman's Rights
movement has succeeded, and when women, dressed like frights in such
Bloomer costume as may then be prescribed, go out to their daily toil like
men, and on an equality with men--when they have cast off the beauty which
is so scornfully spoken of in the conventions, and have secured their
rights--whether they will be any better off than these squaws. When you
have thoughtfully regarded the Indian woman perhaps you will agree with
Gail Hamilton that it is woman's first duty to be useless; for it is plain
that here, as in a higher civilization, when women consent to work as men,
they are sure to have the hardest work and the poorest pay.

[Illustration: INDIAN RANCHERIA.]

As you ascend the Sacramento you near Mount Shasta, and when you reach
Strawberry Valley, a pretty little mountain vale, you are but a short ride
from its base. It is from this point that tourists ascend the mountain.
You can hire horses, guides, and a camp outfit here, and the adventure
requires three days. You ride up to the snow-line the first day, ascend to
the top the following morning, descend to your camp in the afternoon, and
return to the valley on the third day. Mount Shasta has a glacier, almost,
but not quite, the only one, I believe, within the limits of the United
States. The mountain is an extinct volcano. Its summit is composed of
lava, and if your eye is familiar with the peculiar shape of volcanic
peaks, you can easily trace the now broken lines of this old crater as you
view the mountain from the Shasta plain on the north.

There are many extremely pretty valleys scattered through these mountains,
and these are used by small farmers, and by sheep and cattle owners who
in the winter take their stock into the lower valleys, but ascend into the
mountains in May, and remain until October. This is also a timber region,
and as it is well watered by permanent streams you see frequent saw-mills,
and altogether more improvement than one expects to find. But, proceeding
further north you come upon a large plain, the Shasta Valley, in which
lies the considerable town of Yreka, notable during the last winter and
spring as the point from which news came to us about the Mod