nding over the sage
brush so lightly that he looked in the distance like a phantom animal
made of thistle down.

I can completely understand how the desert casts its spell over
cattlemen and sheepmen so that they love it and its freedom and are
continually drawn back to it. The mystery and glory of the desert plains
have their devotees just as really as the mystery and glory of the great
city have their worshippers who never wish to be far from its lights.

The many stops of the day had made us very late and it was in darkness
that we came through the canyon which makes a long gateway to the town
of Eureka. There was something fearsome about those dark rocks, whose
mysteries we had never seen by daylight, rising on each side of us, and
about the deep chasm that lay in shadow down at the left of the road. We
were glad indeed when the lights of our lamps flashed on the stakes with
their familiar red, white, and blue markings, the friendly signs of our
beloved Lincoln Highway. It was nearly nine o'clock when we came into
Eureka, and drew up at the dim lights of Brown's Hotel. Brown's Hotel
seemed to be mostly a bar room and lounging place; at least that was the
impression made upon me by the glimpse I caught of the lighted room
downstairs as I stood on the wooden porch. But we were shown upstairs to
a very comfortable, old fashioned, high ceilinged room with heavy walnut
furniture of the style of forty years ago. An aged ingrain carpet was on
the floor, and a wreath of wax flowers such as our grandmothers rejoiced
in, hung, set in a deep frame, on the wall. I thought to myself that
these were relics of departed glories and of a day when there was money
to furnish the old hostel in the taste then in vogue. A dim oil lamp
assisted our toilet and we went downstairs and out into the town to a
restaurant kept by an Italian and his wife. It was the only place where
we could get food at that time of night. Eureka is a most forlorn little
town, perched high and dry, just as if the waves of traffic and of
commercial life had ebbed away and left it far up on the beach forever.
They told us that it was once a big and prosperous town. But like
Mariposa in California, the mining interests have been transferred to
other localities and the town is left lonely. As we walked along its
silent and dimly lighted main street, we saw the quaint wooden porches
in front of the shops and houses, some high, some low, making an uneven
sidewalk. Pra