or life;
and the new logging-camp, with its stumps still smoldering, its steep
slides smoking with the friction of swift-descending logs, the ring of
the ax and the vicious buzz of the saw mingled with the shouts of the
woodsmen. How industry is devastating that home of the primeval!

Soon the road led us into the very heart of the redwoods, where superb
columns stood in groups, towering a hundred and even two hundred feet
above our heads! A dense undergrowth of light green foliage caught and
held the sunlight like so much spray; the air was charged with the
fragrance of wild honeysuckle and resiniferous trees; the jay-bird
darted through the boughs like a phosphorous flame, screaming his joy to
the skies; squirrels fled before us; quails beat a muffled tattoo in
the brush-snakes slid out of the road in season to escape destruction.

We soon dropped into the bed of the stream Austin Creek, and rattled
over the broad, strong highway of the winter rains. We bent our heads
under low-hanging boughs, drove into patches of twilight, and out on the
other side into the waning afternoon; we came upon a deserted cottage
with a great javelin driven through the roof to the cellar; it had been
torn from one of the gigantic redwoods and hurled by a last winter's
gale into that solitary home. Fortunately no one had been injured, but
the inmates had fled in terror, lashed by the driving storm.

We came to Ingram House in the dusk, out of the solitude of the forest
into a pine-and-oak opening, the monotony of which was enlivened with a
fair display of the primitive necessities of life--a vegetable garden on
the right, a rustic barn on the left, a house of "shakes" in the
distance, and nine deer-hounds braying a deep-mouthed welcome at our
approach.

In the rises of the house on the hill-slope is a three-roomed bachelors'
hall; here, on the next day, we were cozily domiciled. There were a few
guests in the homestead. The boys slept in the granary. The deer-hounds
held high carnival under our cottage, charging at intervals during the
night upon imaginary intruders. We woke to the blustering music of the
beasts, and thought on the possible approach of bear, panther,
California lion, wild cat, 'coon, and polecat; but thought on it with
composure, for the hounds were famous hunters, and there was a whole
arsenal within reach.

We were waked at 6:30, and come down to the front "stoop" of the
homestead. The structure was home-made, with r