ith my walk across the shadeless
valley, concluded to camp for the night. After resting a few moments, I
began to look about among the flood-boulders of Eaton Creek for a
camp-ground, when I came upon a strange, dark-looking man who had been
chopping cord-wood. He seemed surprised at seeing me, so I sat down with
him on the live-oak log he had been cutting, and made haste to give a
reason for my appearance in his solitude, explaining that I was anxious
to find out something about the mountains, and meant to make my way up
Eaton Creek next morning. Then he kindly invited me to camp with him,
and led me to his little cabin, situated at the foot of the mountains,
where a small spring oozes out of a bank overgrown with wild-rose
bushes. After supper, when the daylight was gone, he explained that he
was out of candles; so we sat in the dark, while he gave me a sketch of
his life in a mixture of Spanish and English. He was born in Mexico, his
father Irish, his mother Spanish. He had been a miner, rancher,
prospector, hunter, etc., rambling always, and wearing his life away in
mere waste; but now he was going to settle down. His past life, he said,
was of "no account," but the future was promising. He was going to "make
money and marry a Spanish woman." People mine here for water as for
gold. He had been running a tunnel into a spur of the mountain back of
his cabin. "My prospect is good," he said, "and if I chance to strike a
good, strong flow, I'll soon be worth $5000 or $10,000. For that flat
out there," referring to a small, irregular patch of bouldery detritus,
two or three acres in size, that had been deposited by Eaton Creek
during some flood season,--"that flat is large enough for a nice
orange-grove, and the bank behind the cabin will do for a vineyard, and
after watering my own trees and vines I will have some water left to
sell to my neighbors below me, down the valley. And then," he continued,
"I can keep bees, and make money that way, too, for the mountains above
here are just full of honey in the summer-time, and one of my neighbors
down here says that he will let me have a whole lot of hives, on shares,
to start with. You see I've a good thing; I'm all right now." All this
prospective affluence in the sunken, boulder-choked flood-bed of a
mountain-stream! Leaving the bees out of the count, most fortune-seekers
would as soon think of settling on the summit of Mount Shasta. Next
morning, wishing my hopeful entertain